Finally....

This is my final blog post. All in all, working at the University has taught me many things. First, mentioned in the previous blog, I think my interpersonal skills has somewhat improved and I learnt how to deal with difficult demanding people without any physical violence (just kidding)

Also,I learnt how to be more organised and orderly since it was only two of us belonging to ISAC in the office, and before I came, it was overwhelmingly disorganised. I would like to think that I helped keep the place under control.

And thirdly, I learnt on how to deal with government bodies, because I think you would agree, from all parts of the world that sometimes they could be difficult to deal with but thankfully, i learnt well and they were pleasant enough.

I hope you guys had a good time completing your internships as I did

Cheers

Sham

Posters and promotions

Well, the whole intern gang was sat down and proposed that we make a video for the sports department and the rugby team. So we sat down and discussed one of the interns produced his idea, which was very good and interesting, actually. So we discussed what our strong suits are, and how we can help bring this project to fruition...

And as for the Football Club, I had to come up with poster ideas to attract new blood into the club. So putting my somewhat okay photoshop skills to the test, I made 2 to show Suhail.

At this point in my internship, I've started building my people skills more, especially on how to deal with difficult people. Slowly but surely, my interpersonal skills are being built (I hope) :)

Registrations and the Ministry of Higher Education

I was put in charge to liaise with the Ministry Of Higher Education regarding the inter varsity sports competition that is going to be held on the 28th of October onwards. Initially there was a bit of a complication because Mr Hakim received the forms late, so I had to ensure that Limkokwing would be registered somehow.

Thankfully Mr Hakim managed to handle it and I was able to send the forms on time. At the same time, it was a hectic week as it was the registration time for the Limkokwing Football Club. So I literally made hundreds of calls to students, informing them on the details etc etc.

It was hectic, frustrating and slightly fun. But I managed to do it with a smile on my face. And thank goodness most of the students understood what I was saying, even of some were sleep addled.

This whole process took the whole of two days, but it thought me the importance of getting the message across and getting the RIGHT message across

First Day at ISAC

I started working at the International Student Activities Center at Limkokwing on the 1st of August 2012. At first , I was hesitant as I did not know what to expect, what with it being a sports department and my current championship title of net potato.

Anyways, I was introduces to Mr Hakim, the Head of ISAC and he conducted an informal interview. He gave me an overview of how ISAC functions as well as the gym, even though I would not be working there.

I was then introduced to Suhail, a student from Palestine who is the manager there. He then taught me how to handle the students coming in , registrations for sports teams and clubs, as well as the required co-curriculum modules required by certain courses.

All in all it was an interesting day and I looked forward to spending my internship there.

Last Days at BERJAYA UCH

After 64 days of interning with BERJAYA University College of Hospitality's (BERJAYA UCH) Public Relations, Communications and Events Department (PR, Comm and Events), my internship has come to an end. Before that happens though, I have one last event to take care of - well along with many others (around 30 other staffs I think and some student volunteers) who were wither assigned or volunteered to help out. That was the BERJAYA Foundation Day 2011!!!

The people I'm photographed with above are only three of the many celebrities that attended and performed at the charitable celebration on the 26th of February, 2011 (Saturday) at BERJAYA Times Square Mall. In the third photograph is Harith Iskandar, a famous comedian in Malaysia all on and off screen and/or stage. In the fourth is a host/model/actress who can also sing apparently, Azura Zainal, whom I have been a fan of since my primary school days. As for the heart throb in the third picture, is Jehan Miskin, an actor.

As preparation for the event, the PR, Comm and Events team was in charge of making sure everyone who was accounted for had their T-shirts for the event (such as the one I'm wearing in the pictures above), and making sure BERJAYA UCH had our coupon boxes which we will then have to return to corporate office, used or unused. We got 5 boxes but only ever used two.

At our bazaar stall outside the mall, we sold mocktails, cakes and cookies. There were baskets that some of us could fill with the goods and go around inside the mall selling them to people in exchange for the coupons they have bought before hand. The day was filled with fun and celebration but at the same time very giving and charitable. Every company under the BERJAYA Group of Companies had a stall or so at the bazaar. There was even a raffle draw with a Mazda 2 as the grand prize. I would have joined but I didn't have enough coupons.

I must've sold, over two dozen packs of cookies and somewhere around 10 cake loafs that day. It was my last chance to bond and have fun with my BERJAYA UCH colleagues. The other pictures were taken after we have sold everything we had to sell and more. The day wasn't even over yet. My last day was supposed to be on the 25th of February, 2011 (Friday), but I couldn't resist sneaking another day into my internship. It was well worth it, especially because I got to meet so many celebrities including the ones shown in the pictures. Yet another experience to remember for life!

That is all the highlights about my internship. This shall be my last blog post. It's been a blast interning at BERJAYA UCH. I'll be sure to visit as soon as I get the time off this semester. I really do miss everyone, staff and students alike. I look forward to seeing them again in the near future. All the best to other interns out there. Enjoy your internship and learn as much as possible. You have nothing to lose but so much gain. A toast to the betterment of our future! Cheers everyone!

Events Part 2

To continue the list of events I have participated in with Berjaya University College of Hospitality (BERJAYA UCH), the following events include, the PPD-BERJAYA Excellence Programme Closing Ceremony, Chinese New Year Celebration, and the Masquerade of Love.

The PPD-BERJAYA Excellence Programme Closing Ceremony

The “Rakan Kongsi Pintar” programme is an initiative taken by the “Pejabat Pelajaran Daerah” (District Education Office) of Petaling Utama in collaboration with the BERJAYA Excellence Programme. Thus, the PPD-BERJAYA Excellence Programme. The programme launched on the 29^th of November, 2010 in Petaling Jaya with the aim of influencing students in a positive manner within the constraints of real world working environments. 40 students were selected from eight schools within the Petaling Utama District and were put through a number of soft skills workshops like personal grooming, time management, and workplace communications. Then, on the 24th of January, 2011, it was high time for those students to graduate, so to say. They will forever bring the experience they had with BERJAYA UCH and the array of companies under the BERJAYA Group of Companies like BERJAYA Times Square Hotel, Papa John's Pizza and 7 Eleven.

Chinese New Year Celebration

On the 11th of January, 2011, BERJAYA UCH celebrated Chinese New Year with students and staff alike in conjunction with Mr. Freddie Pang's, the Executive Director of Berjaya Corporation, birthday. Tan Sri Professor Emeritus Dato’ Dr. Abu Hassan Othman opened the event with an inspirational speech before proceeding to a Yee Sang Tossing Ceremony, which is traditionally done in a Chinese New Year celebration to summon prosperity and abundance. The celebration was followed by a surprise birthday greeting by BERJAYA UCH staff and students, complete with a "Happy Birthday" slide show, courtesy of the Social Media team, and a birthday cake, courtesy of BERJAYA UCH's School of Culinary Arts. The event was a successful and illustrious one.

Masquerade of Love

This was a Valentine's event organised by the students of the International Students Society in BERJAYA UCH. I was trusted by Ms. June to cover the event to write-up on. The night was filled with music, fun, picture-taking, food & beverage, and most importantly, love; it's Valentine's after all. Madam Mae Ho, our Chief Operating Officer with whom I am photographed with above, took the time to perform one of her favourite songs, I presume, "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dione. I must say she has a wonderful voice.

I actually got to perform two songs with one of the students, Jayson Empaz, one of the organisers of the event - a few of them are photographed in the following pictures with Madam Mae - while I was there. It was a night to remember forever. I hope that the students of BERJAYA UCH continue to organise events such as these once in a while in the future, or make it an annual thing perhaps. It's nice to see students taking up responsibilities and put their planning and organisational skills to work. It's good training and preparation for them.

That's not all of the events I've been involved in but the highlights. The events above are also a few of the events I got to write about in our press releases. I have yet one more event to talk about. My next blog entry shall be my final one as I come near to my last days with BERJAYA UCH.

Events Part 1

Wow! It's been a while... A lot has been happening this semester, I lost track of time. Not to mention I doing six subjects this semester and one of them has more assignments than I can count with my two hands. I'm back now, and I'm ready to talk about the number of events I actually got the chance to be involved with while I was with Berjaya University College of Hospitality (BERJAYA UCH). However, Like I've said in my earlier blog post, there might be too much to fit in to one blog post so, I'm going to split them in to two parts. Here, I shall be talking about my work with The Concierge editorial team, the media deliveries I went to with Ms. June Ng (my superior), and The Star Education Fair 2011, which I must admit was somewhat awkward for me (I'll explain why later).

The Concierge

I have explained in one of my earlier blog posts about The Concierge newsletter being a student production. I was fortunate enough to have been trusted to liaise with the students of The Concierge editorial team. I would be in every meeting, taking down minutes, throwing in some ideas and/or opinions from time to time, along with Ms. June, who conducts the meetings. I was a pleasure to see the students' passion and dedication in making this newsletter happen. They are responsible for everything: design and layout, pictures, write-ups and content, etc. However, with the supervision of the PR, Comm & Events, especially when it comes to copyright, spelling and grammar. The editorial team would also consult the Creative Multimedia Department when it came to the design, layout and the pictures in the newsletter. Whenever there were events to cover, the editorial team may also borrow cameras from the Social Media Department. They really go all out with the newsletter.

Media Deliveries

I was able to help with two media deliveries during my time in BERJAYA UCH. First was for Christmas, when we gave out Christmas cakes and cookies, and Chinese New Year, when we gave out cupcakes. Media deliveries are when we would visit our media contacts baring gifts as a symbol of thanks for patronizing us all this while and we hope that you continue publishing stories about us whether via the press release we give you or the events we invite you to. This may be an unorthodox way of bonding with media friends in other countries (as we are taught repeatedly in many of our PR classes) but it is a usual thing in Malaysia, apparently.

Star Education Fair 2011

The fair took place on the 8th of January, 2011 (Saturday), at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. It was fun and exciting, not to mention great training and preparation for things to come. I was required to stand for long hours and walk about calling people to the BERJAYA UCH booth. However, knowing that Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) also had a booth of their own in a nearby hall was somewhat unsettling for me. I was a LUCT student representing BERJAYA UCH... Awkward! But all for the sake of my internship with BERJAYA UCH I had to keep that fact at the back of my mind. Besides, I was having fun. I managed to keep a smile on my face and my body was able to withstand the long hours of standing and walking around. My lunch wasn't half bad either. All in all I enjoyed the day. Even though my feet needed to soak in warm salted water when I got home. Relaxation...

I have three more events to talk about but I'll save them for the next blog entry. Until then...

The Following Weeks

My first three days at BERJAYA University College of Hospitality (BERJAYA UCH) were so full of activities that I couldn't wait to get started with work the next week.

Due to the many preparations that needed to completed before the Open Days, Ms. June wasn't left with much time to sit down with me and brief me on everything. Hence, the next week was the time when she sat me, Nicolle and one other addition to the PR, Comm & Events team, Ms. Chewie Ng - no, Chewie and Ms. June are in no way related - down and went through everything that the team has been involved with and are preparing for thus far.

Considering that I've just joined the team, Ms. June gave me the more simpler tasks to take care of. Those tasks are the following:

1. Media Monitoring - that is, going through the newspapers every morning.
2. Keeping track of the gift and job requisitions and recording them down in their specific log books - because of the lack of staff and many things to do, they had little time to organize the requisitions and record them down into the log books.
3. Taking down minutes during meetings and briefings.

The tasks listed above only increased the longer my internship went on. One time, as I was looking through the BERJAYA UCH website as research for a part of my internship report later on, I spotted some typographical errors and pointed them out to the Social Media Department whose stations were just beside us from PR, Comm & Events. From then on, as soon as Ms. June heard about my spotting these errors, she immediately assigned me to proof read everything on the website, as in, every single page. It took me 10 working days or so to get it all done, and as soon as I did I immediately submitted my findings to Ezran from the Social Media Department for corrections. Ms. June was happy with my work, and so was our Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Mae Ho, as soon as she heard about my work.

My list of responsibilities didn't stop there, however. Soon enough I was included in the editorial team of the up and coming student news letter, "The Concierge," which should be inaugurating this coming end of March. At the time of my introduction to the team, five students were involved in the editorial team:

1. Chief Editor - Sabrina
2. Deputy Editor/Writer - Sheilah
3. Editor for Clubs and Societies - Sattis
4. Chief Photographer - Jana
5. Chief Designer - Jayson

Now they have additional members to the editorial team. By the time i left my placement, they've already found a writer, and an assistant photographer. The more the merrier, I say. BERJAYA UCH never runs short of news and events.

My internship went along at BERJAYA UCH and the more responsibilities Ms. June trusted me with. I had to keep track of upcoming events and update our department's white board accordingly. And in my second month or so, Ms. June started to trust me to write-up press releases. Now, any information we intend to release to the public, has to go through our assigned copywriter,Sarah, before actually releasing them. With every press release I wrote, Sarah would point out any improvements I have to work on which really helped me grow as a writer and I really appreciated her mentor-ship. I shall be attaching some of my best work (according to Sarah) in the appendices of my final report.

All in all, that's about it, aside from helping out with events, interviews and so and so. The PR, Comm, and Events Team worked closely with the Creative and Multimedia Team as well as the Social Media Team, especially when concerning pictures, greeting cards (since it was festive season), and some special requisitions for corporate gifts and the such.

Working with BERJAYA UCH has been fun. I made new friends and learned new skills whilst applying skills I had already learned in my PR classes and in my past part time employment in Melia Kuala Lumpur Hotel. There were, of course, some constructive criticism and tough love that came from Ms. June, but those I absorbed to better myself, and make myself as efficient as possible not only for the sake of the team and/or the University College, but also for my own sake and my future employment.

In my next blog post, I shall be talking about the many events I was involved with. That blog post promises to be a colourful and entertaining one. Though, I'm not sure if I'll be able to fit everything in one single post. I might have to break it into two parts. Until next time!

First Days with BERJAYA University College of Hospitality

I started my internship with the Public Relations, Communications and Events Department at BERJAYA University College of Hospitality (Berjaya UCH) on the 15th of December, 2010. I was very fortunate to find this placement at the very last minute. By last minute I mean, I was invited for a Monday interview on Friday, and after the interview on Monday, as in, that evening itself, I was asked to start my internship on the upcoming Wednesday. I couldn't say know. Who would say no?

I was all prepped up and ready for that Wednesday. My first task was to help a colleague update and rearrange the wall of media clippings near the entrance of the campus. By the way, the campus is located in a shopping mall. The tallest shopping mall in Asia, BERJAYA Times Square. That's not all. It is also located in the same tower as BERJAYA Times Square Hotel. On can find the 5-star campus on the 11th floor whilst the School of Culinary Arts is on the 14th floor, in line with the hotel. I shall talk more about the Schools later on. Meanwhile, let's get back to the task at hand.

Everyone was ready for the University College's open days that were to be held on the 18th and 19th of December, 2010. So, there wasn't much time left as there were still many to do. As mentioned, the wall of media clippings needed to be updated and rearranged and the wall of fame, featuring the University College's many celebrity guests and speakers, needed to be put up near the Learning and Resource Center (Library for short). Yet the Creative & Multimedia Department was still in the process of printing the pictures, then they had to laminate them, neatly cut the edges, and mount them onto a piece of Styrofoam before mounting the pictures on the wall, and my colleague and I had to select some of the latest media clippings about BERJAYA UCH, laminate the them and arrange them on the wall. We all had our work cut out for us.

Did I mention there were only three of us in PR, Comm & Events including me? There was Ms. June Ng, then the PR, Comm & Events Assistant Manager, now Manager, and Ms. Nicolle Chin, then PR, Comm, & Events Executive, she has resigned now though and accepted a job in a spa Miri, Sarawak as Spa Management was her major in her Diploma course. Ms. June Ng was the person who interviewed me and took me in and I owe her for that.

The tasks pended through the first 3 days of my internship. I managed to put up all the media clippings by Thursday, 16th December, 2010. And the Wall of fame was put up on Friday evening, 17th December, 2011. All's well that ends well. Ms. June Ng requested for me to be present that Sunday to help out in the Open Day while Nicolle was to take Saturday.

Aside from the preparations for the open day, everyone was also getting prepared for the early Christmas Celebration that Thursday. There was choir practice on Wednesday evening, jobs were also distributed. On Thursday, around 10:30am, Ms. June asked me to tie ribbons on some presents that were to be given out to outstanding members of staff and get them done by 12 noon and bring them up to Samplings on the Fourteen (one of the two student-run F&B outlets under BERJAYA UCH) on the 14th floor. There nearly 30 of those presents. Good thing I only had to tie ribbons on them and not wrap them as well. With the help of Nicolle, we got them all up just in time.

The Christmas Celebration went along just fine. I wasn't fully briefed on what had to be done but I just went on with the flow of everything and it was fun. I helped usher the guests in as the event began, I helped with distributing the certificates and presents to the award recipients, and also to clean up afterwards and bring down what needed to be brought down back to the office on the 11th floor.

Looking back, I did quite a lot 3 days into my internship and it was fun. Now, about BERJAYA UCH. Long story short, BERJAYA UCH has four schools: School of Hospitality Management, School of Tourism, Arts and Culture Management, School of Culinary Arts, and School of Business and Management. The campus reception area on the 11th floor is designed to mimic the ambiance of a 5-star hotel lobby. The front desk serves as an information area where students and visitors may inquire about anything, students may also call for the lecturers via the front desk whenever they have questions about assignments, etc. Also on the 11th floor are the Learning Resource Center, air-conditioned classrooms, seminar rooms, and lecture theaters, as well as the mock hotel room suite, student council's office, and the students' leisure room where they can just chill with friends, play some billiards, table tennis, or board games. On the 14th floor, where the School of Culinary Arts is located, there are Samplings on the Fourteen which is a Fine Dining restaurant, and the Upper East Side Cafe. Bother outlets are run and managed by students, supervised by their lecturers, training them for the real world of the service industry. Inside the School of Culinary Arts, they have the Coffee & Tea academy, the Oenology lab, Pastry kitchen, preparation kitchen, production kitchen studio, demonstration kitchen, and a couple of kitchens with set stations for each student's perusal during lessons.

I don't think I've missed out anything else. All in all, it's a very impressive institution for one that's only three years running. Already they have a distinguished name amongst many other Universities and Colleges that offer hospitality courses. It was a pleasure for me to be serving in such an institution. Growing up with an Executive Chef for a father, I could very much relate myself to it and immerse myself to the very hotel-like environment, which I pretty much used to since my father has worked with many hotel and resort chains in his 30-year-career in kitchen operations.

PR & Project Management

Thank God, I had the chance to attend two-day project management (PM) training in the organization that I am working. The lecturer had come from the US office and he was a very knowledgeable and experienced person with a successful management career in places like GM, GE and non-profit areas.

Few words about projects first:

Projects are not on going activities of organizations. Project is not about receiving order from a customer and shipping products to them. Projects are not routine maintenances. Projects are unique & special! According to a book that I was browsing “A project can be considered to be any series of activities and tasks that:

● Have a specific objective to be completed within certain specifications

● Have defined start and end dates

● Have funding limits (if applicable)

● Consume human and nonhuman resources (i.e., money, people, equipment)

● Are multifunctional (i.e., cut across several functional lines) “ (Kerzner, 2009)

Now, it seems that without PM, communication projects, programs or campaigns will turn into nightmares or at least they simply would not deliver any outcome. The reason lays in that, PM is the application and knowledge of managing five areas of any project. Without somebody carefully monitoring everything in communication programs, PR cannot manifest itself in real world. These five areas are:

· Project Initiation

· Project Planning

· Project Execution

· Project Monitoring & Control

· Project Closure

One thing very important about PM is that you are not going to be a successful project manager with only book learned knowledge. PM is about putting skills and methods to work. It is about ensuring that your project delivers on time, on budget to specifications.

I highly advice my fellow friends to keep an eye on this topic of project management and try to get more information from resources available. Definitely, this can help us a lot, in near future.

Regards,

Ali (LUCT)

A Blueprint

I believe that in the time of a media conference or an event launch, the role of communication or PR department is to offer “a different angle” for the press to pursue; an angle that could be more compelling than whatever others- like the press themselves, commentators and critics- are offering. Now if I were tasked to plan for a media conference then I would ask myself what is it that I can do to make my department’s lead- or our story-, the press story. I could push the matter one-step ahead to question myself, what is it that I can do to make our story, the talk of the town even? And that needs a blueprint basically.

A blueprint, as far as I know, is an internal document of planning & checklists for the special events. It is circulated by communication department in other units to inform the does and don’ts of the event of in-progress. It is not an “itinerary” rather the itinerary is an important part of it. For example, a blueprint outlines

What sound bites would be the more critical in conveying the organizational message and attracting the attention of the media?

What the stage would look like on the day of the announcement?

What should be on the table in front of the speaker?

What image the camera should pick up behind him?

And….I guess you’ve got the idea.

However, things are not like that here in the International non-profit organization that I am working in Malaysia. They simply took a joint national media event with the Malaysian News Agency “like a dinner party” and they had no blueprint of any sort for planning & executing the critical aspects of it. The result? Clear: only one publication reflected the event in a small column, although the number of journalists who attended was noticeable. The rests, didn’t even bother to waste the ink on the story.

Interesting because recently one of our weblog contributors, described my observations as “cynical” and recommended me to become more “open minded” regarding what I see happening in Malaysia. I simply disagree with him. Because as far as I am witnessing chemical engineers, management graduates and office secretaries dare to do “Failed PR” in a professional way, then I cannot simply close my eyes- even as an intern- and call myself “open minded” like this friend of ours.

It seems that we are facing an important challenge after graduation; struggling with those who have poked around “PR” and convincing them that what they have been doing so far is not quite right!

Would they listen then? What do you think of that?

Best regard,

Ali (LUCT)

INTERNAL RELATIONS COMMUNICATION ARE VITAL

Hi! Guys

I started works as in internship at a Cleaning and Hygiene company called MODITHITO in Botswana. It is a fairly large company that specializes in offering cleaning services for a quite large number of big companies, numerous government organizations the list extending to even big shopping malls. Modithito is now established and have branches in four different places in Botswana being the capital city Gaborone, Francistown that is another city and two other towns, Selebi-Phikwe and Palapye. Up to today, the company has grown to be an employer of close to 200 employees.

For the company strength, it now partners with other international companies in African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and others which they are still putting effort. I guess it helps the company to acquire any news and keep updated with whatsoever latest technology in the cleaning industry. Modithito offers a number of cleaning and hygiene services, the list includes office cleaning, high rise window cleaning, chemical suppliers, pest control, car wash etc. in most companies Modithito attach cleaners and then supply them with necessary equipment and chemicals at the same time managing and supervising them while attached to their area of operation

I got there at a very critical moment when the company was re-branding itself. They where getting new uniform for working stuff, changing their long served logo design giving it a brand new look. The company was also changing a few things on the operational system and management. It has been like that for a long period of time since its birth, since now they have grown to become one of the largest if not the largest in the country, it has become hard to manage this bigger scale the same way it was done when they first came. It wanted to create a system which a system which will facilitate effectiveness and productivity at the same time giving promised services with guaranteed customer satisfaction placed upfront. The company is going to start by working on organizing and improving internal relations with its employees emphasizing desired work ethics. After it is organized then it will start creating external relations with its publics, as well as strengthening the already existing relationship with its key publics.

However the company PR sector is still young and growing since it is only operates form the headquarters in Gaborone which makes it not an easy task to communicate directly with other branch leaders unless they have to travel to directly address them. Otherwise they rely on fax, phone and email to communicate as the company website is still under construction.

Here I witnessed the essential of communication in the public relation field. That without proper channels of communication you are doomed even from the slightest mistake you might take for granted. Employee relations or internal relations are vital for the company to succeed in the outside world because everything has to be organized. Sometimes you find that the company looses tenders because only one person knew about it then they were not available at the time or that one thinks the job is done while another did not know who is supposed to be doing the work.

Otsetswe Sedimo

LUCT (Malaysia)

ASIA-EUROPE INSTITUTE ROAD SHOWS

hello again!
now for sure you know i have been quite busy(posting on post after the other).

Apart from the many seminar series that we have conducted, we have been doing promotional road shows for the AEI's 2010/11 student recruitment.the past three weeks we have been going around schools to promote our master's programmes especially to third year degree students. we started here in university of Malaya , going in different faculties.

first a talk would be given by my supervisor Associate Professor Dr. Hajjah Jariah, who is the Deputy Excutive Director of AEI( Quality Assurence,Promotions and Administration). two of my other colleagues will be registering the students whoattend the talk, and as for me, i will be outside the hall giving students pamphlets and inviting them in.

the attendance at most of our road shows was rather very disappointing, only a few students had turned up. i feel very little was done in letting the students know about the road shows. lack of publicity equals such a low turn up.

honestly i blame my institute for the low attendance, i personally feel that the strategy used is not a very good one, i mean you cant expect a large turn out if you have not extensively advertised the road show. there were no posters whatsoever to let students around school know about these road shows. when i asked one of my senior colleague about it she says they usual send the particular school/ faculty that the road show will be a held at a letter to let them know when they are coming. they(AEI) in turn expect that certain school to disseminate the information. OK fine,that is still a right thing to do but more input has to come from us.

well i am planning on writing a proposal to my supervisor suggesting better ways to get students to apply with the institute, well i hope that the proposal will be taken into consideration once they go through it.

wishing you all well! i am nearing the end of my internship, it has almost two months now!

ASIA-EUROPE INSTITUTE SEMINAR SERIES

hello everyone!how are we keeping up in our work places?

it has been a while since i blogged,well you can imagine how hectic things have been at AEI!

It's that time of the year when students were returning from December vacation so a lot had to be done to prepare for them. since they got back there has been a string of educational seminars presented by different visiting professors from various Asian and European countries.

now seminars need time and hard work to organize. first of all a guest speaker is invited to come and speak at the seminar and getting this guest speaker is not so easy. you need to write in and request for the presence of the speaker, propose a topic for them and wait for their response. once they give a positive responce by confirming that they will indeed come for the seminar then we start inviting students to attend, you would need to let them know well in time. wht we usually do is to email each and every student a memo(lucky enough they are not a large group). also a few posters are put up to inform the students,staff and public about the upcoming seminar. once we are done with invitations we prepare the seminar hall a day before the seminar. we make sure that everything is working and in proper shape. we also make sure that on the day of the seminar a food catering company will deliver the ordered food. as for food, it depends on what time the seminar has started and finishes, if it's a morning affair then breakfast will be provided and if it is an afternoon one then definitely lunch.

organizing events makes a very important part of public relations,call it event management. if one thing goes wrong, everything else might go wrong, so planing events such as seminars requires commitment even though it sounds so simply!

so far all the seminars that have been conducted went smoothly.

i had wanted to share with you a few pictures from the seminar series but when i upload them it messes up the post(mind you i had uploaded them on the last posts which i ended up having to delete because of this problem).

PR and Creativity

Hi everyone, Lena here. A collegue at S&A once asked me, in just a casual conversation during one of our media visits trip, what have I learnt so far. I told her of course, and she went on to ask if i do understand that CREATIVITY is a vital tool in PR. But of course i did know that. S&A prides itself with their creativity aspects, something which i believe the clients are very happy about it- which is why they are still their clients.

This is what she told me:

• Since our clients include cosmetics, restaurants- these type of clients wants creativity that makes them stand out from other brands- especially if there is going to be an event. If there is an event like a product launch, we apply our creativity in all aspects of the event, even the small details like invitation cards.

For example- An invitation we made for an event where winners were sent on a
trip to Paris. 'A Flight Ticket'

• Also clients expect you always have fresh ideas every meeting you go to- they do not have to tell you their plan. You should suggest creative PR ways to set them apart from the rest- especially if specially events or festivities are approaching. As we have been doing currently at S&A- Chinese New Year and Valentine's day on the same day, now that a dilemma as to what approach to take-which is more suitable for which client.

VS

Valentine or Chinise New Year- Most, however did go for CNY. If this was a country that does not celebrate CNY, they would have chosen the V-day approach. This is were the decision lies on your target audience choice

• Think out of the box. When you suggest a strategy or tactic do not limiy your imaginations. For example, if it is a car company, your ideas should not be limited to the obvious like road, family, sexy girls or speed.

• And lastly she told me that you should not hold back on bringing out a suggestion just because you think it will be too costly for the client. You never know, they might like it and actually praise you for it because some clients are willing to spending, just as long as it is feasible.

I must say the last point really made me understand that I just have to suggest-if the client does not like it then we will move on to the next plan.

LESSON LEARNT: Do not hold back ideas.

Don't Get Fooled by Your Own PR!

What price are you willing to pay to succeed in your PR activity? What actually is success anyway?

Speaking in terms of PR, success I believe is achieving objectives. Then with whose ruler are we supposed to measure our achievements? The answer is that the executive in charge of the plan will draw some evaluation guideline and those parameters are the criteria. That means you plan, you execute and you evaluate from the beginning to the end, all by yourself & your organization. “Oh! Okay! I knew this, fine! So what’s the problem?”...Well, I would like to bring forward an ethical dilemma that would challenge the basis of this close system of ‘evaluating ourselves by ourselves’. The dilemma is a real case study of what I have observed in the non profit organization that I am working in.

But one quick reminder before I get into the story that at least in the non-profit world, there is a pervasive belief among decision-makers based of which overall performance of the organization is often rated as acceptable and sometimes outstanding.That is because the ‘not for profit’ is always on the tow. Now the story:

When food manufacturers clear out their stock out of the old cans, they hand over near-expired food cans to INGOs as donations. Then we as the non-profit organizations hand over them in a pack with combination of some other stuff to single mothers, poor and sometimes disabled communities of which we visit. This creates for the media the opportunity to make some ‘success stories’ out of our efforts and also it provides our handsome product sponsors! some socially responsible images and a clean stock!…Therefore media wins, non-profit body (we) wins, food manufacturers win but what about the poor and single mothers? Well they also win! They receive some near-expired/expired products! How lovely!

This routine does not only belong to this international body. All other humanitarian organizations WORLDWIDE, precisely, follow the same to donate the poor and in needs. Now…

Imagine yourself in the shoes of the receiver! When he receives ‘Mickey mouse’ stuff (BTW ask yourself who really wants our old shoes?) of worth nothing and yet he has to hold that pack -usually despite of his will- until media do all the photography and cameras shoot enough footage for tonight’s television news feed. Yeah…He is only a fish, a fish for us, for them and for everyone who can use him as a fish. He was not born as a fish; we- PR people- turned him into our fish in exchange of a promotion or a handful of money. His picture, then, gets published in magazines, bulletins, catalogues, papers and on television of people watch, as our ‘PR success story’, as our PR achievement. And we yet celebrate when the television shows his face, since that fishy face is a major ‘evaluation’ parameter now, a gauge to measure what is known in this kind of PR as ‘success’.

I, personally, don’t believe in achieving objectives with any price. It seems that without considering a solid moral and ethical structure, ‘success’ not only in communications but in any other kind of activity is not achievable. But with whose moral or ethical codes shall we proceed? Ours or our organizations? Neither of them of course.

Therefore for an authentic and real ‘success’ measurement, the presence of a comprehensible & objective third perspective is a necessity to undertake the measurement. Unfortunately western post-enlightenment philosophy does not have much to say in this regard, whereas Holy Scriptures already has provided us with detailed strategies in ‘social situations’ as mentioned above. Here is what Holy Quran cites in (2:267) a precise and exact solution to our ethical dilemma:

‘Do not donate something that you would never take it yourselves, except with closed eyes’

I emailed the same verse to my colleagues and asked them to encourage our product sponsors to donate fresh stuff, not near expired reduced cans.

But nobody took it seriously.

Best regards,
Ali (LUCT)

LOOK, LISTEN AND LEARN

The past three weeks i have had to observe carefully the way things are done in the office, i have had to listen attentively to instructions given to me and i have learned!

last week i attended yet another meeting with the school management.This time around the meeting was to give a persuasive talk/presentation to representatives from different countries namely Bangladesh,China,Iran and Indonesia.the purpose of the meeting was to get the officers to sell Asia-Europe Institute(AEI) in their respective countries.It was a thorough detailed presentation on the history of AEI, programmes offered, students enrolled, the staff, visiting professors and scholarships offered by AEI.

my task was to listen and produce a detailed report on the meeting. i simply had to put my listening and writing skills to practice.everyone who knows how to write can produce a piece of writing but not everyone who knows how to write can write professionally.what i mean is that i had to write a professional report. and what is professional writing anyway? by professional writing i mean that i had to produce an impressive report, one that could sell! and yes i did write up the report,well not in one hour.after a couple of drafts and corrections only did i submit this report and guess what, my supervisor termed it 'good work', honestly i was happy with the compliment,i can only hope that in a few years i will be able to produce work that deserves to be termed 'excellent'.

Also the past week i have been assigned to identify top five universities in each of the 43 ASEM countries(made up of Asian and European countries) and identify the relevant authorities to contact in each university/college. now i must say gathering information(you may want to call it research) takes more than commitment, it requires one to be equally patient. i am pretty sure that this task sounds rather as easy as cut and paste but it was not a very quick and easy job for me. this is because in some cases different websites ranked the universities/colleges differently, say in one website Oxford University will be top of charts and in another not,also some school websites did not have contact details so you can imagine!but in any case i still had to get all the contacts details, next is to communicate with the universities!now communication is going to be easy now that there is information.

remember the secret lies in looking(observation), listening and you will learn.

TOKEN OF APPRECIATION OR NOT?

i was having a debate with one of my friends!well the topic of discussion was that "public relations practitioners seem to bribe media people with presents especially during celebrations". i was against the motion, trying to raise some important points as a public relations student but my friend(not a PR student) on the other hand couldn't understand why PR personnel give out goody bags,send seasons greetings cards and invitations to parties etc. she sees this as a deceptive motive by Public relations people to get the media to be on their side.she(my friend) further argued that 'if at all these small gifts are given as a token of apreciation,do the PR people also receive these "little presents" from the media people' .well i tried to get her to understand that PR people work with the media almost on a daily basis therefore they must have and maintain a good relationship with the media thereby showing appreciation. i mean without the media, PR would almost seem hopeless, how else would we disseminate information about our companies/client's campaigns and projects to large masses of people?what i am trying to say is that the word BRIBE fits rather wrongly on the topic at hand but APPRECIATION will do.speaking of appreciation, last week i was preparing seasons greetings cards to be sent out to more than 200 companies and universities,(local and abroad) and of course the media to wish them well for the new season and show our appreciation .

i was very excited about preparing and sending out the cards, it was fun though time consuming.the cards were already designed and printed by the publisher, all i had to do was to fold them nicely and dicard those which were not in good shape.once i finished folding the cards i had to carefully stamp each of the cards with the Directors signature.next i had to type and print addresses on envelopes, honestly i couldn't find a faster way to do this, mind you well over two hundred cards had to be sent out and that meant over two hundred envelopes had to be typed and printed.once i was done printing the envelopes, it was time to insert the cards and get them ready for the post people to collect them.at the end of the day my supervisor was impressed with my work.

anyway, i would like to hear what you guys think about PR practitioners sending out tokens of appreciation, be it christmas(or any other ocassion) presents,cards or goody bags.should this really be considered as a bribe of some sort?what difference will it make if these were not sent out, would the media not cover 'us'?

Asia-Europe Institute, university of Malaya

good day good people!
hope you are all doing great in your work places!

This is my first post and i started my internship last week at Asia-Europe Institute(AEI), University of Malaya . AEI is a post graduate institute working in partnership with reputable Asian and european universities.

so far i have not done much(today is my 5th day). on my first day i was shown around the office and introduced to the rest of the staff, i must say i was nervous the whole day,can you imagine being around people older than you,seing them for the first time and all,you just don't know what to say. the second day i felt alot comfortable, i attended a meting with the school management team, the agenda was to discuss and draw a 2010 year plan, the meeting ran for almost the whole day,i was taking notes where i could understand(mind you the meeting was conducted in bahasa melayu,a laguage foreign to me). so far that is my number one challenge(language), because almost every document is written in Bahasa and later translated to english!i am surely killing two birds with one stone,learning bahasa and practising pr,lovely.

this week i have been assigned to write and send letters/emails to various institutions to invite students to apply for masters and PhD programmes.therefore i have to research and read extensively about AEI before i can start writting. i think i am going to enjoy my time here.
by the way to those of you who are interested in doing masters,check out this website http://aei.um.edu.my. (i am only doing my job)!

my experience at S&A PR so far

hello everyone

It's me again Lena. There is never a dull moment in the office, both from the chatty stuff or when getting serious to work. When i got here at S&A PR they had just recently had events (a week before i started) with some of the clients; Unilever-Lux and Mattel-Barbie among others. I had to call the magazine and newspaper editors who had been sent the post-event release kit to check if they have received it. And mind you that was over 40 editors to call. Some were nice, others sounding like they are being bothered and others seemed to spend the whole day unavailable. It was not easy finding out from their secretaries if they received the releases or not because they are emailed directly to the editor, unless of of course the hard copy (that was also sent) is somewhere to be found in the office. I learnt that asking the editors if they will publish the release, was a bit pushy, unless the person sounds very nice then its safe to ask. However some did tell me whether they will publish or not without me asking.

I have also helped in preparing a post-press release kit which had to consist of a hard copy of the release, a cd that has a release and necesary pictures. Another release is emailed just in case. I have tagged along with my collegues to meetings for client briefing and also when a client has an interview with the media. I have attended an event that was already planned for Sunsilk. Prior to the event we prepared invitation cards and sent them to the media editors because S&A PR was incharge of the media, then we called them to check if they can make it to the event. At the vent-because we were in charge of the media, we had to register the media personnel that came from each publications, gave them the release on the event and program of the day...and also (the part that makes me love being a personnel to be) we gave them goodie bags with sunsilk products-cool isn't it, can't wait to be an editor. Now you know what i meant by never having a dull moment at S&A PR right-exciting stuff.

To be continued...as the fun of being a 'PR working girl' goes on...

Lena-luct