Fulltime = No Time!

Today is already the 8th day of my work placement at Dynomedia and I can’t believe I have not yet completed a blog post! While I have been jotting down my observations and experiences on a daily basis in a journal-type format – I’ve found it challenging to get a moment to write up a proper post. The working week flew by and it is only now that I take some time to sit and reflect on and process what I’ve done that I am able to assess what I have learnt so far. If anything, I have learnt if you don’t take the time to do things, they simply won’t get done! Writing it down on your “to-do” list is simply not enough. Before I get stuck into explaining what I’ve been working on, I’ll introduce you to the business where I am conducting my placement.

Dynomedia is a small Perth business located in Osborne Park, offering a broad range of media production services including video production, photography, and graphic design. The business has been in service since 2009, operated by a small specialized team of personnel, under the direction and management of the owner, Amir. As a small and developing business, the marketing and PR functions are performed voluntarily by third year tertiary work experience students and graduates. Since its establishment, Dynomedia has, and continues to steadily increase its portfolio and client base, primarily through employing general marketing techniques and word of mouth. The business, however, would benefit from a more structured and strategic integrated PR-marketing communications approach with regards to setting objectives for business development and growth – and that’s where I come in! The first few days were more a learning experience of what it’s like to work fulltime in the real world, and fitting into an office team. The fact that Dynomedia is still so new, having only started up last year, it’s been a real insight into how a small business operates. I’ve found that it really does involve working from the ground up – and every dollar counts!

First things first: On the first few days I set out to:
• get to know how the office operates, what facilities it has and where they are (toilets, kitchen, etc)
• gauge how the staff communicate (email/face-to-face) and the best way to address them
• assess break times
• ask about computer usage guidelines (if you can use it for personal use like accessing your home email)
• Adjust and familiarize myself with the computers/programs/software. Working here was my first experience using Apple computers as I am a Microsoft girl. Learning how to use new programs was a bit of a pain when I am so accustomed to Microsoft Office – but luckily there was also a computer with Microsoft programming in the office, which Amir agreed to let me use. One issue solved already!

As there is no PR department or officer in charge here, a big heap of responsibility is on me to put together a plan with limited direction from an experienced PR professional. It’s required me to work primarily independently which I have found a little challenging at times. I’ve always considered myself a strong independent worker, as I like the like the complete control over projects that it allows. However, while working on my own I’ve learnt that having to generate all my own ideas can be difficult at times. I miss the stimulating and inspiring brainstorms and discussions that take place in team situations, and building on other’s ideas. During uni, the main PR plans and proposals we’d have to do were developed and carried out in groups – which is something I miss. I’ve also had to take a lot initiative to organize my time and daily tasks according to what Amir wants to look at or have done on any given day, whilst also carrying out the tasks in my set out in my PR plan. Having said that, Amir has been really helpful and supportive with any questions I have, and takes on board the points that I raise about the business objectives.

Working fulltime has also been quite an adjustment, to say the least. Being a student, I’ve had little experience working fulltime apart from a brief holiday job – but even that ended at 4pm as it was in government. Over the first few days I have to admit that I found being at the office all day long, in front of a computer screen rather tiresome. I consider myself to be quite creative and imaginative – both qualities which I actively apply in my PR duties, but felt these to be quite stifled being placed in front of a computer. What’s more, it can be difficult to stay alert, let alone stimulated when there is little interaction with others. Yes, I believe I was craving some water cooler chit chat .

This stage has since passed and I’m feeling a lot more at home here, especially after yesterday – but more on that in my next post. After three relatively quiet days in the office working independently on research and beginning writing up my PR plans, on my fourth day I was pleasantly surprised to see Monique in the office, who is a student from some of my past PR units at Curtin university. While we have not worked together before, it was nice to see a familiar face in the office who I know has a PR background. Finally I was able to discuss some of my ideas with another PR student. I learnt that having some one to mull over ideas with is really helpful, and have since raised my ideas and concerns with Amir and other staff members when they arise.

Now having completed a full week of working days, I feel I’ve gotten into the swing of things. Essentially, I have been assigned two accounts to work on during my time here. Firstly there is the Dynomedia account which involves doing the PR work to enhance and promote the actual business. The second assignment is Perth Mag, which is a completely independent project that Amir would like me to work on. Perth Mag is an upcoming local magazine that Amir has started online as somewhat of a community project. He is looking to launch Perth Mag in print towards the end of this year. I spent most of the first week developing a PR plan for Dynomedia and Perth Mag and found revising my previous university assignments useful for setting out the plan and reminding myself what information I should include and the steps to take.

Having worked here for almost a week now, I feel better in a position to actually identify issues – especially internal that are impacting the performance of the business and add them to the PR plan as I go. Through asking everyday questions about the business, coupled with my own observations and experiences while I’ve been here I’ve been able to survey how the business operates and functions, how information is organized and how normal business procedures are generally carried out. “Ask a lot of questions” is advice that comes up a lot in regards to making the most of work experience. This has certainly rang true for me. At first I was a bit apprehensive about this, being new to the office, but soon realized if I don’t ask, I can’t learn and utilize the information to help.

Amir said that he wanted to use as many forums as possible to promote the business, focusing on social media. On that note, I though it would be a good idea to do some separate research into how these mediums can be used as PR tools as well as successful PR campaigns that have utilized social media. While over the course of my studies the subject of social media and Web 2.0 technologies has come up and been discussed, we have not really had much opportunity to implement and use these tools for PR purposes, apart from including them in PR proposal plans. I make a point of keeping up to date with the social media devices available and know a fair bit about them from my own personal use, but little beyond this. Therefore, I also searched for information on how these can be used specifically to help small businesses. Most of the information I sourced came from industry blogs and websites. I then incorporated relevant aspects of the information gained into my PR plan.

In fact, most of the first week was spent doing a lot of research about the business and it’s competitors. I applied the SWOT method of situation analysis in my PR proposal and found it a huge help to organize and assess information about where the business is and what are the key issues influencing its performance and positioning. From there it was much easier to identify what the strategies should focus upon. This is definitely a practical tool I intend to use whenever I approach a new project.

By Thursday I had already done a fair bit of research and planning which was great preparation for the project meeting between myself, Monique and Amir. We discussed new ideas for promotion of Dynomedia and ways to build relationships with new clients. Amir would like to break into the Corporate and small/large business market of video production and photography, and so we discussed how PR could help build these relationships. This week I’m more focused on the implementation stage of my PR proposal, having completed the planning - including strategies, goals/objectives and tactics - last week. This means doing a lot more practical work, rather than research and preparation, which I’m happy about.

And with that I conclude a rather lengthy post summarizing where I’m at with my placement. In the future I shall endeavour to post more regularly so that the posts don’t develop into an essay! Next post, I intend to go into more depth and detail about the projects I’ve been working on and the tasks I’ve completed under these so far, as well as what I’ve learnt from these experiences. So stay tuned. Until then, wishing everyone the best with their placements so far.

Niki M.