Having an Opinion...

Hi All,

Where to begin?! After being accepted for my placement at Perth Zoo, I never thought I had just signed up for the most eye-opening eventful placement ever!

I had so many expectations for my first day at the zoo…but they went out the window the minute I walked in the door. I assumed, being the little intern, that PR Professional Placement would entail me editing boring documents, licking stamps and generally twiddling my thumbs. How I was wrong! On arrival my supervisor, Carol, took me on an extended tour of the zoo, showing me all the behind the scene places no visitor would ever see!

After our tour the sales director was heading off to a meeting in Northbridge with a perspective client and asked if I wanted to come. It turned out the client was presenting his ideas to us. He had a PR plan for us, exactly like the ones we’ve presented in class, and it was interesting to see the role reversal as it would usually be me presenting to the “client” (class). He asked if we had any questions, however, being the ‘newbie’ I decided to sip my cappuccino instead.

Next up was me and Ingrid, who is in charge of sponsorship, brainstorming new ideas of how to get Perth Zoo’s name into the business world to gain more sponsors. After smiling and nodding for 30minutes I decided I should probably speak up. I’m sure none of you will disagree that social media has come up in every PR unit at Curtin since first year. Yet Perth Zoo barely has a website let alone any other form of internet technology. So I suggested a Zoo blog or Facebook page where Zoo members and visitors could join to learn what was happening at the Zoo.
Turns out this was a good idea! So I spent the rest of the afternoon typing up a blog proposal and a Facebook proposal and wondering why I waited till the last hour of the day to open my mouth…

Lesson learnt today? Its only experience we are lacking, not knowledge so don’t be too scared to have an opinion!