A Big Help. .

I know that I have now done one blog too many but I felt like there was so much more to share about my experiences in the 'real world'. 

Following the oZAPP Award Roadshow I checked off another step in the PR plan I established at the beginning of my placement. The 2012 oZAPP Awards is a competition following on from last years WApp Awards. Both competitions have the same concept, however the competition is now national and is open to all states throughout Australia. 

Following the launch of the winning concept from last years awards, I developed a media release and fact sheet and distributed it to all Western Australian media outlets. Tim and Leon, the winners from last years awards, were at the roadshow event and once again I was able to meet the people I had been writing about so often. Their app, the Big Help Mob, is a fun, creative approach to community service, attracting hundreds of people who had never volunteered their time before, to helping out causes throughout WA. The ABC news report on their app can be found here. For more information on the WApp Awards and the winning app click here. 

Official oZAPP's photo: Left to right: Leon Delpech, Bill Tai and Tim Kenworthy

Once the media release was completed and sent out, my next task was to update the national educational institution database and develop an information pack on the awards that could be distributed to all Universities and TAFE's around the state to generate awareness among university students. These information packs included a cover letter, fact sheet, media release, social media links and poster. 

I also had the chance to challenge myself by writing a package for a client. I spent a day researching and developing pages on the company, the experience of the team and the the proposed establishment. This experience taught me that my writing strength is in PR media and plans and it is a lot less natural for me to write documents of this calibre. Throughout my placement I had the chance to work on them twice and my supervisor sat down with me and went over the way she altered them for the client. I learnt that it is definitely a lot harder for me to get this work out but I definitely want to practice and learn how to do it for the future. 

Being my last week the work load was massive as I worked through to have everything completed! I took out the PR plan i developed at the beginning and had a meeting with my boss about the next steps and how the PR could be altered to attract a larger audience. I also had the opportunity to experience the planning, execution and aftermath of a radio interview that took place and how feedback is given to the client, and social media comments responded to. 

The experience working on this event has been amazing! It has taught me that you can't always anticipate the reaction of the media or the public and that sometimes your original plans need to be altered in order to gain greater success. The concept of the awards is incredible and it focuses in on a developing industry, however for some reason the public and media's interaction has been limited and hasn't taken off as anticipated. I have also learnt that every client is different and you have to speak and deal with them in a way that shows them how integral each part of the plan is without undermining them. On top of all these lessons, one of the biggest lessons I had was at our goodbye drinks. The social media coordinator was on Facebook and the alarms went off and within seconds all three people were on the phone and social media responding to the issue. The lesson: there is no weekend for social media and it is essential that you monitor it at all times. PR does not sleep and you never know what can happen out of the office! 

It may be the end of my placement but its not the end of my experiences at 32DSG. I am staying on a day a week to see how the oZAPP Awards pan out and have been assisting here and there, taking on every learning experience that I can!