Party Time!

Im sure there are plenty of us PR students that hold the idealistic view of Samantha from Sex in the City as the glamourous and supreme role of PR... why not its all celebrities and parties!? The very wise Nigel announced that this portrayal was a far cry from the realty in my very first PR lecture. As humorous as it seemed at the time, the reality of this has just started to resonate with me now that I ‘am coordinating my very own event.

Its hard work, there are so many factors and elements that come together to constitute an ‘event’ and still there is always more to consider! Working with the weenie budget of a not-for-profit organisation does also present some added challenges. All I can say is timelines and deadlines... 

Needless to say the biggest challenge is actually selling tickets! Working for suicide prevention and awareness of depression is something people love to back but it some how lacks the association of an incredibly fun and extraordinary cocktail party...I guess thats where PR really comes into play. 

Event coordination is the more exciting and interesting side of Public Relations; Lets hope I can do a decent job of it, stay tuned to see how the event actually goes! 

Madi 

The end..

Well, it's the end of semester. For most of us our final report is due tomorrow (and considering that, I have left my final blog a little late but I still feel daunted by blogging!) and it will be the end of uni for many of us.

It's been a huge semester. Like many of you, I had to juggle 5 full time weeks of work experience along with trying to keep up with my other units at uni and find time to fit in my normal job so I would get paid! It has definitely been hard but also worth it.

The five weeks that I spent at PPR were incredible. I learnt so much and finally have some realistic ideas about what to expect when i enter the 'real world'. I also have developed some confidence in myself to implement the skills that I have gained throughout my time at university.

The most enjoyable part of my work placement was probably the work i did for Perth Fashion Festival - I found it to be both interesting and challenging while helping me to developed new and existing pr skills. Looking back, the other highlight of my time at PPR was the people. I came to have some quite good relationships with a number of the staff members and after finishing my placement I actually missed seeing these people every day!

The idea of work experience terrified me at the beginning of semester but now I know how important and beneficial it is for all of us to gain real experience and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to do so at such a great consultancy with such great people :)

Good luck to everyone in completing your reports and best of luck for the future!

- Samantha

My first media release!

In my fourth week at PPR Perth Fashion Festival (PFF) was just around the corner and taking over the MarComms department of the consultancy. I was asked to write up day-by-day media releases for the festival that would be sent to media outlets for each day of the festival. These releases outlined the highlights from the previous day along with the most highly anticipated events of the coming day. I found this to be great experience in learning to write short, punchy media releases that contained only the necessary information.

As well as day-by-day media releases, I was also asked to write up a media release putting the focus upon the Kids Fashion events in the festival. The idea behind it was to promote the variety of events at this years festival to attract people from all demographics. After some researching and a fair bit of editing I was happy with my draft and sent it off for approval by a consultant. She came back to me later with very few minor changes which I made before having it approved by the MarComms Group Director who then sent it off to PFF and relevant designers for final approval.
The most exciting day of my work placement came a few days later when I got the feedback from the designer who loved the release and found out that it had been published on The West Online in the Life + Style section titled 'Kid's fashion ready for Perth festival'! (See link below) I know how many media releases I've done at uni but it was a really good feeling, and kind of surreal, to have a real media release published.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/lifestyle/a/-/fashion/7863168/kids-fashion-ready-for-perth-festival/

Still on PFF, I also learnt a bit about media accreditation applications and approvals for events. This is something that I had never heard of or learnt about at uni so it was good to learn about something new that would be beneficial in the future.

That week I was also asked if I would like to stay for an extra week, making my placement five weeks instead of four. The idea of another missed week of uni was really daunting but PPR were happy to work around my uni schedule and it was too good an opportunity to turn down! I was also really enjoying my time at PPR and was really grateful for the chance to spend an extra week there :)

Research, databases and mail outs...

If there is one thing that uni didn't prepare me for, it is the amount of research that goes in to a PR consultancy! I mean, if I had given it some thought I would have realised that everything in PR needs research. It was just that doing PR in uni, you have to research for assignments etc., but that's normal for uni and I didn't really think of it as how the job would be.
I learnt at the very start of my placement - there is always more research to be done! It makes sense, as PR professionals we need to know as much detail as possible about anything that will have an impact upon our clients or our own activities. We need to cover all bases and this takes a lot of time and a lot of searching for information. Not that all of my placement was spent researching, but it seems to work its way in to the majority of tasks!

Another thing I have learnt is that there is always information, databases, contact lists etc. to be updated and maintained! Again, this is not something I used to think of when I thought of the public relations profession - but, of course, it is something that must be done!

Finally, I now understand the kinda of time, effort and resources that a public relations consultancy puts in to mail outs. During my third week of my placement we had to do two mail outs for a particular client. When I was first asked to be involved I had no idea what really went in to it. After composing, checking, editing, approving and printing the letters and their attachments, we folded, packed, sealed and labelled hundreds of letters. The next day, myself and one of the senior consultants spent the morning in Rivervale dropping each letter off. That afternoon we drove to Craigie and spent a few hours there doing the same thing. I actually quite enjoyed doing this, just to change the routine a little, but it just wasn't something I thought a PR consultancy would do! I expected the letters to be sent via regular mail or courier but the consultancy physically drops off each letter so as they can assure the client that it has been done.

I know it sounds like I've used this blog to complain about things that bored me, but that isn't the case at all. I'm just using this opportunity to share some of the tasks that weren't what I came to expect from my time at uni. These tasks - although they sound like the mundane, boring ones - helped me to understand how a consultancy does operate in the real world and I'm grateful to have had to opportunity to learn about the little things that make the big things happen :)

My first week.. Just a little bit late!

I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to undertake my work experience placement at Professional Public Relations (PPR) in Perth. My placement started early August but I, like many others it seems, have only just begun blogging because I have been so daunted by the idea of it! So, now that I have finally decided I NEED to get on top of blogging it seems best to start from the beginning!


My first day at PPR started as you would expect. I was given a bit of a tour and introduced to the staff who were all very friendly and welcoming! After this I spent a few hours at reception where I learnt a lot about how PPR operates on a day to day basis. I also learnt how PPR do their media clippings for clients, and that with Perth Fashion Festival only a few weeks away there would be A LOT of clippings to do (which turned out to be very true).
My first task for a consultant was to make phone calls on behalf of client - something I actually found quite scary to start with as I have never really had to make professional phone calls!
The rest of my first placement week was full of researching, drafting emails, media evaluations, liaising with contacts on behalf of clients, and much more!

Even though it was only my first week, I really felt like I was learning a lot and gaining fantastic knowledge on how public relations consultancies operate in the 'real world'. I left my first week feeling incredibly tired but looking forward to finding out what the next week of my placement would bring :)