Reflections on My Time at the FPC

Hi all,

I’m just about at the end of my placement at the FPC with only 2 more days left. So far I’ve found it to be a great learning experience and have realised how important so many of the skills I’ve learned from uni are to the real world.

I’ve been fortunate to work with my manager who has given me a large task in looking at the branding of the FPC. I think this project more than others has really made me think about the big picture and helped me understand the work that goes into a project plan and proposal.

Amongst my other tasks I’ve done this project has been a work in progress over the entire duration of my placement and the main problem I have faced over and over again with it was the scope, once you start looking at positioning and image of the FPC brand you realise how everything is interlinked. From this I learnt that you have to keep focused on the problem at hand and keep coming back to the main objective because it’s so easy to get carried away and lose focus on the key issue at hand.

Another lesson I learnt is that you’ve got to do your research. I spent a lot of my time researching how other government agencies and organisations in the public sector have addressed their image and brand. While this was also important for me to try to work out how to tackle such a large scale project I also realised that research is also vital when it comes to justifying your recommendations.
I think this is especially important in government where you need to be accountable. If you are going to get the funding and support for a project you need to show you’ve done the leg work and can back up why you should do x and what it’s going to achieve. I think that because it’s not always early to measure how successful a PR plan is if you have solid research to base decisions on you will be better off for it.

So with the end in sight I’m feeling confident that I’ve had the opportunity to figure out how to look at an issue and not lose focus on what needs to be achieved. I think I’ve learnt that there are no shortcuts to good work and that if you want the results you have to put the time and effort in. It’s been a great learning experience and I now feel I am going to be better equipped to handle a proper job in PR when it comes.