The Home Stretch

I have finished my internship! It's been a long and wild ride but what an amazing journey. I wanted my last blog entry to reflect everything I have learnt over the course of my two internships at Crown and The West Australian but first a few things on what I did in my last few weeks...

In my last few weeks at The West Australian I had the opportunity to work on a number of big trade campaigns and events.

September is a huge month for The West with Perth Fashion Festival, The Royal Show, Mandurah Boat Show, The West Live and so many more events happening all at once. Being a trade or sponsorship partner of all the events means a great contribution from the marketing team.

For me, The Royal Show was a big task. I had to co-ordinate the trade campaign and work with the Sponsorship and Events Manager to make sure everything in the contract was fulfilled. This year The West published a special edition of Seven Days Magazine to promote the official show guide and also created a wrap edition of the paper. It was my job to organise relevant advertising and promotional materials such as advertisements, point of sale and retailer posters.

I also coordinated the 2-for-1 show ride offer that appeared in The West on the 5 October. It was my job to liaise with RAS and find out what would be offered to readers, write terms and conditions, draw up relevant artwork and communicate the message prior to publication to our readers.

These tasks required a great deal of organisation, time management and good communication skills.

I feel over the course of the two internships my communication skills have developed immensely both verbally and in terms of my writing ability. I now have the confidence to do the job efficiently and effectively and feel ready for the real working world.

Top 10 Things I Learnt

- importance of communication
- developing and maintaining relationships
- time management
- good organisation skills
- the ability to prioritise
- meeting deadlines
- developing my writing abilities
- learning new and important marketing and promotional skills
- always ask questions and be interested
- go over and beyond what is required of you

It has been a fantastic semester and I am really looking forward to what will happen in the future.
Oh and one other thing....hard work definitely pays off. I have been offered a full time job at The West Australian! See you all in the working world!

another few weeks of intense learning!

So this is my second blog post about my internship at Crown Perth. Wow, what a ride it has been so far!

I'm into my fourth week at Crown (I do two days per week) and I'm constantly learning new things about public relations. Something that has really stuck with me is the importance of.... you guessed it....COMMUNICATION.

I have certainly valued being a member of Generation Y and growing up with technology. The amount of programs used for communication at Crown is intense. I have now successfully been taught to use Web Publisher, InDesign, Paint Shop Pro, iTrak and so many more!

With this I have been able to contribute to in house promotions, managing customer complaints, creating back of house artwork and updating the intranet with staff alerts.

As I said in my previous blog, internal communication at Crown is very important. Today, I was responsible for putting together the 'Friday Update' which is the weekly newsletter distributed to the 6100 staff members. It was my job to gather all the relevant information from department heads, write relevant copy, format it accordingly and distribute to staff. I got this done way before deadline and will now be responsible for this task every week....eek!

I also had a taste of drafting my first internal and external communications plan for an upcoming campaign. My job was to help identify goals, objectives, current issues, key messages to be communicated to media and what needed to be controlled. It was great being able to put together a plan that would actually be implemented! This was an area I found my degree really helpful. With the amount of experience I have had over the course of two and a half years I felt prepared and ready for the task ahead.

I'm excited to see what else is around the corner at Crown Perth and will keep you posted!

Crowning Moments

The past two weeks have gone by in a flash!

Starting my PR internship at Crown Perth was daunting, exciting and absolutely terrifying at the same time. Meeting the team was eye opening- who knew so many things happen in such a small department. I was given a run down by the General Manager- a PR maven in WA- and incredibly impressed by the standards needed to be successful in the multibillion dollar company. The emphasis on teamwork is apparent as everyone needs to pitch in to make things work. No job is to small for anyone...if invitations need to be sent out everyone is there to lend a helping hand.

My first two weeks at Crown were filled with plenty of writing, whether it be media releases, staff alerts, copy for the intranet or promotions. Internal communication is vital to this company- with over 6000 employees, communication to all staff members is crucial in building strong employee relationships and knowledge on whats happening throughout the business- and this is what I focused on  predominately in my first two weeks. And trust me when I say a lot happens!

These two weeks were filled with many highlights and learning opportunities. Crown uses a number of different avenues to communicate with staff. For me, I was lucky enough to work on the staff magazine, CHAT, which is published quarterly. I sat in on editorial meetings where we discussed who would be contributing to what pages. Here, I learnt the importance of time management and getting things done right the first time round due to tight deadlines.  

I also had the privilege of running my own staff promotion. Here I had to develop my own artwork through InDesign, write terms and conditions and communicate the action to all staff. This was a different aspect to PR I hadn't come across in my degree but I feel is an important concept to know how to do. 

My first two weeks at Crown taught me the value of effective employee communication and how important it is to keep staff informed. I also learnt the importance of a good reputation- this was drilled into me the moment I walked into the office and will forever be in the back of my mind for any task I'm asked to complete.

I can tell this is going to be an amazing experience- the amount of knowledge I have already gained is immense and the corporate environment is one I'm keen to enter.  Bring on the next 8 weeks!