The bits and pieces

I don't think I have ever walked into work or any of my classes, as excited as I was today to go into Communicare, it was like something had taken over and all I wanted to do was start my day.

Why you may ask! and the reason for this was today I had to make sure everything was going to be ready for the event being thrown on Thursday. I had the whole responsibility upon me, I knew the individuals I was working with were amazing and would have taken care of certain elements, but it was left to me to do the rest.

Walking in at my usual 8:30 time,  I once again checked my emails to see what was going on. One of my main tasks of planning the event was putting numbers together, once participants had paid to attend the event. This was the first thing I did in order to be aware of how many packs etc I needed to get ready for the day. As I compiled the list etc and got all the elements ready to make the little Communicare packs for the event, which consisted about information of the different services, a pen and notepad, I was once again surprised at the amounts of work that went into an event, it was no walk into the park. I also had to get name badges ready, which needed to be made, printed cut into size etc. At a non-for-profit organisation, most things are encouraged to be done in house rather than getting the printer to do it etc because of the costs attached.

Doing everything in house, it let me to think do big organisations also do everything in house, or rather because they are so large, they have the luxury of getting all their printing and cutting done by a printer whenever they desired. Prior to coming to do my work placement at Communicare, I had only even used a cutter maybe once, and my cutting had be quite disturbing, I never understood why I could never cut straight and now I use the cutter at every shift sometimes twice and I am so pedantic that I have to make sure everything I am cutting is straight and perfect, if not I start again.

I understand that at times big profit organisations make the huge amounts of  money and they can afford to pay for simple things like making of folders etc off site, but I dare to ask do individuals working in non-for-profit do more than them? Are individuals in a non - for- profit organisations have more technical skills, that is putting together folders, laminating etc more than those working in a profitable organisation?

These questions are not questions I would have previously thought about, but putting together this event, I wondered; may the work was getting to me, the cutting of 50 pages, of the compiling of so many folders but I had a good time doing it and everything seemed to be going fine. I secretly think I did a good job (if not I do not think they would ask me to help them out with the next event coming up!)

Small company, big goals!

Hi fellow PR393 bloggers!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q. Why did you choose journalism and PR?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I’ve been up to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next week!

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

Martine xxx

http://32dsg.com/

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

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