All good things must come to an end

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. It’s been a fantastic two or so months of interning at The Freeform Foundry and now I face a bittersweet moment as I reflect on the intense coming of weeks that dawn, with reports to write, essays to research and of course more readings!

I do believe that Professional Practice has equipped me with the skills to excel in the public relations world and I cannot wait to put it all to practice when the whirlwind of my last semester of university studies is just a fleeting memory.

The Freeform Foundry was definitely the most unique workplace I have ever come across, and I’m saying that in a positive way! A small boutique consultancy of around 11 employees in the west-end of Fremantle, Freeform for short is full of young talented and creative minds. There is always a very relaxed feeling in the office, with most wearing jeans and t-shirts, which made my transition into the public relations department of the Freeform very comfortable and easy. I gained a huge insight into the lifestyle of a public relations consultant in a boutique firm; multi-tasking is definitely your best friend!

As this is my final blog post, I’d like to take this time to list a few key lessons I came across during my internship.

•      Communication is key!
•      In this digital world, speed and dexterity are everything
•      Social media is all about being transparent
•      High writing standards and skills are a must!

Although all my reflections are mostly positive, I must admit this past semester has probably been the most difficult out of all. Completing Professional Practice with three other units has been intense to say the least, however I wouldn’t of had it any other way. I have met some amazing people during my internship, and am proud to call myself a permanent employee at The Freeform!

I wish everyone all the best in their final days and good luck for the final report. I cannot wait to take on the public relations realm with of you talented Curtin graduates!

To finish my last post I’ve posted a few photos of my time at The Freeform that I hope you enjoy. The first is our blackboard the week before the AFL Grand Final, an office of designers and being located in Fremantle made this week one to remember. The second photo is a few of Freeform’s employees on our new wooden desk, hard at work of course!  

Best of luck,

Rachel Chandler.

Chivalry is far from dead

Warning: This blog entry may provide unrealistic expectations of romance.  

When my supervisor approached me with the task of writing a speech for one our clients to present to an array of HR departments I felt nervous yet full of excitement. Having never worked in the public relations industry, let alone any industry relative to my university study, I was thrilled to think that my work would be used in a real life situation. I am very grateful for completing my Commerce degree at Curtin due to its practicality however there is a definitely a different feeling of achievement when you enter the corporate world. This task was definitely the most enjoyable yet in my time at The Freeform and I look forward to sharing my insight into speech writing with you today. 

The client that I would be preparing this speech and presentation for was 2 Planets, a specialist romantic event planning company, ultimately targeted towards FIFO workers in Western Australia. The online service is truly incredible, allowing those who work long hours or maybe just lack a little creativity a complete get out of jail free card for those last minute anniversary gifts. Their products include ready-made packages with a choice of exquisite jewellery, spa treatments, flowers and more! Whilst also offering once in a lifetime experiences such as dancing lessons, getaways and wine and dine activities. More relating to the speech that I had been asked to write was the opportunity for 2 Planets to provide handyman services to a FIFO's partner whilst he is working away. 

Take a look at the 2 Planets website here! 

The brief was to develop a pitch campaign that can be used in presenting the 2 Planets service to mining, oil and gas organisations with a goal towards staff uptake and company involvement, essentially by including the 2 Planets service in their Employee Assistance Programs. It has been a fair bit of time since I had written my last speech in Public Relations Techniques 220, so this called for me to revisit the key skills. 

A speech - to be effective - must:

1. Be designed to be heard, not read.
2. Use concrete language.
3. Demand a positive response.
4. Have clear-cut objectives.
5. Be tailored to a specific audience

(Seitel 2004, 432). 

Taking all these '5 musts' into account, I began researching the audience, objectives and most importantly the speaker, as another important skill of speech writing is to get inside the skin of the speaker, as your words must match his/her personality. I have learnt a great deal during the process of this task, including gaining an insight into world of mining, oil and gas, the FIFO lifestyle, speech writing and much much more! 

Until next time...

Thank you for reading!

Rachel Chandler

To succeed in the world of social media be transparent and engaging!

My usual mornings at my internship include sipping a take-away coffee whilst reading up on industry blogs and researching social media strategies. One interesting analogy I came across was through a column written by Trond Lyngbo involving the peppered moth. These moths, once white with black spots, faced a strange challenge in London during the Industrial Revolution where buildings and trees turned black. The light coloured moths could no longer hide against this backdrop, however some survived by turning black themselves.

The lesson learnt from this moth was clear – to survive you must adapt and change with your environment…otherwise you’re dead! This parallel relates to how social media has shifted and how it is imperative to adapt to these changes within the world of social media, if not, you have less of a chance in succeeding. This article greatly interested me as one of my main priorities and tasks within my internship is social media management. 

Social media is changing every day, from new hashtags to new apps, there is never a dull moment! I have already become knowledgeable on a range of mediums of social media networks that I had previously never heard of. Google +, Twitter, Facebook, Instragram, Pinterest, Weblogs, YouTube, LinkedIn and the list goes on...

I am responsible for uploading daily posts and monitoring comments for an array of our clients, which can be quite a tedious job as controlling messages on the digital world is becoming seemingly more difficult. As fourth year public relations students we are all familiar on the importance of transparency for an organisation. Essentially, social media management is all about maintaining this transparency, customer engagement and openness.

It was an exciting opportunity to finally put these years of university theory to practice. My first encounter was responding to a customer complaint on one client's Facebook page – to say the least, this customer was not afraid to speak their mind.  It was my duty to resolve this conflict by responding to the post with a resolution and reporting back to our client. As I’ve learnt through my PR studies, it is essential to deal with these issues online by being wary of censorship, as the way you are seen in the public eye with issues online can either enhance or break your reputation.

This week I was also exposed to the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and in today’s digital realm it is more important than ever and still evolving! Many of the campaigns that I’ve been working on involve SEO, by using social media as a means of multiplying the impact, essentially through creating a viral word-of-mouth newsflash. 

A new task I was given this week was to develop a campaign for The Tradewinds Hotel and more specifically their Christmas functions. The campaign will revolve around generating awareness of this venue as an ideal solution for work colleagues, social groups or family/friends to socialise during the festive season. 

That’s all from me for this week - thank you for reading!

Rachel.

One Controversial Topic - a Journalist's Dream and a PR Intern's Nightmare!

I started my official internship with The Freeform Foundry the week just past and what an exciting week it was. Being a current employee I found the transition into the public relations department seamless and comfortable – knowing familiar faces truly made it a lot easier! There isn’t a quiet day at The Freeform and this week surely proved this. My day-to-day responsibilities drastically changed from my usual Account Coordination role to that of a Public Relations Consultant, from writing press releases to organising events – there was never a dull moment. 

In today's first blog post I would love to share my experience of dealing with the media and one of our clients, amid the drastic changes made by the Federal Labor Government to the Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT). I won’t bore you as I know this isn’t a riveting topic – however I’d like to briefly explain what FBT is and how these changes will affect the industry and in particular one of our clients, a fleet leasing company. 

Kevin Rudd announced approximately a month ago that he is planning on terminating the carbon tax by implementing an emissions trading scheme. Part of the plan to fund this is by abolishing the Statutory Formula for FBT on cars, hence FBT may no longer be calculated based on 20% of the FBT value of the car, but now on the Operating Method, based on actual business use. 

Our client, who is predominantly known for Novated Leasing now faces the challenge of requiring leaseholders to monitor their work related kilometres, by keeping a logbook for up to 12 weeks to monitor business usage. They also face the burden of diminished benefits for their customers. 

This drastic change has caused many fleet leasing companies to announce major redundancies, however our client’s main objective was to inform the public that this was not the path that they would be taking. My first task in my internship role was to write a media release aimed at communicating this objective and coordinating a company photo shoot to be used within the publication.

This drastic change has caused many fleet leasing companies to announce major redundancies, however our client’s main objective was to inform the public that this was not the path that they would be taking. My first task in my internship role was to write a media release aimed at communicating this objective and coordinating a company photo shoot to be used within the publication.



To top off this experience I also had the pleasure of interviewing Member for Swan, Steve Irons who showed his support and reaffirmed the Government’s promise to oppose Labor’s FBT reform.



The process of writing this media release was very eye opening. I was given a draft handwritten article from the Managing Director and was instructed to use this as a guideline, but to source my own supporting information.  Once I read the draft alarm bells triggered and I was remembering back to my PR Media and Technique classes. The article read very one-sided and emotional, I could already see the media and journalists ripping this to shreds. I had to re-write this media release to still express our client's view of not relinquishing whilst keeping a levelled two-sided approach to the situation.

On the other hand, I still wanted to express these emotions and the fight of our client so I then decided to write two articles, one to be used as the official media release and another as a 'latest news' article on the client's website, linked to Facebook and Twitter.  This experience made me realise how much I drew from my university's teaching of public relations – the multitude of practice media releases really did pay off! It is truly an exciting feeling to know that these will be published in renowned media outlets and already I believe that I have put many of my public relations skills into practice and even to test! 

All in all, I learnt a lot from this first task and am really looking forward to the next! Watch this space for more insight into my internship at The Freeform! 

Rachel Chandler