In summary: Sent abroad to sit at a computer screen

Reflecting on my experience as a whole, I have to be honest and say I don’t feel I was able to benefit from what my international internship had the potential to offer.  The majority of my days were spent on excel updating contact databases and conducting data entry for the monthly reports for various clients.  Hours upon hours upon hours of data entry.  After a straight month of data entry every day, I cannot look at another spreadsheet again!

I understand the significance of contact databases to public relations and the importance of keeping them up-to-date, but there is much more to public relations than data entry.  I would have appreciated if just a bit more of my time was allocated to exploring other aspects and tasks within the profession. Unfortunately I feel I was not given the opportunity to make the most of being abroad and to learn and practice public relations within an international context.  I probably averaged only one day per week in which I was able to engage with the outside world - beyond the office and in person rather than through phone or email.  

Internship summary of work

 

Perhaps I wasn't honest enough in my discontent with the amount of my time allocated to data entry.  Perhaps I should have asked my team leader for more variety in my tasks.  Due to my position as an intern, I struggled to do so.  I felt it would make me appear unappreciative for the great opportunity I had been given, to be sent abroad to intern for an award winning agency!  I also wondered who would do the work if I didn't do it.  Our team was only small, our team leader, one public relations officer and myself.  So I pushed through, delivering to the best of my ability.

Yes I am grateful for the opportunity.  Yes I did learn a lot.  Yes there were times I was allowed to venture from my desk.  And no, I would not have changed my experience for an internship back home.  My team members did bring me along to client meetings, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I tried to make the most of these opportunities by contributing to discussions, sharing ideas and studying the behavior of the professionals on my team and the client to grasp a greater understanding of client relations in practice.  I was invited to attend a client pitch with the CEO which I wrote about in an earlier post (see Pitching Perfectly) and my supervisor often took me with her to drop off products for review or scan magazines in news agencies for coverage on clients.  I felt I learnt much more about the public relations profession in the short and infrequent interactions with clients and the Malaysian media than I did completing weeks of data entry.

I chose to study public relations and took on this opportunity abroad because I am very much a people person.  I like to meet new people, share ideas and engage with others.  I had hoped to meet a range of people and engage in person with others in the Malaysian business world, and at times I did.  However the majority of people I spoke to were those working within the office and the receptionists I was calling in order to fill in contact databases.  But I really hope eight hours days of data entry is not what is in stall for me in a public relations career.

 Georgia

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'The Pick' of the bunch

Greetings again all!

I hope you are all enjoying your holidays, while I am at work :). Being only a day since my last post this is quite unexpected that I find myself here once more. Today was a long day of researching media outlets that raise the concerns of the current Australian spying scandal, as well as media coverage that concerns oil and gas in general in East Timor. East Timor being a nation with a high level of illiteracy, the task of finding a broad source of media outlets proved to be a challenge. Credible, high quality content is a vital part of gathering information, especially within a narrow spectrum. However, I was luckily able to find some good sources that highlight issue-specific information we needed for the database/excel spread sheet.

The surprise news of the day for me however, was finding out that I had been recognised in PPR's magazine 'the Pick,' an investor focused magazine. I had done some editing, writing and research on two topics, and tried my hand at being an editorial writer. I am not the best of writers, but this sure makes me want to lift my skills! The feeling of seeing your name published in the byline section is something quite special to me. The Pick is a well edited and laid out magazine, with a high level of clarity that provides easy reading. Writing for investors means sometimes writing in a conversational style, all the while ensuring a newsworthy stance, keeping topics both very relevant and interesting. It's PR with investors in mind- and as such, it's PR with the objective of communicating to a different target audience. Providing stories that they need, useful, quality stories. This has been my understanding.

Well folks, that's all for now. I hope this is helpful :)

Until next time! Take care.

Yours sincerely

Oh how time flies...

Hello internet friends,

It is that time of the semester to wrap up my blogs for PR Internship. My past 20 days with Artrage has been fantastic and it has been really great to gain some real life industry experience. I have found that I have learnt a lot about myself and my capabilities through this journey. I am also excited to say that I will be extending my placement till the FRINGE WORLD Festival till February, to help with the PR and marketing of the event. It is going to awesome and I am super thrilled to be allowed to work with the team at Artrage.

My time with Artrage has been phenomenal and if there were a few things to take from my experience so far, these would it.

If in doubt, ask. A lot of communication is sent through emails and there have been a few times where I have no idea what messages people are trying to convey. At the beginning I just left it and just did what I thought was need, but what I found was I usually was off track. So now I have learnt, if you are in doubt, don’t hesitate to ask. Everyone wants you to do your best and everyone is willing to help you all you need to do is ask.

When under time constraints remember that things might not go straight to plan. There will always be things out of your control and there will always be things you forget to factor in i.e. waiting for responses. I found that there is only so many times to remind people to do something especially for outsourced services. Things like printing running late or permits not finalised or approved yet, these will impact your own goals so sometimes when there is nothing you can do you just have to work around it or just wait and watch the grass grow for now.

Lastly remembering to thank and help people, I find that being thanked or thanking people goes a long way. Everyone is under stress and is busy but it is always nice to be appreciated for the work you have done. Many of my colleagues work really hard and spent countless hours on a job, so it’s always appreciated to help each other either on a job or make someone’s morning coffee or even making lunch for another. Helping each other and respecting each goes a long way which is why I think Artrage is such a great collective and strong bonded workplace.

Overall it has been an interesting and fantastic learning journey for me at Artrage, I hope extending my placement brings me some more awesome experiences and I can’t wait to see what lies ahead! I am ready to strap on my helmet and take on the coming challenges!

Thanks internet friends, and good luck in all your future endeavors J

YOU have BRAINS in Your Head

 YOU have FEET in Your Shoes 

YOU can STEER YOURSELF in 

ANY DIRECTION YOU CHOOSE

Nikki Sain

Artrage Update: Bunk says hi, life members galore, reports and promotions

Welcome Internet best friends!

It has been a busy and exciting few weeks at Artrage with Rooftop Movies starting in 2 weeks and the promotion for FRINGEWORLD less than a month away. 

Recently I have been locating the life members of Artrage and their contact details for event invites and report distributions. It is a lot of research but what I have found really helpful is having contacts. Because Perth is so isolated I have found the arts community to be quite close knit. When I am searching for a person’s contacts I have been using various channels including googling emails or phone numbers, but I found linkedin to be helpful too. I have also been calling people who have previously been associated with them. Everyone is really friendly and helpful and if they don’t know the exact contact details, many have been kind enough to refer me to another person that would know. I was really surprised that many are more than happy to help an intern out with updating databases.

With Artrage itself the office has grown with two new members arriving last week, they are all so nice and it is lovely to see everyone in the office accommodating the newbies so well. Bunk is still lazing around chilling like a villain in the office.

Bunky loves his naps

Rooftop Movies opens next week, with the launch on the 1st of November celebrate the return for a 2013/14 summer season. The event looks to be a casual event with a few guests with a showing of David Lynch's Wild at Heart. I am so excited for Rooftop Movies, and I am already noting which movies to go and watch, have you?

FRINGEWORLD 2013 Report has been printed and I have been finding the contact details for life members so we can send them copies. In the report it was conducted from research and post surveys and is filled with information from this year’s event. It is an interesting read with things like the benefits it brought to Perth and the influence it has. If you are keen to read it you can find it here. There was a lot of envelop sticking, paper cuts and boxes of reports but I pushed through. I really enjoyed the document and I really liked how FRINGE is making it available to the public. I think it does help engage the community more as they can understand the reasoning for Fringe and why it is relevant for the Perth community.

Anyways, thanks internet friends,
Speak soon!

Nikki Sain

It's the little things in life that makes this intern happy!

Hi Internet friends,

Hope all is well and that you are finding your internships enjoyable and rewarding. It has been nearly 2 months at Artrage and as annoying and generic this may sound, the experience has been amazing. When I first started my main job was research and database content, pretty basic really. I have researched information such as guerrilla marketing, promotional material ideas for sponsorship deals, businesses that have social clubs and also popular arts events. These weren’t just skim reading and listing, I then had to think how, particularly with FRINGE, could incorporate these ideas and concepts.
Also with a database of now over 2000 contacts, my job is constantly updating the Artrage database and thinking of people that would be interested and how Artrage may use them in the near future. This included lecturers, social clubs, local business, politicians, arts industry contacts, life members you name it and I probably wrote it. I’m literally always ‘googling’ and phoning to the ends of the Earth for contact details but I must say I am pretty chuffed with my accomplishment. However I do find that more organisations are getting their interns to do their database work, is that what you guys are doing? Whats your take on it?

Few weeks ago I got to look at over 500 photos from the FRINGE On-The- Road tour and compile a list of the photos I thought would be good for media publications. The photos were amazing and honestly suits the brand concept so well. It is a shame I can’t show you guys but look out for any print media in the future as the photos for Fringe publications are so creative and inspiring.

I have also been working on the Bakery’s e-newz, a weekly online newsletter of the week 'sevents. Even though the newsletter is like less than 500 words, I still get excited when I receive it in my personal email.  Yes it’s the little things in life that makes me happy!

Oh before I forget Rooftop Movies starts soon YAY! The official launch is 1^st November, which I am pretty excited to attend as it is looking to be a great event. You may already know but if you don’t the Rooftop Movies program came out last week. (Check it out ASAP).  I collected all the information content for the program so I was so excited when it was finally printed.  Even though it was just a little job it still amazed for me. Fingers crossed nobody spots any grammatical errors! I am currently working on the second and third set programs, so if you have any suggestions for movies the ‘Choose Day Tuesdays’ ideas opens soon, so go like rooftop movies on facebook… (hint hint).

Anywhoooooooo that is basically the gist of my job, my intern started very chilled and laid back however I may have spoken too soon as I am starting to see a few grey hairs of stress from work colleagues. As the preparation for FRINGE gets hectic and performers are finalised, the office is getting larger. In the last few week there have been new additions to the team and it looks to increase in the next few weeks as we see last year’s members coming back for another go at the infamous FRINGEWORLD.

Cheers guys and ill speak to you soon!

Nikki Sain