My time has ended... exciting experience ahead!

Unfortunately my time at 32 DSG has ended!

I learnt more than I ever thought I would from the whole experience. It was amazing to see how a PR consultancy works from the inside and see how much work and editing goes into a media release or how much time is actually put into a small four hour event. It has truly put the whole industry into perspective for me and I cannot wait for what is in store.

My supervisor was nice enough to pass my details on to a friend at Lux Events, a premier Perth Event company and I start with them next week! And here I was thinking I would have a break from working two jobs. I am very excited to have another opportunity lined up and I will take many experiences and skills that I have learned in PR over my time at 32 DSG with me.

I am left with some thoughts on the PR industry, particularly the consultancy sector.

Public Relations is crucial to any organisation, it makes me wonder why some large organisations seem to ignore this fact.

Working for a small firm I realised how important internal communication is - I can only imagine of how important it is in a large firm/organisation. It will certainly be an experience I take with me onto my new ventures - proposing new and efficient ways to communicate and store all the information necessary to run a successful organisation.

I now cannot wait to get my hands dirty in Events Management and let my PR side take the back burner for a while. I am sure I will be back as I cannot say that I have disliked any part of my internship.

All the best to everyone in their future endeavours!

Thanks for reading!

Simon

Fundraising for the Liver Foundation of WA

Another week another event!

This week one of our big clients - The Liver Foundation of WA had a fundraising event, it was all hands on deck as we prepared for the evening!

Once all the planning is in place and a venue  has been selected (Kailis Brothers Leederville) the hard task begins - finding event attendees! As with any event it is important that the attendees have strong association and commitment to the cause of the event. My job was to find people that were relevant and had the ability to benefit the cause of the Liver Foundation.

After what seemed to be thousands of emails back and forth we eventually had a strong base of attendees, high profile guests such as the Chief Scientist of WA, the Premier of WA and many more health based organisations would soon be attending the event to show their support and find out key information on the organisation and its main cause.

This event was held specifically to promote the Liver Foundation of WA's new 'Outback Track' initiative which took education, support and medical supplies to the remote areas of outback Western Australia.

The 32dsg team worked very hard and the event was extremely successful gaining full support from Colin Barnett, we also received numerous donations from many attendees. It was a welcoming experience working at a fundraising event and something that I had never experienced in the past.

Not only did I take away fantastic knowledge of how these events are run but also vital information on how the Liver Foundation of WA service the state and see the great work that they do for West Australians in remote and regional areas.

My time here at 32 Degrees South Group is wrapping up, next week is my last week but I am sure there is still some exciting things ahead!

OzApps Event!

OzApps Event!

One of the things that always drew me towards the PR industry was events, so I was very excited to find out that my internship organisation (32 degrees south group) was highly event focused. The first event on the agenda was for OzApps - a phone application awards program run across Australia that can be entered by both students and professionals alike.

My next week and a bit was solely planning for a single event that went for a mere 4 hours - I did not realise the huge amount of planning that went into a single event. My background in events has always been from a hospitality industry perspective, which is hugely focused on the organisation of the event over the course of the event day itself, with all the pre planning already taken care of.

At the end of all this planning the day was finally here, I was extremely excited to see my first PR event come to life, especially after all the time I had put into it. It was however a very long day for me, but I think that excited me even more! 

The event was to start at 6pm, however we were at the venue from 4:30pm doing all the preparations and organising the key speakers. Our key speaker for the night was Bill Tai - Angel Investor, Venture Capitalist and Chairman of the OzApp Judging Panel.

I had the opportunity to network with a variety of different people from students to successful professionals across a range of technology and business industries. Many of these contacts will certainly be helpful in the future in establishing myself with a PR career. 

The event was a huge success! It was a sell out event which was truly enjoyed by all who attended. The speaker was engaging and encouraged people to enter the competition and spoke with such enthusiasm promoting young innovation and entrepreneurship.

Now to wait till the next event where we do it all over again!

Till next time!

Simon

If I have any chance of making it big, I need to get out of here

“How am I supposed to reach my full potential in the most isolated capital city in the world? I need more challenges, greater opportunities and rewarding experiences that go beyond what lies in front of me here.”

-          Marli, a once naïve public relations student living in Perth
 

I began my placement at Perth based communications consultancy 32 Degrees South (32dsg) with a skewed outlook of the public relations profession in Western Australia. Not once did I consider Perth as a destination that would enable me to work on a national or international scale. To my delight, I was wrong.

With no previous experience in a professional workplace, my first day was far from what I expected. Slightly overdressed, and eager to put my best foot forward, I entered the contemporary office of 32dsg – a small consultancy firm focused primarily on innovation and strategic thinking. I was welcomed by a team of three consultants, each with over 10 years’ experience in the international field of public relations and events.   

 

 

During my first week, the knowledge I had accumulated during my years of study was quickly thrown in to practice. With no more than a short brief and a website address, I was responsible for drafting a media release that would be disseminated on a national scale. Not to mention, the release was for the Omnivore World Tour, an international food festival that has visited cities such as New York, Paris, Shanghai, Moscow and Montreal and was set to be arriving in Sydney.

Reflecting on the media release I produced during my first week, I was shocked to learn that what I had exercised during university was not necessarily practical in reality. One sentence paragraphs, with a seven to 10 maximum and straight forward language was not the style of media release my supervisor sought. She desired detail. I quickly found myself adapting the media release style to which I had become accustomed and was obliged to demonstrate creativeness and depth.

A media release was however only the beginning. During the week I produced several news articles for an array of clients including Omnivore, Mai Tai, D&AD, the Department of Commerce and the OZAPP Awards. As the week progressed I was given more complex tasks including producing a media strategy and newsletter, as well as various social media activites. In one week I had accomplished more than I thought was possible during my entire placement.

My time so far has been demanding, engaging and above all gratifying. I no longer consider Perth as a stepping stone, but instead an opportunity to fulfil my passion close to family and friends.

To find out more about my placement organisation 32 Degrees South, please visit their website www.32dsg.com.

If anyone is curious to discover more about the clients I came in contact with during my first week, below is a list of websites:

http://www.omnivore.com

http://www.maitaiglobal.org

http://www.dandad.org

http://innovation.wa.gov.au/programs-resources/273-2/

http://ozapp.com.au/

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! 

Small company, big goals!

Hi fellow PR393 bloggers!

After getting advice from older friends, who recently entered the ‘real’ working world, I fixed my resume and casually searched on Google for ‘PR companies Perth’. I have to admit that I had only heard of PPR and Linc and I was surprised to see quite a few others that I had never heard of.

University has taught me that any experience is good experience and therefore it didn’t really matter where my placement was going to be. Therefore, I continued searching with an open mind. However, as I fielded through the different company sites I realised I wanted to complete my placement in an organisation that dealt with both not-for-profit and for-profit work. If this didn’t work out for me (of course doubt comes with every first timer) I was more than happy to take any experience and put in my best effort no matter what.

Looking at my resume I wished I had taken a university break to complete some other PR or Journalism related experience. I started to lose confidence in my abilities and worthiness to apply at any of the companies I was looking at. However, this was the opportunity to do exactly what I had never had the time or confidence to do.

Since I am doing Journalism as well I learnt that the best way to make a phone call is to be prepared with exactly what you’re going to say to avoid any umm’s and ahh’s or ‘likes!’ I phoned up each of the companies I was interested in and all of them asked me to send through my CV.

I finally got a call from 32 Degrees South (32dsg) and I was asked to come in for an interview. What to expect! No matter what, this was a great time to learn what its like to go for an interview. At university we learn to tell the truth about everything we have done and can offer. Therefore my approach to it was to say:

I haven’t had much out-of-university PR experience, probably because of my total commitment to university work and my casual job. However I can offer you what I have learnt so far and hopefully learn from you and everyone else who works at 32 Degrees South if given the opportunity.

I also prepared answers to questions that they may ask me such as:

Q. Why did you choose 32 Degrees south as the place to complete your work experience?

Q. Why do you think we should choose you to complete your work placement at 32 degrees south?

Q. What do you think is your biggest flaw as a person or as a worker?

Q. Why did you choose journalism and PR?

Q. What skills have you learnt in PR that you could bring with you to 32 degrees south?

A.  (Media releases, events planning, Social Media strategies, Strategic consulting plans, Website design, Sponsorship understanding, Issue analysis. Journalism background (interview techniques, current affairs, writing articles)

Q. What does PR mean to you or how would you define it?

A. PR is the relationship and communication between an organisation and its publics whether internal or external. How a company communicates its vision and mission to its publics and ultimately achieves its goals. And that’s where we come in to show them how to do this in the most effective way.

I was way too over prepared! Nevertheless, I like to feel that way before going into anything I do because then you feel like you can deal with anything that comes your way. As well as the fact that no matter what happens you know you did the ‘best that you could of possibly done’.

I got the placement! And have just completed my first week at 32dsg! (3 days a week Wed, Thurs and Fri)

32dsg is an events management and communication-consulting firm in Shenton Park consisting of three main employees. While a small company their goal is to grow even bigger, using the digital world to their full advantage. The idea they had for me was to be involved in getting their company name out there. They have a lot of clients including oZAPPs (previously WApps), Emergence, Feeding WA, Six Senses and Ngala and therefore do not have time to focus on themselves as a company.

I have therefore come at a good time to create for them a Public Relations Plan for their own company to map out where they need and want to go as a consultancy firm and what are the best methods of getting there.

Working with the Social Media Coordinator I will also be helping out with monitoring, content creating and moving them onto different social media platforms to allow for wider exposure.

This was all daunting to me but I did not let this show! Because of University units throughout my degree I have a Blogger account and a Twitter account (and of course a Facebook account) however I never go on Blogger or Twitter. I went to a friend and she taught me everything there was to know about twitter so I could come into ‘work’ the next week no longer a ‘twitter dummy’.

What I’ve been up to:

Day 1, I worked mainly on researching prominent bloggers and tweeters, developing a database of those who had potential for us to approach them to come and feature blog for 32DSG. I collected and collated them into an excel document (linked below) according to which clients they would suit as well as documenting how many followers they had on twitter. It was quite difficult to find bloggers that suited 32dsg’s client base.

Blogging seems to be such a woman dominated platform (very fashion orientated, and emotional- which makes sense because as you can see from what I have written so far, we cant stop talking or thinking!) I was looking for bloggers who spoke about technology, charity, parenting or adventure. I managed to find at least 12 that were worthy of looking into and by then it was 5pm! Days seem to go so fast here (must be because I’m enjoying it!)

Day 2, I was asked to write an article about the launch of the oZAPPS awards, using my journalism skills to add to the news page on 32dsg’s website. This was the first time I really saw why journalism and PR people don’t get on! PR people do all the work for journalists! All the quotes were available in media releases written by 32dsg employees and all the information on the event and prominent organisers were on the websites. The trickiest part was making the article sound professional, not let it sound like a media release (had to have something newsworthy in it) and make sure it does not sound like a blog! I managed to turn a media release into a journalistic article.

I sent it through to the Social Media Coordinator and the Director and both were extremely happy with it. After a few touch ups it should be going onto their news page on their website! Day 2 and I already start to feel worthwhile and confident in my work. While this was more journalism then PR, I truly saw how they work together and how important they are to each other in order promote a company.

Day 3 and I have begun looking into writing a PR plan for 32dsg. This is a HUGE task since in university we have always worked in groups to produce a plan. However I do have a lot of time here and this is the experience we hope for. I don’t necessarily have to finish it by the end of my placement but I will be putting in my over all best effort!

I am truly enjoying my experience so far at 32dsg and love the relaxed yet busy lifestyle every employee leads.

Gosh, from starting off with thinking ‘what am I going to say’, I have truly over done this blogg! I hope I have not bored any of you to tears!

Until next week!

Enjoy everyone, no matter what were all doing, it’s an experience!!!

Martine xxx

http://32dsg.com/

file:///Users/martinehotz/Documents/Bloggers.htm

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