Out with the Old, in with the New

[Due to unforeseen circumstances, the following blog post has been published in hindsight and was originally written for publication on Friday 18th October 2013]

Hello, all!

I hope your placements are going smoothly. I see some of you have already finished -- congratulations! I can just about see the end of my placement over the horizon.

In today's day and age, social media has taken the world by storm. Blogs like Marcia's have been cropping up left, right and centre, and are vital for many industries as means to get information out that traditional news platforms might not cover. Over the last few shifts with Marcia, we've been doing a lot of brainstorming and thinking about where we want her blog Style Voyeur to go. The blog industry is a tricky one, and while blogging is fun for the most part, it is also incredibly time consuming, and time is an important resource if you're earning your income elsewhere. When I first saw Marcia at the Women In Media panel discussion earlier this year (as mentioned in my first post), she brought up some of the challenges she faces in regards to blogging for Style Voyeur:

• Sleepless nights -- this was her biggest frustration with blogging, and it is just part of the bigger picture: the need for newsworthiness. Certain events need to be blogged about the day they happen, otherwise others beat you to it and you lose newsworthiness. Blogs are often competing with each other for the best coverage, and while certain events or issues naturally garner lots of coverage, blogs will have better leverage if they are the first to get their stories out. As such, and especially during busy periods in the industry, bloggers will find themselves losing sleep over how much needs to be covered, photographed, written, interviewed, researched, and finally published. While this is done all the time in newsrooms around the world, we often forget that blogs are...
• One man bands: Marcia highlighted this as a blessing in theory, but a nightmare in reality. She, and many other blogs owned by just one person, are constantly competing with large media corporations, who can have multiple people working on a story and all the resources and talents available to them. While it is great to have all the power in making executive decisions, hiring extra hands is difficult because:
• Marcia's voice (style of coverage), expertise and taste in visuals is difficult to teach
• Her blog is not her main source of income (in fact, it's not even a source of income), and therefore it will not sustain employing additional team members
• Blogging is much more time consuming than it looks, particularly when they contain multimedia and quotes from interviewees. It can and sometimes is as credible and thorough as the news stories you may find in traditional media platforms. This ties into the two issues stated above.
• It is not commercially viable: Marcia earns no money off Style Voyeur, and given the time, effort and resources that go into maintaining the blog, it is soon coming clear that the outcome of having a successful, competitive blog that supports her career as a stylist and vice versa is difficult to sustain. 

After lots of brainstorming and discussion, we came to the conclusion that Marcia's biggest obstacle with Style Voyeur was the fact that it was not commercially feasible. If it were, many of the struggles she's facing maintaining it would not exist. Oh, the things one can do with money! We decided it was time for her to reinvent the wheel, so we then came up with a long-term strategy to turn Style Voyeur into a commercially viable business, which I'll be sure to delve into in my report.

After all the research I've been doing into the landscape of blogging, it got me thinking about how much the internet has changed the environment brands and businesses operate in. Everything in this day and age is evolving too fast to keep track of, and in the case of blogging, there will come a time where it isn't enough to just keep up -- bloggers have to try even harder to stay ahead of the game so they don't get left behind. This concept can be adopted into many industries I imagine, especially ones as innovative as media or the arts. As digital natives and current graduates, there hasn't been a crazier, more ever-evolving time to be out in the workforce than right now.

I hope you're all enjoying your placements so far,

Nicole

Placements come in all shapes and sizes...

[Due to unforeseen circumstances, the following blog post has been published in hindsight and was originally written for publication on Tuesday 3rd September 2013]

Hello everyone!

After what felt like a long and excruciating search for a PR placement, I'm glad to announce that I've finally found one – and it was hiding right under my nose this entire time!

Earlier this year, I attended a lecture entitled Women in Media: The Future of Journalism held here at Curtin University. The event featured a panel of three who knew the current climate of journalism in Australia better than most in regards to the ever-growing popularity of social media. The panel included the Sunday Times Chief of Staff Anthony DeCeglie, health and medicine online journalist Melissa Sweet, and Style Voyeur blogger Marcia Ball. The talk itself was incredibly interesting and thought provoking, and made me wonder about my future career prospects as a Journalism and Public Relations  student. Of the three panelists, Marcia Ball interested me the most for a number of reasons – we both stumbled into an interest in fashion in a similar way (through the wonders of the internet during our pre-teenaged years), and like I am now, she was once a Public Relations student (here at Curtin, too!) who worried about finding a PR job after she'd graduated. It was comforting to know she had found her way in the industry by herself, and was now happily working in multiple jobs doing what she loved, which just happened to be a combination of PR, journalism, fashion and more.

After the event, I decided I would approach her for an PR internship but never got around to doing so as I was in a rush to leave. As luck would have it, she posted a call-out for a business intern on her Facebook page, which my friend and fellow PR Internship 393 coursemate Jessica Cummins forwarded onto me. One very cheeky email (which she tells me she loved) later, and I was 'hired' on the spot and happily undergoing an internship with Marcia. A number of months later, however, the internship had all but died off due to my rigorous workload and exams from last semester, and Marcia's involvement with several productions and films, and I had almost forgotten about it entirely.

Last week, just before the census date, I had frantically called our placement coordinator Ali about my inability to find a placement and was just about ready to give up and try again next semester when I remembered about this business internship. Talking it through with Ali made me realise that what I had done with Marcia in my previous internship was very PR-driven and that it would not only be the perfect internship for me, but it would be great to continue the work cycle I had already gotten used to.

As a Journalism and Public Relations student, I've often struggled to find a good balance between the two. I've had lots of experience writing for a number of publications, but found I never really had the chance to delve into the world of PR other than what we do at university. My biggest concern with this internship is that I won't be working in a hugely PR-driven environment like many of you are right now, and that it would maybe diminish my experience and result in me learning a lot less about the industry. In addition to this, I must be one of the very few people in the history of this unit who is working for one person, rather than one corporation or an organisation. However, Ali has assured me that Marcia was once a student who had also undertaken this unit and would be "on the Ball" ("No pun intended!" Ali had said over the phone) in making sure I would have the appropriate experience needed.

Today was my first day back with Marcia, and it was great to be back in her home office once again. We had a long chat about what I wanted out of this internship (and also what this unit wanted, of course), and discussed both of our expectations regarding my role and where we would like to be once my 20 days is completed. While it feels just like old times, I know there is a lot ahead of us and lots more to do this time around. Perth Fashion Festival is around the corner, and as one of Marcia's many jobs includes being Production Manager for local fashion label Jaime Lee, this would be a big time for us and everyone else in the industry. There is much to do for the upcoming fashion show, the live campaign shoot and the live designer Q&A – so I'd better get off and get started! I'll keep you posted, and I look forward to reading about your placement experiences.

Nicole