2 placements and 2little time!

Hello everyone,
A little introduction; my name is Primrose McKenzie, and I am in my final semester studying a double degree in Social Science and Commerce majoring in politics/international relations and public relations. So here we are finishing my last core units before graduating...including PR 393!!

As the title of my blog suggests I am actually doing two placements, this came about because I was feeling the pressure to get a placement and two places seemed really great, so now I am doing two! (Absolutely crazy I know!). The one I will be writing my report about and completing the 20 days before the end of semester is Creating Communities Australia- where I currently work two days a week. Check out this link to their website for more info:

The other work place I am currently undertaking work experience is Linc Intergrated- I only do one day a week here, but will hopefully pick up more when the other intern from ECU finishes hers. Have a look at this link for more information about this company:

A little bit of background information on Creating Communities Australia (CCA): CCA has worked with local government authorities (LGAs), mining companies and private sector developers for more than a decade, forging partnerships to ensure sustainable project outcomes that minimise social costs and maximise community gains. So basically they do a lot of community relations work and also have social planners, community development officers and research officers to help out with this work.

So where do i fit in to the fabric which makes up CCA- my job title is Communications and Marketing Assistant and I answer to the Marketing and Communications Director- Paula. So far I have done 6 days at CCA and 3 days at Linc, so its time to write about what i have been doing these last three weeks!

At CCA I have been involved with business development mostly as the company is looking to open an office in Melbourne. I love Melbourne so doing research about a city I love has come very easily to me- it also includes media monitoring and evaluating problems currently being experienced in Melbourne (this means analytical skills learnt at uni have been put into practice big time!) I have been researching and creating databases of contacts in Melbourne including

• Competitors
• Existing customers from Perth that have offices or links to Melbourne
• Partnership organisations- that is researching into organisations that CCA could possibly build partnerships with or obtain membership too ie. UN habitat, industry associations such as the UDIA and the Commonwealth Association of Planners (CAP)
• New contacts- which include: building industry, government and property developers

I have also been helping to develop a new website at CCA which has meant reading the recently published 10 years business plan and matching these concepts to website designs- in doing this I have been able to employ PR concepts such as corporate branding to the jobs I have been assigned. Working on the website has meant I was looking for appropriate images to be used on the website from Corbis and Getty images that matched the brief I was given and also what I had read in the 10 year business plan.

So far at CCA I have really enjoyed working with my supervisor who has extensive experience in her field and always has time for my million and one questions, she has also genuinely listened to my opinions and ideas.

So on to what work I have been doing at Linc- I have also been very busy at Linc, as they are an integrated marketing/advertising/public relations/ design etc company. I was very nervous on my first day- but I was thrown in the deep end, meeting a client and brainstorming ideas on how to generate some media coverage and achieve specific outcomes outlined by the client in the meeting. This really put skills and theories learnt at uni to the test- and it also put my creativity and ability to think outside the box to the test.

So far my duties at Linc have included media monitoring, proof reading a publication before it was sent out on behalf of the client, calling clients and potential clients and confirming the contact on the database was in fact still working for the organisation in the position identified on the database and if not to update the database with new information. I also worked on a breakfast event to attract new clients to Linc- this is going to be a breakfast that will teach clients and potential clients about new media.

So as you can tell I am doing quite a lot at the moment, however I am really enjoying putting the theory into practice. Hope everyone else is enjoying their placements too!