Greetings all,
My name is Luke and like all of you I am currently engaged in work experience in Public Relations. I was extremely fortunate to have secured my placement at the Department of Education and Training, working in the Corporate Communications and Marketing department for the State Government of Western Australia. I probably don't have to tell you guys but I was both pretty lucky and pretty stoked to have landed work experinec with the largest PR department in state government. I started on the 11th February and so today on the 4th March doing three days a week I'm ten days in, I know a bit late for my first post. To date Ive really enjoyed my time at the department, Ive been involved in press conferences enacting crisis management plans, photo shoots for stakeholder pamphlets and would you believe it, sitting in with the Recruitment department while they had a meeting with the head of the Teaching faculty at Curtin. I have had some fun with the department but have also been tested, I have worked on alot of press releases that are frequently pumped out to the news media and it has been challenging to adjust to the language style and structure of the department but I'm getting a handle on it. There has also been some not so exciting days involving data entry and website construction for the Premiers Reading Challenge and the WA Training Awards website. All in all I can't really complain, I have been involved in a diverse range of PR activities that have both been challenging and rewarding. So far so good. Cheers all.
2 comments:
Hey,
Congratulations on securing such an amazing position, I can only imagine the resources you have at your disposal working for such a large government department!
I have to say I am also finding it interesting re-styling my writing style and formatting for my placement organisation (Perth Theatre Company). During my studies I usually utilised a professional, straight-to-the-point style whereas now I find that I can be a little bit more friendly and emotive. In other words I don’t always need to ‘cut the fluff’ as we were often taught to do. I guess we all just have to adopt the style that best compliments our workplace and their image.
I have also found that working on a pre-existing website can be a little repetitive but the material you put up there can be really vital to someone, somewhere searching for information and that makes it more worthwhile. I also found that working on bios for the web has helped me adjust to writing in a way that suits PTC and its audiences.
I can’t wait to read more about your placement – good luck over the next few weeks.
Chelle
Hey!
I also wanted to comment on the writing style. With my placement, one of my first jobs was to read the 100 page style guide.
Although it was an extensive read, it was really interesting to see how much thought the company (it was corporate) had put into the tone and emotion they wanted the language they used to convey.
I noticed they didn't pay as much attention to the language used for different stakeholders. We get spoken to a lot about tailoring messages to different groups in class, what do you guys think about this?
I found it really good to have such a comprehensive guide to work with, and it is a challenge to use the organisations tone without losing your own writing style.
I agree with Chelle - writing for companies, especially external comms, is very different to the formal academic writing we use a lot at uni. I found I could have more fun with the topics and put some unique angles on something that had already been written about previously.
Good luck to both of you!
Amanda :)
Post a Comment