PR is more than just media release after media release

During the semester break I was spending three days a week interning at University Marketing and it was very busy! 

(Written on July 29, 2013)

Open Day is starting to come together but everyone is busy meeting deadlines for various elements of Open Day, the most stressful deadline for University Marketing staff has been the Open Day program.

The program is integral to Open Day as it is the document that visitors receive to find out what’s going on and where it’s happening. This year it caused a huge headache for the staff members involved, as there were so many venue clashes and staff from faculties/ departments at Curtin who were unwilling to change their plans. Asha and I later discovered that several venues would be closed on Open Day due to construction works around campus – yet another issue to consider! All of the problems with the program made me realise how important effective team work and communication are in a place like Curtin, the University Marketing staff worked extremely well together to edit the program and ensure they made it to print. Asha and I realised that there definitely needed to be an easier way of putting together the program in the initial stages, something which I'm sure will come up in the evaluation phase of the project. 

Halfway through my internship, the Fun Zone is final coming together! Asha and I have decided on a ‘Carnival’ theme for the Fun Zone. The aim is to have a Carnival Marquee with activities such as a laughing clown sideshow game, face painters, balloon twisters, a storyteller, petting zoo, free popcorn and much more! There will also be a separate craft marquee complete with a REmida carnival mask making workshop which uses materials made from recycled bits and pieces.

For an event like Open Day you have to consider so many things, including the risks involved with running such a large-scale event. Whilst I was confirming activities for the Fun Zone, I was tasked with writing up a risk assessment for each activity in the Fun Zone.  This was a time consuming task but part of my role was to ensure that we were aware of potential risks and had appropriate measures in place if any of the potential risks/ hazards were to occur. Completing the risk assessments definitely affirmed the importance of practicing ethically, something that is reiterated heavily in all public relations units. There are so many important stakeholders on campus - employees, students, potential students and their families, so ensuring that Curtin maintained a safe environment and had considered all the risks was highly important, not only for safety but to ensure we had a strategy if anything did go wrong. 

I have also learnt about paid and unpaid media strategies Curtin is using to promote Open Day. University Marketing is in charge of the paid media strategy which has focused on broadcast advertising on radio stations such as Nova and print advertisements on buses, bus stops and billboards outside the university and advertisements in newspapers. Curtin has rebranded Open Day as 'Open Day Catalyst' (i.e. a catalyst for change) so all the merchandise and print advertisements have changed from previous years. The idea of the print ads is for them to look like a festival poster, like a Big Day Out or Groovin' The Moo ad, in order to attract the attention of a younger demographic. 

A Open Day Catalyst advertisement in The Weekend West

The public relations department at Curtin works on the unpaid media side, mostly targeting local newspapers due to the 'community' feel of the event, and they achieved coverage in the Canning Times in the lead up to Open Day. We also worked with Future Students to inform high schools and students about Open Day through their newsletters and I also wrote a short piece for Curtin Wire, which is Curtin’s e-newsletter for high school students. This taught me that public relations is so much more than writing media releases – although this is an integral part to media relations there are many other ways to communicate with your key stakeholders. Coming into my internship I had (wrongly) assumed that PR mostly involved writing media releases, although I have been writing a lot my job has involved many other public relations tasks. 

During the last few weeks of my internship it was my 21^st birthday – Asha very kindly agreed to let me have the day off and also went to the effort of buying me a birthday cake and a small gift! It was a lovely pre-birthday and during my time at University Marketing Asha has made me realise that although we are working on a high pressure project, it doesn't need to be fast paced and stressful all the time. The office environment is still really warm and fun even though everyone is working hard to achieve their deadlines. 

There is no such thing as an ‘obligation free’ quote

Although Open Day is an event, I have quickly discovered that Asha’s role is definitely more project management than event management! Open Day is Curtin’s largest recruitment event and in 2012 over 17 000 prospective students and their families attended Open Day, which makes it an extremely important event in engagement of Curtin's key target market and their influencers. There is a lot of work involved in perfecting the event – branding, marketing, communications, event management, public relations - and so many staff members from different departments within Curtin come together to work on the project.

My very first task was to look over what had been done for the ‘Fun Zone’ in previous years and come up with new and exciting ideas. This involved a lot of research of what is on offer in Perth in terms of performers and entertainment. Perth has an extremely small community of entertainers and suppliers so some of our options were quite limited, which created a problem as we needed our amusements to be family friendly, weather resistant, different to what other universities use at their open days and fit in with an overall theme for the Fun Zone. We initially considered having an amusement park attraction, such as a cup and saucer ride, but there is only one supplier in Perth and they are unavailable on Open Day. Considering that this ride could not be placed under a marquee in case of rain, this idea was totally abandoned.

I have also been heavily involved in negotiating with suppliers, which has been extremely interesting. As soon as an external businesses realises you are from a university, sometimes all they see are dollar signs because they assume Curtin has endless amounts of money to spend. This can be extremely frustrating as Open Day does have budget constraints, but some suppliers would still email-stalk me even if I had told them we were unsure or would not require their services. There is no such thing as an obligation free quote! Despite this being a frustrating experience, studying public relations has taught me to always be professional when communicating with stakeholders, I had to maintain a professional line of communication with all suppliers as someone at Curtin may need to use them in the future and I needed to maintain a good reputation with all suppliers, even those we did not use on the day.   

In my first week as Open Day intern I was introduced to the amazing project management software – Trello. Trello looks a little like a Pinterest board but allows you to collaborate with co-workers to see who has completed what, you can have boards with titles such as ‘Do,’ ‘Doing,’ ‘Done’ and drag specific tasks to different boards once you are completing or have completed them. My boss and I are using it to communicate (and remember) all the tasks I have completed or need to complete.  I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in project or event management!

When you’re not looking, you will find something.

I’ll start by introducing myself  - I’m Katie and have just commenced my final semester of a Bachelor of Commerce (Public Relations) degree.  When considering places to intern I wasn’t quite sure where to start, but knew I wanted to gain experience in corporate communications. 

I had completed work experience in a boutique consultancy during my first year and felt consultancy just wasn’t for me. Whilst most of my PR peers are interested in consultancy I have to say I would definitely prefer to work in-house!

So, knowing that I wanted to gain experience in corporate comms provided me with some sort of direction.  I was starting to stress as I wanted to secure a placement over the semester break so I did not have to worry about fitting a placement around studies and work during Semester Two. 

About three quarters of the way through Semester One this year I noticed on Blackboard that University Marketing at Curtin was looking for an intern to assist with Open Day. I had not even started looking for an internship but the perfect opportunity had just surfaced so I applied straight away. Within a few days I was contacted by the Open Day Project & Brand Consultant and was asked to meet for an informal interview. 

I met with Asha, the Open Day Project & Brand Consultant, she explained the main role of the Open Day intern would be coordinating family/ children’s activities for the ‘Fun Zone,’ and helping with signage and the central volunteer briefings. 

I also work in a paid position at the Curtin Careers Centre which has taught me a few things about how to interview (alongside what I learned in PR classes!). I made sure that I dressed professionally and went over-prepared with copies of my resume and samples of my work, even though this was not requested by Asha. In the end, Asha did look at a communications strategy I had completed in my role at the Careers Centre and was impressed ideas that I had come up with. It's definitely better to be over-prepared than under-prepared. 

After the meeting Asha told me that I would hear back in a few days as to whether I had been successful or not, and right on time she emailed me to let me know she would like to have me on board as Open Day intern! This was extremely exciting as I had heard so many stories about students’ difficulty in finding a placement and I had successfully landed an internship in my preferred field on my very first try.

I am extremely excited to update you on my experience working in corporate communications and project management, I hope to learn a lot about during my time at University Marketing and I look forward to hearing about other placements that people are undertaking this semester. 

(Written on May 18, 2013)

DOMINOS

The day has finally come. Although, that wasn’t my feeling at all. You would have thought throughout the placement you would be dying for it to finish, end this misery and let me get paid please! But no, it has not been like this, I have loved every minute of it! The biggest thing throughout my placement that made me happy about coming in was the people – they are so supportive, caring and lovely. I understand a non for profit organisation sometimes has a different sense to it but I think this place has a special spark. Last week the whole of the executive surrounded me at my desk, I hadn’t notice for a few seconds and looked up startled. Lee made a joke that this is what they do every Friday – I knew otherwise. I squeezed by apple shaped stress ball they had given to me and smiled. Lee said I was very helpful and loved having me around. Then to be my surprise they gave me a small gift to say thank you. I felt honoured in a way.

The most important part of my internship has been valuing the little things in a workplace. Putting in 100% in even when it may not be that important. It seems as though everything is – it’s like dominos really, if you stuff up something minor and pass it on and then that person adds to it and passes it on and then the next person adds and passes it on, somewhere at the end of the chain there could be about 50 mistakes for the CEO who is horrified!

Dominos is a really important theme in Public Relations and Event Management I think. You are really relying on that person next to you to call that person in advance so they know what time to arrive to the location advised and to ensure they are aware of the location so the meeting or event runs smoothly *Take a breath*. This will definitely occur in every project. Considering:

1. Who what when where
2. Planning and design
3. Costs/Budget
4. Timeliness
5. Research
6. Execution
7. Monitoring
8. Crisis Management
9. Evaluation
10. Change Management

I think we all know ALL projects NEVER finish on time. I swear it took twenty years for Forest Chase to be all finished. 

Does any of you have that place near your house that always has ROAD WORKS signs. Its gastly isn’t it?

I think the morale of my placement was don’t be that road works sign sitting on that same street for twenty years. 

Perfect what you do in a timely Manner.

Thank you for all your posts ladies & gentleman

Please take the time visit Workpower's Website.

http://www.workpower.asn.au/

J.Shea

Jessica Shea

Curtin Bentley 

Job Opportunity

Hello Everyone,

Hope everyone is travelling along well at their placements.

The company I’m completing my placement with recently gave me a job opportunity and last Wednesday Rebecca Cole director of Networking WA took me out to lunch to discuss the particular roles I would be suited to in the organisation.

Firstly I’m going to discuss some of the issues presented throughout the company, and show how my new position will influence these issues becoming minimised. The structure of staff is a significant issue in the company; staff take up responsibilities and duties that are not specified in their role as there is always so much to do in the organisation, though this causes tasks to become hard to manage or forgotten about due to staff having so much on their plate their priorities become mixed up and mismanaged. The other major issue is time management, when aspects of the events or other tasks needing to be completed are left to last minute it causes stress to the staff and pressure to rush duties that need more time spent on them, this issue happens a lot in regards to events everyone in the office will be working so hard on one event that others are left to last minute and then rushed and not organised as best they should be.

As Rebecca and I both notice these issues she believed I would do a great job as project manager of the company and personal assistant to her as she believes that I am very organised and “bossy” when it comes to things needing to be done. Therefore I would be responsible for delegation of tasks to employees, making sure employees completed the tasks on time and followed up if necessary, this way things wont have been forgotten about or left to last minute and priorities will be in correct order as I will stay on top of everything. As well as this role I will also assist in the marketing and PR of events that the company organises.

In regards to the personal assistant role, I will assist Rebecca with her time management and help with correspondence to clients and customers with regards to email, telephone and meetings.

I am really looking forward to this position at the company; I will be working three days a week while finishing my uni degree.

I am also looking forward to the Fashion Icon High Tea that Networking WA is organising and the fashion festival opening launch luncheon (that Rebecca has kindly purchased a ticket for me) both events held next week during the fashion festival, both events are going to be so much fun and I look forward to sharing them with you all soon.

Tess Edwards

14262807

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)