On Location; interacting with the public and clients

With a 6am city start, you'd think I'd feel exhausted - but I feel exhilarated!

Today was the first time I was on-location for an event with Event and Conference Co.. Their client, the notoriously delicious Miami Bake House, is opening another store on Forrest Highway and wanted some momentum and media attention. Event and Conference Co. have created KangaArt; Unique Art you're bound to love. A campaign where local WA artists paint 20 life-size fibreglass kangaroos, which will be installed along the highway as bright and colourful icons bounding along the road, straight to the new Miami Bake House.

This morning, I met with Event and Conference Co. at 6am in Enex 100 building to help run the event. 12 of the artists would paint the kangaroos in the middle of Enex 100, so pedestrians could watch the roos 'come to life'.

While on location my tasks were:

1. Assist artists, refill water jars for them, make sure they have everything they need. Be nice and helpful! Get to know them, show an interest in what they are doing so you can in turn share with interested guests.

2. Man the desk, speak to people who show interest, manage the competition (people can enter on the ipad provided) and give flyers to anyone who approaches the desk. No need to approach people, this is not allowed. Only if they come to you.

3. Whereby press/media arrives and Rebecca or Adriana are not around, call us.

4.Ensure any paint spillage is cleaned up immediately. 

5. Be an ambassador for KangaART and Miami Bakehouse (check out the facebook pages, know all there is to know about both brands).

6. Ensure the site is safe at all times, remove trip hazards and contact Rebecca or Adriana if you are unsure about any potential hazards or if any issues arise.

7. Contact Rebecca if the artists don’t show.

I had a great day and I really enjoyed interacting with the artists and learning about their work. It was interesting to watch the progression of the kangaroos from plain white fibreglass to colourful, eye-catching and unique pieces of art.

How do you feel about event work? Do you prefer in-house work?

Big-ups for social media vigilance!

 Two major elements when deciding on public relations activities are determining the objective and the message being sent out. But, before a public relations practitioner can do these, he/she has to have a good grasp of the company. After doing that, that practitioner can then tailor the message to the intended audiences. 

 

The environmental company I work for has a message to convey and summed up in two words, it is ‘go green’. I now understand the company and have embraced the values. I realised that understanding concepts regarding the industry in which this company operates became very simple upon being interested in the cause. This simply goes to show the importance for public relations practitioners to identify with at least some of the values of a company for them to be inspired to contribute to the success of that company.  

One of things I highly respect the company I work for is their dedication to the solar education and information online subsidiary Solar-e and its social media platforms, being Twitter and Facebook. Most of the updates are of interesting articles regarding solar power and energy efficiency. The Facebook and Twitter site is under consistent vigilance.

I hope some of you follow and like those pages if you are interested in renewable energy and would like to know more about it.

 

I wish I could say the same for the websites but that is sadly not the case. In fact, not all subsidiaries have websites. Even the webpage of the enterprise is not updated as regularly as it should be. 

This is all going to change because after talking to my supervisor about it, he agreed that there needs to be some changes to the websites. He said that I should work on that after doing the tasks I have already been given. I think this is a great honour as websites are ports of calls nowadays as that is most convenient. In order to come up with great ideas for the website, I will read some public relations articles about social media, have a look at other environmental companies’ websites and finally make notes about some of the necessary changes to the website.

#2: Days at Miri City Council

Hi all,

Today, I am going to update you guys on the roles of PR department in Miri City Council and my daily routine at the department.

Basically, the PR department has five main functions in Miri City Council:

1. Managing the complaints from the public

- The department receives complaints, requests and suggestions from the public everyday. The complaints can be about the problem of stray dogs, blocked drains, uncollected rubbish, unlicensed hawkers, public nuisances and any other issues that might influence the cleanliness and image of Miri. PR department will then make copies of the complaint and send a copy to relevant departments to solve the problems arise.

2. Organising public relations events

- In order to achieve Miri City Council's vision of becoming a green resort city, MCC has held several campaigns such as "Say No to Plastic Bags" and "Say No to Styrofoam" and events such as "Miri International Jazz Festival" with the aim to promote harmonies relationship between the Council and the commu nity through interactive activities.

3. Publishing

The Public Relations prepares press statement for media outlets in order to grab attention of the public on the importance announcements made by the Miri City Council. Moreover, press statement is prepared if there is any big events such as the Miri International Jazz Festival to create awareness as well. Moreover, the department is in charge of publishing the news magazine, Berita Seahorse too. It is published irregularly and for internal circulation only. The content includes announcements, big happenings organized by MCC, message from Mayor as well as some interesting information.
4. Secretarial
- The Public Relations Department functions as secretary for Counsellor Meeting by following the guidelines which have been set up in the Public Relations’ Procedures Manual. The public relations officer will have to prepare relevant information for the meeting as well as record the meeting minutes and send it out to the Counsellors for references.
5. Information resource centre
- The department is responsible for keeping records of information relevant to the MCC as well. The public relations officers will read through the newspapers everyday to see if there are any complaints, suggestions and requests made by the public in areas which the MCC is liable to be in charge of. If there is any news related, the officers will cut down the piece of news for references and records. Additionally, announcement or news about what has been done by MCC which is published in the newspaper is important as well as it helps MCC to keep a record on the happenings.
Furthermore, the department also keeps a record of the complaints made by the community so that the officers can refer back to the records when citizens call in to follow up with their requests.

Everyday, I started my day by recording the complaints made by the community into the complaint forms. Then, the complaints is categorized to see which department or section in Miri City Council is liable to be in charge to solve the complaints.

Besides, I also helped to do numbering and filing. By marking numbers at every piece of papers and write down the particular at the front page, it helps the officers to refer back to the papers effectively and efficiently.

Furthermore, I have also managed to help my supervisor to draft two press statement during my days at MCC. I have to say I felt really nervous when I received the request to draft the press statement as this is the first time I applied what I have learnt in PR units previously into the real life. I am glad to have learnt how to write media release and the tips in writing a good media release as it has helped me in drafting the press statement. 

My work pile

In the 22-days of attachment with MCC, I have learnt the importance of managing a good relationship with the stakeholders in an organisation. For example, MCC has received a great amount of complaints regarding to the uncollected rubbish in August. If the issue is not solved, the community's anger will rise to a higher level and this will cause bad wording about MCC that ruins the reputation of MCC. To solve the problem of uncollected rubbish, MCC will have to follow up with its contractors and push them in order to be extra careful as not to left out any rubbish bin uncollected. If a good relationship is built among MCC and its contractors, I think it will help MCC in better managing the rubbish issue as the contractors will feel more attached to their client and might find a way to solve off the problem in shortest period.

In next post, I will be talking about two monthly activities I have participated, with more photos~!

Stay tune!

Best regards,
Keekee

I'm on a roll..

Hello lucky ducks, I'm back again...here's my second post...no photos this time though, sorry..

As part of the Liberal Party Electorate training I attended two days’ worth of seminars this week relating to the running of an electorate office. The first day was based around media, with three seminars; ‘communications planning’, ‘local and national media relations’ and ‘digital and e-campaigning’. It was interesting to see the PR practices and tools I’ve learnt through uni be applied specifically to the political world. The first seminar was all about building communication plans, so I had a pretty solid background knowledge on the subject, but it was still good to learn it from a political point of view.

The second day’s morning seminar- ‘fundraising and events management’ was by far the most enjoyable. It was run by the Head of National Training and Operations Adviser from the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. She had so many campaigning stories and it was fascinating to see how a campaign works from the inside.

Her main mantra for fundraising and campaigning is “what’s in it for them, not what’s in it for you”. People aren’t going to want to donate money to your cause if there is nothing in it for them. Changing “can you please donate some money so I can be re-elected” to “I need your help to get re-elected so I can continue to fight against/for (insert local issue here)” (or a more, somewhat aggressive approach which can also be extremely effective in some cases… “I need your help to get rid of Julia Gillard”, “I need your help to get rid of the carbon tax” etc. etc.). Getting rid of the carbon tax is a good example of how this kind of things work; Giving away money isn’t something companies generally like to do (the purpose is to make it, not give it away!) but if an MP was to approach a mining company, or even a small business, in their electorate, and explained to them their need for support in running a campaign to get re-elected and get rid of the carbon tax, it is in their best interest to help them out. Even if they can’t supply them with money, they may be able to provide goods or services. It’s the kind of mantra that can be used for anything, really.

Relating it back to PR-(uni student cap back on) a perfect example of this working is the relationship between journalist and PR professional- if you as the PR professional provide the journalist with fantastic quotes, an exclusive and a local angle then the journalist is likely to want to turn up and print your story. They get a good local story and you get your boss/company in the paper. Good deal.

I can’t tell you everything about my training days as some of you may be Labor party enthusiasts and I can’t go around giving out all the good ideas!! I want to keep my job!! Haha

Niki Comparti

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Curtin Bentley campus

Where's my time going?

So now that I'm in my second last week here at OPR, getting tasks done and the like, I'm looking at my calendar wondering where all my time is going! Starting out here at the beginning of February and studying my diary, it felt like I would be here forever, but now that deadlines are looming in front of me, I'm feeling slightly perturbed.



So, working away on all my tasks, and one of my major lessons is how important planning is in this environment! Everything should have deadlines, be it semi-drafts, emails to people, approvals by other team members - everything has to be written down and followed. Such a learning curve for me, I don't know about the rest of you but at uni I'm generally just a cruisy person who does things when they crop up, and certainly not planning things so judiciously. It certainly does make me appreciate uni and the easy lifestyle I have going for me right now.



The scale of the Oakajee project can be difficult for some to comprehend, considering the size of Australia to begin with. I've popped in a picture outline just how big the rail line is going to be, and what it's going to connect to.







The rail line itself is going to 570km long, going through a lot of semi-desert, and will be getting a lot of trucks off the mid-west roads. This is a major safety point, as a substantially large number of trucks are on unsealed roads at the moment, and can lead to unsafe circumstances. This incident happened only recently, and with the rail being implemented in the near future, we hope to eliminate this sad affair from happening in the midwest.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/perth-truckie-dies-after-desert-trek-in-west-australian-outback/story-e6frg6nf-1225993915150



Anyway, I'm writing this just before we have our weekly PR Comm Team Meeting, so I guess this is the point where I sign off and say "Adios Amigos"!