The End is Just the Beginning

Good Morning! Hope you guys had a nice weekend but before workweek is back in full swing I wanted to touch base with you all. Believe it or not, my internship has officially come to an end! :(

As a PR internship in I-SPA, to say the least, was an extremely well spent and enriching experience. Every single day proved to be fun, challenging and refreshing. My GM gave me various opportunities to get to know the industry better. Aside from my assigned work, I was also encouraged and given much support in my involvement in different project/tasks. It would definitely provide me with chances to work on and allow me to apply the skills and knowledge that I’ve learnt in university.

Here are few interesting key takeaways of my experience: 

  ü  The “real world” isn’t as scary as you’d think

§  One of the most important lessons I learnt during my intern journey was how important to not be afraid of challenging yourself and taking on seemingly impossible tasks. These are good traits though to discover unlocking potential power. Through challenging myself with “mission impossible”, I learned how to put myself forward & upgrade myself better. In short, just do it; people will recognize the effort, passion and drive we show.

  ü  Focus and always be prepared!

§  Attention to detail is very important and is always enforced. Everything is fast paced all the time. Therefore, we must be productive at all time, there is never a time when I am not busy. Consequently, another lesson I learned is how to finish and complete a high-quality work in a confined amount of time which is by focusing and always being prepared; don’t condone to last minute work!

ü  Network and relationship

§  Through this internship, I gained a lot of chances and confidence by meeting new people. That’s priceless. Social networking in PR is a key way of developing opportunities. As a PR professional, to have a strong relationship is the catalyst for success. Relationships are a basic human need and as a human being, people do business with those they like and trust. Networking is a lifelong project. The wider and deeper your network; the greater the opportunities the practitioner to deliver communication at speed. 

Upon the completion of this internship, I have to say it was definitely a great experience. I believe that this step will help me a lot in my future. I hope you guys are also enjoying your internship and thank you for sparing your time to read my words. Do you have any other tips that you think was useful to you? Feel free to share your thoughts with me! Please share by commenting, I’d love to learn from you all as well.

Well, wish you all had a great day ahead!

Cheers!

WanYing

Brazen! Voucher Cloning Case Happened Again!

Life in I-SPA during my internship period was non-stop and there wasn’t a minute to spare. So today I would like to reflect on issues about “fake voucher” incidents that have been raised recently.

In essence, we ran a few roadshow events to promote our resort. In the roadshow event, consumers not only are able to get more information/details about our spa, but also they are offered value vouchers for their benefits.

However, recently we find out the fake voucher case happened again! But this time after we realized the issue and after further investigation, we directly took action and dealt with it. For the reason that, few months before, this “fake voucher” incident once happened and based on the result of the investigation, there were almost a thousand and above fake vouchers found to be sold out. The company that committed the fraud had around 10 salesmen and one of them garnered more than RM7000 in profit!

The news coverage on Sin Chew Daily

Therefore, this time when we find out this issue was happening again, the management team went directly to make a police report and once everything was confirmed, we resumed to getting the word out online for alerting purposes so our customers would be aware and also in order to minimize the chances of the public getting deceived. We also status out how to differentiate real & fake coupons as well as to directly create a system on the official website for our customers to verify their vouchers via barcode.

So how this experience has influenced my perspective on public relation practice? What I learned through the experience is that a practiced approach is needed when in comes to resolving an issue. In this sense, to make it simple I will use Jaques’s theory to explain it; he uses an acronym to highlight the four core elements, which is “DO IT” – Definition, Objective setting, Intended outcomes, Tactics.

Definition – Define the issue and the impact on the organization. Basically, the focus attention will be to monitor and analyze the issue and also the need to think about what is the worst-case scenario just to be safe.

Objective Setting – Is it strategic to the organization’s goals? An overarching objective that can be implemented through various action steps.

Intended Outcomes – the key step is needed to ensure that the intended outcomes need to be achieved (“What we plan to make happen”), rather than desired outcomes (“What we would like to see happen”). Basically, it is more likely to have a strategy decision and develop an issue management communication plan and also to consider timing as well.

Tactics – assign responsibility for action with strategy development and measure made measurement about the results. Evaluate and determine future strategy and learn from success and failure.

Issues management can be perceived as a form of risk management – intended to reduce the greater risks caused by inaction in not addressing change. Last but not least, I believe that no organization can simultaneously manage every issue or crisis. Consequently, companies can develop procedures to identify and sort out the issues of primary concern to their current operation (Jones & Chase, 1979)

Feel free to comment and share unexpected things happened during your internship with me! :)
WanYing

Hello, endless “event”!

Public Relations are the art of sharing genuine and credible, build branding & trust, maintaining reputation through communication [verbal (face to face) & virtual (Web 2.0 platform)]. The creative ingenuity of PR professional is essential, as the PR role also requires being involved in event management. In this sense, special events provide unique opportunities to gain publicity for an organization.

The most hectic month of the year is knocking on my doors. To start with, I would like to share the most interesting events during my internship and give a brief overview of my responsibilities and experience in this post.

According to the Chinese tradition belief,

the lion dance signifies luck, prosperous and wealth for business

as well as will bring joy and happiness to people. :)

*CEO of I-SPA: Ken Ling (right bottom)

Congratulations! I-SPA celebrated a grand opening last Saturday. In essence, the PR role is being involved with the written documents (event plan, event checklist & event running schedule) before the event takes place. Therefore, from pre-event until post event, every detail must be noted in order to avoid any mistakes. In addition, we also use social media platform to spread the word and reach out to local bloggers instead of using traditional news media to drum up coverage and start up the big boost. We choose bloggers instead of journalists because the company is looking to target more audience coming from Generation Y and the traditional media has already managed to cover the news beforehand during soft opening.

sneak peak the decoration of I-SPA lounge

February; the month of love and Valentine’s Day is right around the corner! Flowers? Chocolates? NO! What can you do to switch it up? I-SPA comes out with a Valentine’s Day package for a little something different to rock your valentine’s day. From your predate to post dinner plans, I-SPA is offering a series of activities, which include massages, wine drinking, photography services, dance shows, live band performances and a free 1-hour usage of KTV. Various other options are available which will make you and your loved ones stay on the embrace. The whole team is orchestrated for this special day and I took part much more compared to the previous event in which I did work from planning till design and publicity.

So the past few weeks have been full of amazing opportunities and excitement. I feel so lucky to have experienced this internship. I feel pleasured to have been part of it even though it was for a short period of time. I had the chance to join two of the big events held by the company. The weeks of interning here was definitely the best weeks of my life.

In a nutshell, I had a much more involved role in this internship and I was able to apply my knowledge from the unit PR Techniques in relation from organizing an event till post event. Being able to be a part of those events has allowed me to expand my experience in this work field.

Wish you all have a nice day!

WanYing

So the adventure has begun! :)

The time has come! A new year! New start! I did my internship for one and a half months, which is from 1st January 2015 to 15 February 2015. Excited? Yes. Nervous? You bet. This internship journey is full of plans, excitements and unknowns whereby it will definitely push me to explore a completely new world and culture.

Hello, I’m WanYing, a 21-year old girl from Malaysia, full-time Curtin University student; undergraduate in Bachelor of Arts. Currently pursuing in Mass Communication and majoring in Public Relations Stream.

sneak peak of my working place!
however, some of the interiors are prohibited to take photo so certain picture are 3D graphics design :)

I am a current intern in I-SPA Recreation Resort, which provides services in the hospitality industry. I-SPA is a Johor Bahru-based company and known as one of the leading one-stop recreation resorts with tip top facilities and buffet based food services (food & beverage). They also provide entertainment and facilities pertaining living & beauty. It is also the largest & facility-filled family recreation resort in Malaysia with 100,000sqft, which offers guests enjoyment in the higher standards of services with a reasonable price. 

The internship in I-SPA was my first experience being an intern and obtaining working experience in the Public Relations field. Finally, I came out of it with a better idea of how is it to be a “grown up” and I feel that it was great start.

About the work itself, it has been a good experience so far. The first thing to do every morning is the basic daily task, such as media monitoring, media clipping, administrating company website & social media and so on. Besides that, every department also needs to attend meetings every morning, as our company believes communication will help motivate, build trust and provide a way for employees to express themselves as well as let every department can exchange information to understand different people at all levels of organization. In addition, my company has an interesting procedure when it comes to running these said meetings. Everyone participated in taking turns emceeing every day, so we have the chance to learn and improve ourselves. During this, the emcee also needs prepare and shares latest news article. Personally, I think that it has been a great chance for everyone to be updated on what’s happening in the world. Definitely, working as a PR person, one should be aware of latest updated news and trends.

In a nutshell, everything was better than I imagined. Stepping out of my comfort zone gave me self-confidence, determination to achieve better and without doubt a good start to a new year. With this internship, I feel like this year ought to be the most amazing year in my life.

Hope you all enjoying your placement as well! Happy Interning!

Till my next post,
WanYing