An invaluable experience

Before I started my internship, I was positive I wanted to work in-house PR. However, after my time at Go Communications in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia I have learned some important lessons about effective public relations, and I will definitely consider working in a consultancy when I graduate. 

Some things I learned from my internship in Kuala Lumpur;

1. Team work - Throughout my degree, almost every unit has included some kind of group work. I saw first hand the benefits this could have when at the Go Communications office, where my team often brainstormed ideas at lunch or called a team meeting to discuss ideas for a client or upcoming event. The reason this worked so well, was because in these meetings everyone was given an equal say, and everyone’s ideas were considered. PR is often about engaging with a large audience, so interacting with your team - who all have different views - will help you achieve this.

Image - Fradley Croft

2 - Thinking outside the box - One event required my team to get creative for a Halloween-theme launch. This taught me how to bring a little fun into public relations work.

Image - Growing Up With A Disability

3 - Don’t get overprotective of your work - I had more than one idea knocked back during my internship, and this helped me view my work impartially, and edit it without restraint. I think we all get a bit overprotective of our ideas and work, especially when we put a lot of time and effort into it. But to be an effective PR practitioner, I understood sometimes it’s better to step away and try something new sometimes.

Image - Libelty SEO

4 - Think about how your message could be received by a range of people - I think growing up in Australia I have a relatively good idea about how people might interpret a message. For example, when watching the news, I can see a headline and predict how a number of people will respond to it. I now know I definitely took this knowledge for granted, because interning in a different country, I understand you must thoroughly research the cultural values of an audience.

5 - Take advantage of your seniors - As I learned writing my first press release, even though you've done it countless times at university, doesn't mean you know everything. Ask your supervisors any questions you have (It's better to ask too much than make the mistake). They know so much more than you do, and they can help guide you in the right direction. 

Image - Muhsin budiono

6. Don't take tasks for granted - Not everything you're given is glamorous or a hard-hitting press release. That doesn't mean it's not equally as important, you can still take important lessons away from it. And if you do it well, it proves your commitment to the job. 

 Image - The Office, NBC

Image - Smshamma

 

7. Good Attitude - I can't stress enough how important it is to have a positive attitude to everything you do. This relates somewhat to the 6th point, but if you have a good attitude it will not only make the task easier, but it shows in the quality of your work. 

Image - Positively Present

And now I'm back in Perth, and it's almost time to start looking for jobs. I worked with some fantastic people at Go Communications, and I have a wide range of work to add to my portfolio. My internship has not only further honed my writing and communication skills, but it has allowed me to broaden my understanding of PR and how it relates to different countries and cultures. I would highly recommend future students to consider interning overseas. 

Whitney Slater

Curtin Bentley 

What not to do..Learning Lessons!

For those of you who have ever heard the phrase trial and error, I have decided that the process of experimenting has been one of my biggest learning curves in my time at Event Workforce.

The past few weeks I have had a strong focus on the facet of internal communications at Event Workforce with our University Representatives. The company recruit's one to two students from each University as University Representatives and it is their job to ensure that students at their Uni are getting involved in EW events and organise a presentation to their class to promote the EW Pathway Program.

As a new addition to the EW Team and the person responsible for internal communications with the Uni Reps, I found that the process between learning the ins and outs of the company and getting in a position where I was able to communicate with students more openly took time. Learning the company values and then being able to instill those values in communications is an art form, and I respect the mentoring I received to ensure that the fun, exciting and innovative EW brand is reflected in every aspect of my writing - especially when talking to students like ourselves!

The program this year was a huge learning curve. In the first year of trialing the Uni-Rep program we have had great insight into what information, communication templates and guidance we should provide our Uni Reps. We also learned a few (or maybe more than a few) lessons on where we can improve the program for 2014. These insights include being more proactive in our recruiting and rolling out the program earlier in the semester and providing a tailored program whereby each university follows a specific timetable to self-monitor their progress.

One of the biggest tools that I was excited to implement into the program was an online feedback survey to distribute to our Uni Reps upon their completion of the program. In our first year of offering the program I feel that participant feedback is crucial and we needed to provide an easily accessible platform for our Reps to deliver constructive feedback. As part of developing the survey I jumped onto the Survey Monkey website and studied up on how to structure the most effective, unbiased questions to get the answers that will help us make changes to the 2014 program.

Being part of a communications and recruitment program from start to finish has really helped me learn to monitor progress and most importantly recognise where changes to communications need to be made to have better results in the future. A once man once told me that the best way to learn is to make mistakes; and mistakes I have made!

The Big Board Room

Just a few weeks shy of graduating and I’m not ready to become CEO of a multimillion dollar company –surprise, surprise… 

All throughout university and even through high school, as students, we were always told we were in the process of getting groomed for “The Real World”.  There would be expectations set upon all of us and we were measured by a set of learned standards which we’re to uphold once we arrive in “The Real World”. 

A part of the journey to “The Real World” is viewing rubric after rubric which benchmarks our performance semester after semester, in the hopes to refine skills which we’ve developed in high school. These rubrics explicitly hint to us what’s expected of our output in the land of “The Real Word”, while we’re under the assumption that everyone in the workplace are all on par with the requirements of these rubrics.  

 “The Real World” is also apparently a place where there’s a lot more at stake and don’t forget the work rush and harsh climate conditions – is it just me or is the office aircond, much like the Robertson Library, always set to freezing?

What I have learned and experienced, within the five short months of being part of a truly hard working organisation, is a personally and professionally fresh outlook to take away and apply in the future, including a more original take on “The Real World”. 

I would like to happily share with you all –and here comes the kicker - that there really is no such thing as “The Real World”.  And I’d also be happy to break to you that we’re already living and breathing in “The Real World”, the only world that ever existed, really.   

What’s not real about the world we’re currently operating in? We, as people, have endured quite mature commitments thus far; we’ve committed to a four year degree, a double one at that, for some, watched Jaimie’s shows for better health, work part-time, full-time, all-the-time to fund our lives, meet deadlines for bills, assessments and yes, even for fines, we go on road trips for Mum’s day, Dad’s Day, cousin’s weddings, holidays, and the list goes on.  What’s not real about all of that?    

The workplace, as I have gathered, is a spatial area in which workers gather to develop new skills and refine our strengths with the hopes to stealth our weaknesses- the ones we hadn’t exterminated at university.  At times, it can also be a place where individual’s personal and professional weaknesses and strengths come into play to achieve organisational goals.  You can say it’s a little like unit group assignments, with more at stake, of course.  And the big Board Room– you really ought to negotiate and pre-book for available times- much like the Robertson Library meeting rooms, much like the Abacus Sun Room and any other meeting rooms we’ve encountered on campus.  Meetings in the big Board Rooms, I’ve experienced , is an opportunity to collectively share ideas, feedback, concerns and works; keeping much of the same essence with the meetings we’ve held on campus. 

We worry and brag that we haven’t been taught ‘this’ or ‘that’ at university and for good reason; if we had been taught everything we needed to know, we’d have to take up that position as CEO; the one with gigantic and unimaginable things at stake.  If that’s got you wide-eyed, like me, I’m sure you’d be more comfortable and ready to continue to apply ourselves the best we know how and to continuously learn then best way we can.   

Mila

The challenges of viddy and vine apps

It’s pretty much impossible to get through a degree of Public Relations in todays society without hearing about the importance of understanding social media. For me, during my studies I learnt that social media was so important, especially for non-for-profit organisations. I have learnt through my internship that this is definitely the case and should be utilised by organisations.

 
At my internship I have been asked to develop a social media plan based around World Meningitis Day. As I am doing my internship at a non-for-profit I am learning that social media is valued as it is free and effective in reaching its target audience. As a part of my social media plan I was asked to look into Vine App. Through my research I found that Vine App is an application that makes six second videos that loop and can be linked to Facebook and Twitter. I was very excited to learn about this, however I was surprised to learn that this app was only available for the IPhone and the phone we would be using is not an Iphone, its an android. Therefore I was faced with the challenge of figuring out what else we could use that’s free and easy and does a similar function. That’s when I discovered Viddy. Viddy is an application that makes fifteen second videos. The ideas of these short videos is that they are fast and punchy and challenge businesses to promote certain products or events in a short time and in a creative way. So I did some further research and I found this app was going to be great as it was downloadable on the android phone.
 

All was going well, I had implemented Viddy videos into the social media plan and thought I knew how to work the app. However, when the time came to make and upload the video I was faced with many issues. I could not seem to upload the Viddy to Facebook or Twitter. The challenge I faced was that the business page is not like a personal page. You don’t log into it and therefore you cannot link the Viddy to that page it would have to go to your personal page. Another issue was that the app simply did not work. For some reason the app would not upload to Facebook or Twitter, it simply was not connecting to these sites. After some time of trying I eventually figured out I could upload to YouTube from my phones version of the video not the Viddy apps version of the video. I have now uploaded a Viddy video successfully and am happy to say I look forward to the next one next week which will be made for World Meningitis Day.

Although in my degree I learnt the importance of social media, and I agree it is so important, I never realised that there were apps involved and there would likely be challenges involved.
 
If I have one recommendation it’s that you should learn how to use an app before suggesting that your workplace use it. I am learning so much about applications and social media and it’s a great learning curve.

Check out the first viddy if you have a moment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1to12Ka--2w


-Alyce

 

PR Practitioner In The Making

Nowadays, PR is recognized as a profession with promisingly high income. The qualifications are the capability to be creative with ideas and solutions as well as establish communication with clients, media, and stakeholders. Grunig & Dozier posit that organizations increasingly depend on someone who has the expertise to communicate and build relationships with these stakeholder groups (2002, p.2). PR has a significant role in the success of almost all kind of activities or events, whether are related to individual, organization, or company.

According to my Managing Director, the essential to be a PR practitioner is the ability to build relationships that are beneficial and trusted among organizations, individuals and stakeholders into action. To survive we need to shape ourselves in to someone that is reliable and trusted with capability that is meet the expectation.

During my last week of internship I summarize all the learnings I gain during my placement in Fortune PR, and these are some of the learnings I’d like to share:

PR practitioner is act as solution provider; we are meticulous and garrulous for the sake of the brand or the client. Don’t sweat the small stuff? That doesn’t work in PR. We have to sweat the small stuff, meaning, we should be ready to take care of everything, including the small stuff, such as to make sure the journalists receive comprehensive news, the microphone is ready to use for press conference, the message is not misleading, which venue is suitable and meet the budget, etc. Perfection in every single aspects is inevitable in PR.

PR practitioner should be keen to identify which media is influential, in attempt to conduct appropriate story and approach for the market. The point is to recognize the medium and love the medium. Noting bylines and blog profiles, followers, viewers and database. Understand all the interesting conversations going on, so then we know where and how to be involved.

Research and observe is a must, the ability to collect and sort is vital in everything a PR person do. Starting with market understanding and situation analysis to get the background before we start develop our proposal, and or interviewing a journalist/ blogger. It is vital to have the ability to understand the company background and its industry field, in connection with the understanding of their ability to achieve their goals. 

Reference:

Grunig, L. A., Grunig, J. E., & Dozier, D. M. (2002). Excellent public relations and effective organizations: a study of communication management in three countries. Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Sincere,

Indri Ervianti

Curtin/ LUCT

12541054/ 110027720

And welcome to the City to Surf press conference!

I have been doing many tasks at my internship which include media releases, answering emails, official invitations to the event, schedules, newsletters, offline registrations and write ups for the City to Surf website (which you can have a look at here)

About a month into my internship I was then given my official role for event day - I would be the media assistant. This role would include helping out the Media Coordinator on the day, been at the finish line in the media tent, helping out the media with any queries they may have, making sure the athletes that place get an interview with them and organising the official pre-event press conference. 

To say I was excited about my role was an understatement. To be the organiser of the Chevron City to Surf for Activ press conference, their main media opportunity was amazing! About four weeks prior to the conference I started organising it, making sure I had athletes from each ‘field’: elite, human interest and interstate, writing out the MC Notes for event commentators Jon Kappler and Ray Boyd, the floor plan, working with the PR team from Chevron, the running sheet and the official invite.

Another first for the City to Surf is the attendance of two Japanese elite athletes, an agreement that was made with Japan and the Department of Sport and Recreation where Japan will send two of its elite athletes to compete in Perth’s top running events and some of WA’s elite athletes will compete over in Japan, further placing the Chevron City to Surf for Activ on the international running calendar. 

For the conference I secured the following speakers:

Elite Athletes: Kenyan athletes Luka Chelimo and David Kemboi and two Japanese elite athletes Chihiro Tanaka and Takeshi Niki.

Interstate Athlete: Sam Maxwell and Lauren Shelley

Human Interest Speakers: Monika Volpi and her guide dog Jonnie, Activ ambassador Beth Ebert and her family and Richy Bear, a man who will be running the Half Marathon in a bear suit. 

Working on the press conference made me think back to PR Media 250 when we discussed if media conferences still have a place in today’s industry, looking at the pros and cons. The positives of a media conference are that it gives journalists the ability to ask questions, relays on one key message, involve your employees (i.e. them attending), information is more controlled, able to personalise the story, gives the opportunity for simultaneous announcements and adds credibility. 

For example, a press conference that worked extremely well was during the Queensland floods when then Premier Anna Bligh used many press conferences to update the media with information about the floods and ensure that the people of Queensland were kept informed and understood the government knew what they were going through and that they were trying to fix it.

The negatives of a press conference however can include the opportunity to make you vulnerable to negative questions.

In my opinion, having a press conference for the Chevron City to Surf for Activ worked successfully. This was their chance to showcase key participants to the media and release information such as ‘event organisers are expecting a record 45,000 participants to attend the event’. See here for the article published on PerthNow after the press conference with this information. After this experience I also agree with the fact that press conferences do have a place in the industry given that they are organised well and for the right reasons - there is no point holding a press conference to release information that is not valuable or would give your company the opportunity to be vulnerable to negative questions. 

So after getting minimal sleep the night before due to nerves, I couldn’t wait to show off what I had been working on for the past month. We went to the Chevron office to get ready to set up. We went to the conference room and started to put the media backdrop together. The thing is, no one knew how to put up the banner. That’s right no one knew how to do it. This was what I was fearing the most - something going terribly wrong. How could I hold a press conference without a media backdrop? You just can’t. At the same time, speakers started to turn out so it was fair to say the beginning of the conference was a bit of a nightmare. I had to go to a corner and calm down for a bit and work out what needed to be done. Thank goodness for my fellow intern Alanna and the Chevron girls who figured out how to set up the media backdrop whilst I briefed the speakers of how to the conference was to run. Once the conference started I could breathe and I must congratulate on the fantastic way Ray Boyd and JK did the event - the way they speak and engage with the media was amazing and so inspiring to hear, you can understand why they are the event commentators for the Race. 

The press conference didn’t run as smooth as I would have liked - but there was a lady with her guide dog, a man in a bear suit and a three year old toddler, so maybe next time I would think more about what kind of speakers will attend and the flow of movement a bit better. I also learnt a very valuable lesson that I should have thought about before - to test out the media banner.

Rob de Castella, Sam Maxwell and Lauren Shelley speak at the Chevron City to Surf for Activ press conference

Overall I loved having the trust of the event organisers to be the organiser of the press conference. Not many people get to take on such an important task as an intern! I felt very honoured that the people at Corporate Sports gave me this responsibility and it was a fantastic experience.  I learnt so much about planning all the little details and how important planning is to ensure that the event goes smoothly and nothing is left out. It is the little details that may not seem like a great deal but at the event you realise that without those little details it would all fall apart. I also grew confident in my ability to tackle tasks and work in the PR industry and with other people.

What are your thoughts on whether a press conference still has a place in today’s industry? And what amazing tasks have you taken on in your internship? Would love to hear them!

Thanks,

Steph Sbrocco 

A Happy Ending Before a New Journey Begins!

I can’t believe the time finally came, my final day as an intern, my fourth and final blog and my final semester at uni. I must say it has all gone rather quick, but I am so thankful for all the experience I managed to gain. In total I completed 22 days as an intern at Linc Integrated, a marketing and communications consultancy, and it was an absolute blast! (If you would like to know a bit more about Linc look here).

My last day came all too soon, even though I started my internship in July it has all flown by so fast. When I arrived at the office I still had a lot of work to finish off, even a few media releases and blog postings that needed doing. I also wasn’t the only one who was a bit sad at the upcoming departure, my supervisor Bec sent an email to all staff congratulating me on the internship and announcing it was my last day. The Managing Director was also a little sad at this news as he used to always sing “Tell Laura I Love her” in the morning (he was a bit quirky like that) and needed to find a new office tune.

As the day drew to an end the PR team gathered together for a happy photo in the office. They gave me a card signed by each of them with messages of thanks and best wishes for my future career. I was so touched by this gesture and realised just how much I would miss coming to the office.  As it was a Friday we all decided to hang around for a celebratory drink with other staff members, and then it was time to say goodbye. I took one last look at the place that had taught me so much (especially that there are no set rules!) and headed out for the very last time.

Looking back I can see that I’ve learnt so much during my time at Linc that I will take away and apply throughout my career. It was an absolutely fantastic experience and I couldn’t have asked for anything better considering the range of work I had. Not only did I learn a lot about PR work, I also learnt a lot about myself and I’d really like to share the most valuable experiences I gained. So here they are! The best lessons from my internship have included:

Event Management is Stressful! – I got a huge insight into event management in my first week at Linc when I got to help manage Bankwest’s Six Days of Happy. This was a huge event and very stressful for all staff. I learnt the importance of micromanaging and that you really need to understand the results the client is after in order to improvise successfully (particularly if anything goes wrong). I also helped to develop a guest list of 300 people for another huge event that is coming up for Linc and found hunting for contact details a painful task to complete. Although events can provide you with a range of great experiences I’m not sure I could become an event planner, but the experience I gained was definitely worthwhile.

Understanding Your Client is Crucial – This was very obvious at Linc and I learnt just how important this is through a range of work, particularly media releases. As I completed tasks for a range of clients I discovered each had their own style (more how they wanted to be presented to the media). Some clients needed their name emphasised in all work, some were less worried about their name and more focused on promoting their achievements. No matter the client they each had their own style and as a consultant that needs to be reflected.

Becoming a Master of Time Management – I’ve always understood PR work involves a lot of effective time management, but wow have I improved at this since my internship. Balancing full-time uni, working and completing an internship is quite the challenge; I’ve never felt so busy! I think this will be a really valuable quality when I enter the workforce.

Creativity is my Biggest Talent – Coming towards the end of my internship I was given a lot more responsibility to generate ideas for a range of work for clients and it turns out I’m quite good at this. The PR team praised me for my ability to be creative and recommended that I possibly pursue a career in a creative environment, as this stood out as my biggest strength. This is definitely something for me to think about now and I am so thankful to have had my supervisors approach me and be honest about this.

All in all, I really do believe my time at Linc has been extremely valuable, and I think overall most internships are. Throughout my own I have been checking out a few PR blogs on the internet from interns and lessons they have learned to compare my own experience. This one here in particular, is a really interesting insight from a graduate who realised Disney was teaching effective PR in all their movies. I also found another interesting article on how to make the most of an internship, which you can check out here.

At my own internship I ended up completed a number of PR tasks including researching, media monitoring, valuing PR coverage, event management, developing ideas, sitting in on client meetings, blog posting and developing media releases (just to name a few!). I not only feel that I’ve been able to apply what I have learnt throughout my degree, but also believe this internship has strengthened my understanding of a lot of theories and concepts. For example I’ve learnt so much more about how PR consultants work and the relationship they have with the client. I’ve discovered there a lot of differences between writing for assignments and writing for an actual job (there is so much more focus on making it appropriate to the client rather than trying to address marking criteria). And I’ve also really noticed the difference and rather the improvement in my own work. Not only am I able to produce pieces in a lot shorter time (i.e. instead of taking a week to make up a media release for an assignment I can now do it in a few hours) but I think my writing in particular, has branched out to become more appropriate professionally.

I’d like to just conclude with the fact that in the beginning I didn’t intend to complete an internship in a consultancy, as I’ve always had more of an interest in-house work. But I am really glad that I ended up spending my time at Linc, as I’ve developed so much more understanding of PR consultancies and the opportunities they present. I have learnt so much in 22 days and I can see pursuing a career in this type of work would be extremely valuable. Most importantly I have come to realise how much I love marketing and public relations and that this is the path I want to pursue (considering I started an architecture degree). I can’t wait to graduate and get out into the world of public relations (whether that be as part of a consultancy or as in-house). As this journey has come to an end I can see how much I enjoy what I am doing and how exciting my career can possibly be!

See you out there in the industry!

Laura Tirli x