Time to say goodbye...

Hi All,

Well with our placements all over, and our reports looming ahead, I thought I would reflect on things learnt in my placement.

It has been so rewarding finally putting the knowledge we have learnt at uni into real life situations. I never thought I would see so many pitches in my time at the zoo. Having just done consultancy, my knowledge of pitches was fairly fresh. Being able to have constructive questions for the presenters made me feel like a valued member at the zoo.

One thing I think everyone has at Perth Zoo is passion. It's one thing to build relationships with stakeholders, it's another to be motivated by saving endangered species. Throughout my time at the zoo, I have found myself becoming more and more passionate about the work being done there. I have watched videos of the zoo releasing orangutans, moving giraffes to new zoos and saving silvery gibbons in the wild. I have held a quoll, seen a private feeding of the African painted dogs and fed an echidna. When doing all these exciting things I couldn't help but think that, although these activities were exciting, they were hardly public relations. However looking back, I can see that it was these activites which have made me so passionate about the zoo.

This passion is what makes the staff at Perth Zoo work that much harder because they aren't just working for a salary, they are working for a cause.

Time Management for the Disorganised Student!

Morning All,

Now I know we all leave our assignments to the last minute, do our pre readings for class 2 minutes before the tutor walks in and rarely submitt assignments before that 5pm mark, but I knew I'd have to 'lift my game' when it came to my placement at Perth Zoo.

So for the first few weeks at the zoo, I hurried through all tasks given - basically throwing it at my supervisor every time I was done so she didnt think I was an incompetent no-nothing student who should really be making the coffees than doing what ever task was just given to me. I started to love the praise I received for being so efficient that it made me work even faster!

However, the tasks I recieved when I started at the zoo were much more basic then the tasks I finished my placement with. So while this fast pace I was working at worked at the beginning, I struggled to keep up at the end. Once I started receiving harder work, it was harder to finish in the 5 minutes I had become used to. I found myself screaming 'Sorry!!!' the second I actually did finish the task. It was then that one of my supervisors, Ingrid, sat me down and explained to me "quailty over quantity". She said it sometimes took her a whole day to complete one task but she knew when she had completed it she had done the very best she could.

Although this should be fairly obvious advice, I am sure we are all bending over backwards trying to impress everyone at our placement.

Lesson Learnt today? My new way of impressing everyone at my placement is with quality, well checked work, rather than a dozen half hearted, unspell-checked documents :o) an obvious lesson I know!

The Undefinable PR Role

Hi Everyone!

I’m currently half way through my professional placement at Perth Zoo and I love it!

However, it has come to my attention over the past 5 weeks, how much everyone’s PR roles over lap here (and I’m sure in other organisations as well). I used to think that, for example, the events team would deal with only events and carry a project from beginning to end. Nevertheless, the more I experience each department here at the Zoo, the more I realise how much everyone’s roles overlap.

Last week I was helping the events team organise an up and coming event. Because the event was a fundraising event, it needed some work done by the fundraising department. In order for visitors to be aware of this event, the advertising team had to create on site and off site advertising and finally it needed the financial support from a corporate sponsor which therefore needed the approval from the sponsorship department. All this running between departments made me think how much all the pr roles here at the zoo are integrated.

At first this seemed rather time consuming and pointless. Wouldn’t it be easier if just one person looked after one project and knew everything there was to do with that one project?
But it then occurred to me how everyone knows what is happening at the zoo. They all have a thorough understanding of every aspect which takes place and are all genuinely interested in each others work.

So it seems this overlapping of roles creates a more positive work environment and stronger work relationships. And isn’t relationships the most important part of public relations in any industry?

Lesson Learnt? Build as many relationships as you can because you never know when you'll need that persons help for a project!

Having an Opinion...

Hi All,

Where to begin?! After being accepted for my placement at Perth Zoo, I never thought I had just signed up for the most eye-opening eventful placement ever!

I had so many expectations for my first day at the zoo…but they went out the window the minute I walked in the door. I assumed, being the little intern, that PR Professional Placement would entail me editing boring documents, licking stamps and generally twiddling my thumbs. How I was wrong! On arrival my supervisor, Carol, took me on an extended tour of the zoo, showing me all the behind the scene places no visitor would ever see!

After our tour the sales director was heading off to a meeting in Northbridge with a perspective client and asked if I wanted to come. It turned out the client was presenting his ideas to us. He had a PR plan for us, exactly like the ones we’ve presented in class, and it was interesting to see the role reversal as it would usually be me presenting to the “client” (class). He asked if we had any questions, however, being the ‘newbie’ I decided to sip my cappuccino instead.

Next up was me and Ingrid, who is in charge of sponsorship, brainstorming new ideas of how to get Perth Zoo’s name into the business world to gain more sponsors. After smiling and nodding for 30minutes I decided I should probably speak up. I’m sure none of you will disagree that social media has come up in every PR unit at Curtin since first year. Yet Perth Zoo barely has a website let alone any other form of internet technology. So I suggested a Zoo blog or Facebook page where Zoo members and visitors could join to learn what was happening at the Zoo.
Turns out this was a good idea! So I spent the rest of the afternoon typing up a blog proposal and a Facebook proposal and wondering why I waited till the last hour of the day to open my mouth…

Lesson learnt today? Its only experience we are lacking, not knowledge so don’t be too scared to have an opinion!