Software use FAIL!

Hey everyone, I'm back again. For those who haven't read my previous blog - I'm completing my internship at the Shire of Kalamunda in the PR dept and so far its been one great learning experience.

Within my first week of my internship, my manager straight away threw me into the deep end and Bang! Bang! Bang! All these emails were coming in and flooding my mailbox. “Hi Kiran, could you please write a media release on the following… Thanks, Nic.”

Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful that I was getting a list of jobs to complete which was putting all my skills and knowledge from uni into use and initially it was just a little overwhelming but I quickly picked up my pace.

During my first 2 weeks at the Shire, my main focus was on the creation of a media release, brochures, flyers and application packs for the Youth Arts Fest Exhibition (YAFE). The event is catered to the youth of Kalamunda to have their art works exhibited, be it paintings, photographs, sculptures or fashion designs. The exhibition will be open to the public and judged by a panel with up to $1,000 of cash prizes to be won.

The program used to create the artwork and design for the brochures and flyers is called “InDesign”. My manager Nic asked me if I have ever used the program before, as it’s the program they used to create all their designs, but unfortunately I hadn’t. Nic asked me what programs we used in class but was a bit disappointed that we hadn’t been shown how to use this specific program in uni as a large number of PR practitioners and marketing companies use it A LOT.

Anyway, my next half hour was spent trying to familiarise myself with the program and use my creativity skills to design a flyer on my own – however I didn’t have much luck. The great thing about working within a small team, especially with Nicole, is that although I may not have ever used the InDesign program before, she let me try and figure it out on my own first and then she took the time to show me how to use it and together we worked on the draft design. The program is so in-depth and creative I was amazed since the most I’ve ever used is Microsoft publisher.

I think that its important for us as students to learn some of the basics when it comes to software programs that PR companies regularly use – it would’ve come in handy as I may have had the opportunity to design more marketing/pr material during my internship. Plus, that would mean that we wouldn’t have to use valuable time in learning the software (when we’re out in the real world) and can instead jump straight into work and learn the new details.

However nonetheless, my first few weeks of interning were great. I got more comfortable with writing media releases and instead of spending maybe just over an hour on each release, I started picking up the pace and gaining confidence in my writing, which ultimately shortened my turn around time per release - which was awesome and exactly what my manager was looking for.

After writing countless media releases for the Shire on their upcoming events there was one question that was on my mind… Taking into account the size of the shire and the events that it hosts (which is really quite a lot) - what does my local shire do for us? I never hear of any events, mens workshops, kids story time readings, kids holiday activities, music programs… nothing. I guess its time to start researching and find out what’s been happening!

- K

Groovin' the Moo 2013: featuring a lot of laminating

I have come to the realisation that event planning is not all fun and games. For me, I think I envisioned a more play in the park, party planning deejay-vu from when I was 5 years old planning my teddy bears picnic birthday party. This is most definitely not the case, as I have come to understand. Rather I have witnessed a few days of event pandaemonium leading up to the Groovin' The Moo (GTM) event that Sunsets was holding on the 11th of May in Bunbury, that was nothing close to fun and games!

The tasks that I was deliberated during these couple of days included a mass load of laminating. I can now say that going from not knowing how to laminate to professional laminator in about 2 hours is quite impressive. I was laminating event passes for musicians, media, staff and volunteers, staff contact and emergency lists, signs for cloak rooms, stage information, play time information. You name it I laminated it!

I was also in charge of label making, 'stickering' and 'lanyarding' all of the passes which gives access to the artists, media, volunteers and staff during the event. So if you worked at GTM and you had one of those amazing lanyards around your neck, I made it! I was also in charge of putting together an 'info point' document. This was a document with all the information needed for patrons. It included transport, taxi numbers, bus routes, Sunsets recycling initiatives, set times of artists, stage set up, venue map and FAQ information about tickets, what can be brought into the festival, what to wear and everything else that needed to be known.

I also worked with the staffing co ordinator to get together staff packs for everyone working at GTM. This was a task that involved printing out excel sheets of the people working at GTM, sticking them to A4 envelopes and placing their access passes and wristbands that they needed to work at GTM. This was a tedious task as you can imagine there are a lot of people working at a large scale event like GTM It was also one of the most important tasks in staffing as everything needed to be correct or else the staff would not have the right access passes and in turn cause issues on an already hectic day.

As a sat in the office on the Wednesday before the event, I noticed a lot of tension in the air, a lot of grunting, sighing and the occasional wail from someone. It seemed to me the stresses of event planning never ended. With such a large scale event, with countless people involved in different areas of business there was a lot of frustrations. The main issues seemed to stem from staffing problems and especially volunteers. The fact that the event was in Bunbury made it more difficult and the small storm like weather was not helping either. The weather however, was not going to stop this event, the weather was only going to deter people who were working and volunteering at event from coming. There was a lot of engaging phone calls happening with desperate plights for more volunteer and staff just days before the event as well as follow ups with vendors who seemed to be unreliable, clueless or un-contactable. Just writing about it makes me feel anxious let alone first hand dealing with the issues.

One of the things I love about Sunsets is their green initiative and shows their corporate social responsibility is that they bring to every festival they produce.  It is what really sets them apart from other events and music businesses the fact that they put a lot of effort into ensuring a green event that is helping our environment which is such a major issue in todays world. The Green initiative that was implemented at GTM was the 'Aluminium Can Recycling'. For GTM nationally they introduce a recycling program where $1.00 is added to the cost of every alcoholic beverage. Once you have finished your can, you crush it and take it back to the bar ticket tills for either, $1.00 cash back; or $1.00 off your next drink. This was to help increase the amount of waste recycled at GTM festivals nationally.

It was obvious that the event had taken a toll on everyone as I walked into the office on Wednesday morning after the event I noticed a lot of sniffly noses and absentees in the office. However, apart from the chaotic lead up, the event was extremely successful despite the weather, issues with staffing and other problems arising throughout the duration of the event. It just goes to show that even though a large scale event such as GTM has many issues and challenges throughout the set up stage, it is probable to say that with a collaborative team it is achievable to create a great event. I have learnt a lot through out the process of helping out and watching what has been happening and now fully understand the work needed to undertake major events.

With only a 5 or so more days left of my placement at Sunsets I have already started thinking about other places I would like to work in the future. I have been thinking of some place, that is the complete opposite to a business such as Sunsets just for the reason of furthering my experience and understanding different work environments.

Until my next and final post

Ella

Note to Self: Keep Breathing! It's only your first day!

Hello everyone! Let me introduce myself before I go telling you my little story about my first day at my internship. My name is Cassandra Lu, but you can all call me Cassie. I’m currently in my final semester (at the start I couldn't wait for this day to come, but now I'm slightly sad to see my university life come to an end) at Curtin University. I'm currently undertaking a double major in Public Relations/ Tourism and Event Management. 

I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to complete my internship at Linc Integrated. Linc is an advertising and marketing consultancy in Perth, Linc also provide other services including public relations, web designing and other various service in relations to marketing and advertising. The company consists of around 15 to 20 employees but the PR team itself consists of Rebecca Johnston (Strategic Advisor), Lisa Barratt (Senior PR consultant) and Conrad Natoli (Public Relations Consultant).

Before I go further on, I should mention my brief history with Linc Integrated. This wasn't the first time I worked with Linc and my supervisors Rebecca and Lisa. I had first met these two lovely ladies as a student volunteer for their work on Bankwest Launch event at Raine Square in October.

Although, I had met everyone on the team, I still had the jitters. As I walked to my spot, I greeted the team and was welcomed with nothing but big grins and “Hey Cassie”. After having a quick chat, I sat at my desk and began my duties as a intern.

After 30 minutes! I finally got my computer and email ready and began my first task assigned for the day; Media monitoring! Easy peasy. Media monitoring at Linc was pretty straightforward. We would each be allocated a publication, which we would then read and take note of what was technically making “headlines” and would be relevant enough to apply to our company and clients. The document only had to be 7-10 bullet points and a sentence describing the news would be enough.

Now I was up to my second task for the day. Bec briefly explained various projects that were currently active at Linc, one of which was a online/magazine portal aimed for the baby boomer market. The portal would offer content relevant to the target market and provide accessibility by allocating it all on the site.What I had to do was find blogs that “over 50’s” would most likely resort to when wanting to source their information. Topics could include current affairs, sport, finance, travel, health & wellbeing, lifestyle, events and other related topics. Putting myself in the mindset of a baby boomer, I began researching what I personally would type into the web to source my information.

After my lunch break I was given a task as a break from all the research I had done. One thing I know for sure that i've learned from this task, was the copious amount of research needed for a client/project was essential but given the limited amount of time it can be quite daunting and difficult to meet deadlines. The amount of research needed for a project can take up so much time without knowing.

Once all that was out the way, I got to the true nitty gritty areas of Public Relations! The good ole media release writing. Given time to read the client brief and various materials related to my media release, my mind was racing with a million questions such as “OH NO WHAT DO I WRITE!” Once I had finished reading the brief and understanding what my client did and what my media release required, Bec came over noticing my nerves she smiled and told me “ Don’t stress Cassie, just think of it as writing down ideas on a paper and it will eventually come naturally”.

*15 minutes later* I was literally sitting there at my desk with nothing but mind blanks! I couldn’t even come up with a title. Not wanting to look like a fool with a blank document on her first day, I began forming random titles and random paragraphs and piling information and formatting the media release with skills I had learnt in my past PR techniques classes. Quite glad I still remembered some of those skills such as proper punctuation when quoting, the triangle of information and other important media release writing techniques especially after the long uni break we all just had.

Once I began putting my ideas and thoughts onto the pages, I had noticed I had begun to form my media release and all I had to do was put the correct formatting and added quotes as requested. Once I checked and re-read my media release I handed it back to Bec and was provided with feedback on areas of approval.

First mistake I had made, which I called a rookie mistake was keeping media release to sentences not paragraphs! After reading through my mistakes and correcting my media release I sent my final media release and Bec sent me the release she had prepared earlier. Reading the two and comparisons, I learnt a thing or two and what areas I had needed to improve on for future media release writings.  

Without even knowing, that was the end of my day. Not even realising till I was told to go home by my supervisors! Who would have known it was already 5:30pm and my first day at my internship was over. Saying bye to everyone and walking out of those doors, I realised I was in fact “home” and I had chosen the right degree despite the years of doubting. I was already looking forward to my second day!

Being in charge of so much

Today,began another day at Communicare. Being a non for profit organisation, Communicare's marketing and media team, in in charge of all the PR, media and marketing aspects all the different sectors within the organisation. 

This week, the team was looking into helping youth services put together their Youth Expo which was being held on the 12th of April. This was being done through getting companies to attend to present their organisation, on how they are able to help the youth that are disengaged from society, as well as ensuring there was enough refreshments and enough advertising was done for the event etc. 

Youth Services, wanted the team to put together a A5 booklet of all the different vendors, what they did, who they were with their details etc, for all the individuals whom were coming along so  they could have a reference to go back to at the end of the Youth Expo if need be and here is where I came in. 

There were a range of thirty different organisations, which I had to research and find out what they did and their location. Some of these organisations I have never heard of and some I had previously. Most of these organisations were non- for-profit organisations, which were moving to support the Youth Expo. This made me realise that non-for-profit organisations tend to stick together to support each other to ensure ones success and in turn it is also a way for them to get themselves out there and let individuals know about the services they have. 

Putting together the booklet  was one of my tasks, but in the office the other lingering question was "how do we get more people to like out Facebook page". Since I started at Communicare, this has been a raging question, to get more likes on their fFcebook page. The reason for this I personally believe is because of the massive success of the use of social media and social media is a something most individuals turn to before they do anything else upon turning on their internet accessible devices. This question is yet to be answered yet, as the right type of strategy has not been found to attract individuals from every age demographic. 

Until next time 

Asvinder