An invaluable experience

Before I started my internship, I was positive I wanted to work in-house PR. However, after my time at Go Communications in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia I have learned some important lessons about effective public relations, and I will definitely consider working in a consultancy when I graduate. 

Some things I learned from my internship in Kuala Lumpur;

1. Team work - Throughout my degree, almost every unit has included some kind of group work. I saw first hand the benefits this could have when at the Go Communications office, where my team often brainstormed ideas at lunch or called a team meeting to discuss ideas for a client or upcoming event. The reason this worked so well, was because in these meetings everyone was given an equal say, and everyone’s ideas were considered. PR is often about engaging with a large audience, so interacting with your team - who all have different views - will help you achieve this.

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2 - Thinking outside the box - One event required my team to get creative for a Halloween-theme launch. This taught me how to bring a little fun into public relations work.

Image - Growing Up With A Disability

3 - Don’t get overprotective of your work - I had more than one idea knocked back during my internship, and this helped me view my work impartially, and edit it without restraint. I think we all get a bit overprotective of our ideas and work, especially when we put a lot of time and effort into it. But to be an effective PR practitioner, I understood sometimes it’s better to step away and try something new sometimes.

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4 - Think about how your message could be received by a range of people - I think growing up in Australia I have a relatively good idea about how people might interpret a message. For example, when watching the news, I can see a headline and predict how a number of people will respond to it. I now know I definitely took this knowledge for granted, because interning in a different country, I understand you must thoroughly research the cultural values of an audience.

5 - Take advantage of your seniors - As I learned writing my first press release, even though you've done it countless times at university, doesn't mean you know everything. Ask your supervisors any questions you have (It's better to ask too much than make the mistake). They know so much more than you do, and they can help guide you in the right direction. 

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6. Don't take tasks for granted - Not everything you're given is glamorous or a hard-hitting press release. That doesn't mean it's not equally as important, you can still take important lessons away from it. And if you do it well, it proves your commitment to the job. 

 Image - The Office, NBC

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7. Good Attitude - I can't stress enough how important it is to have a positive attitude to everything you do. This relates somewhat to the 6th point, but if you have a good attitude it will not only make the task easier, but it shows in the quality of your work. 

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And now I'm back in Perth, and it's almost time to start looking for jobs. I worked with some fantastic people at Go Communications, and I have a wide range of work to add to my portfolio. My internship has not only further honed my writing and communication skills, but it has allowed me to broaden my understanding of PR and how it relates to different countries and cultures. I would highly recommend future students to consider interning overseas. 

Whitney Slater

Curtin Bentley 

1ife Suicide Prevention Seminar

 

The focus of the seminar is taking a coordinated approach to suicide prevention; it is a networking opportunity for people from whole of corporate, government and community with a shared vision to help prevent this worthy cause. 

This is the first Momentum’s event that I have the honor to be involved in, working closely together with the other intern girls makes it an even more brilliant experience.

They say event management can be a stressful affair. It was about 8:30 in the morning we arrived the function center at the Technology Park after a long drive with irritating traffics. Everything was all over the places. There were boxes of media materials and booklets on the floor and tables that need to be sorted. The task was to put all the materials into one media kit and place them on each chair in the seminar. We somehow turned this process into a little production line, it was amazingly efficient, each person allocated one task and pass the un-finished media kit on to the next person which the last person then start placing them onto the chairs.

If you think something will go wrong, it probably will. While people were running around were busy robots someone discovered that the box of name tags is nowhere to be found. We were responsible to organize the name batches and provide to guests upon arrival. After minutes of panicking the box arrived just before the beginning of the seminar – lucky!

The most stressful task is finally done; everyone was relived and started making their ways to the coffee section. The next task is to groom guests and assist them with name batches and signing forms. There was almost like a competition between our intern girls. In fact, everyone was working so hard and trying to contribute the best performance in assisting and grooming the guests at the entrance. It was totally a war in the workforce, everyone was fighting to get more tasks – a very competitive also highly striving and power-driven environment.

There was a dilemma when everyone was busy getting themselves into the seminar. One sophisticated short-hair lady walked in which I groomed and questioned her name in order to allocate her a name batch. She told me that she was Dr. Sally Talbot and that she might not be on the list because she received a very late invitation as of the night before. I remember her. She is the shadow minister of the Disability Service, Mental Health and Child Protection – a special guest of today’s seminar. I remember sending her emails about coming into the seminar yesterday in the office. There was recently been an overtaking in the position, which the former shadow minister has been replace, the department did not inform us till the very last minute as a result we could only invite Dr. Talbot as a special guest to the seminar instead of a spokesperson. I remember how panicking the situation was and there she is standing right in front of me. Surprisingly she was not a bossy person at all, she was all friendly and nice that made me feel like I didn’t look after her the way I should. She is one of those successful and well-known people out there who just want to be treated as normal people. I admire people like that.

The rest of the seminar went extremely well and it was overall a very successful one. I could never imagine learning this much in one day’s event assistant. Thanks to the amazing team and wonderful speakers. 

Confessions Of A 'Volly'

So these first few weeks at Colosoul have absolutely flown by; I can't believe how quickly things happen at this organisation. The work place at Colosoul is such a fast paced environment, thanks to all the hard working vollies (volunteers). Already, I have helped at an event, begun planning a social media strategy, transformed a pre-existing blog and made it more current and appealing, and helped in discussions of another upcoming event. All in the life of a volly I say!

For those of you not familiar with Colosoul; it is a not-for-profit media and arts organisation which aims to support and enhance the experience of youth and to bring Perth communities together so everyone is involved. Tricia Ray is the founder of this fantastic organisation, and I believe it is thanks to her that there are so many opportunities for Perth youth to kick-start their careers by offering them first-hard experience in their industry of expertise. Not only in the area of public relations, but also from across all other areas such as fashion, graphic design, event management, music, writing, photography and many more.

What I have found in the office is a real team environnment, which contributes to the many successful projects running under the Colosoul organisation. Everyone in the office, including Tricia Ray, are unpaid and volunteering for the organisation, which really creates this non-competitive environment. Being a volunteer for Colosoul, and any other organisation, is about everyone pitching in. I learnt this at the Lights Out Arts Festival event held at The Bakery last weekend. While it was the assigned project of only a few of the Colosoul team members, a great number more attended to help out in any way they could, to ensure the event was a smooth-running success. This is important to understand for any organisation; be it not-for-profit or not, as it is about creating or maintaining a positive awareness of the brand name.

All in all; my first few days at Colosoul have run smoothly (so far!) and I am excited to getting deep into my first project assigned to me; updating and creating a social media strategy/presence for Bird On A Wire (a project underneath the Colosoul name). Updates to come in my next blog.

Signing out,
Holly Broockmann
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An end to a terrific few months

Today I completed my final day of work experience at City of Joondalup and the time has really flown by, I can’t believe it has already come to an end. It feels like the time I’ve spent here has been so brief yet so valuable in teaching me about the industry I’m about to enter in the following year.

I have left City of Joondalup with a sound knowledge of how to write goals and strategies for a public relations plan, a social media strategy, media releases and columns for City publications.

The highlights of my placement were;

-       Researching potential names for one of the City of Joondalup staff meeting rooms and having one of my own suggestions be submitted to the Mayor for consideration.

-       Researching how other local governments and businesses celebrate NAIDOC Week and making suggestions for what the City can do to increase attendance and get the Joondalup community more involved in next years events.

-       Putting years of writing media releases and advertising material into practise by writing to promote Joondalup events and the city itself for City of Joondalup publications and paid newspaper advertisements

-       Learning about the City’s social media strategies and what they are doing to develop their online presence and become more interactive.

-       Performing competitor analysis’s for the City to see how other governments brand themselves and how effective this is, to determine whether any improvements could be made to Joondalups branding to better communicate key messages to the public.

I learnt a great deal over the past months and what I learnt in the workplace I will take with me when I get my first job in public relations. This experience has given me the confidence I could never get from the classroom.

Not only did I learn a lot when I was working on my own, I also learnt that there are many days in the world of PR where things do not go according to plan! On my last day the City’s Rates Draw was being held that night, where the City gives out prizes to residents that have paid their rates ahead of time as a way to reward ratepayers and encourage people to make their payments early. This saw many of us in the office come together in a rush to ensure everything was ready for the night, right down to decorations for the venue and nametags!

It’s been a great experience and I’m a little sad to leave, but now I’m more excited than ever to begin my own journey in the world of PR! Thanks for reading everybody.

There’s no I in team, but there is a You and Me.

These past couple of weeks I’ve been working in the marketing and public relations sector of Relationships Australia’s (WA) West Leederville branch. It’s becoming more and more known to me that working in a team is a big deal. If you want your colleagues to appreciate your work and be able to complement each other in that team environment you need to be a team player and not just focus on your own work all the time.

Through seeing the hectic re-vamp of our website in accordance to the national website I was able to notice the support that is needed in the workplace for people to do their job well. While all this information on the old website was being transferred to the new one there was just so many bits and pieces that got lost and needed to be re-typed into the system again. With so much information on the Relationships Australia website imagine all the work that had to be done when some data was lost. Even though this was happening it was really encouraging to see that the marketing team pulled their time and efforts to work on the website and get all the information ready for the new website when it went live. Although there are some titles that still need to be edited and tweaked the website is up and running and looking great with its new look.

Relationships Australia (WA) Website

 Also in trying to re-vamp our website we’ve been trying to write up a few more articles that will hopefully engage more people to stay on the website and see what we’re about. My major is purely Public Relations so from to the work I’ve been given I’ve started to see the importance of having a marketing background also. Due to the fact that the sector I’m working in is more marketing than PR I’m able to gain some knowledge on the marketing side which I think will help me when I need to find a job.  Have any of you felt this too?

Hope you girls and guys have found this interesting. If you have any stories about your workplace and the team work that you’ve engaged in don’t hesitate to reply. Thank-you!

Angela

Fourth and Final Blog!

It has been a while since I last posted a blog. My placement has sadly come to an end, well at least my 20 days are up. I will however be staying on to further my experience and work on other up coming events at Lifeline WA. 

My last blog was about the hand over phase where my supervisor handed over work for me to complete and continue to work on while she was away on holiday. I am happy to say that Melissa Howie, my supervisor, was very impressed by my work and happy that the fundraising department was all "Smooth Sailing" while she was away. Little does she know myself and Natalie bird (My other supervisor) had a few hiccups but nothing that we couldn't solve. 

Lifeline's Stress Down Day has been and gone, Stress Down Day was my responsibility and the success of this event fell back on my shoulders and those of Nat's as well. I can happily say that we raised over $6,000!!!! Our budget that we were supposed to meet was only $500, we blew it out of the park! I could not have been happier. For Stress Down Day, the Lifeline WA offices had their on Stress Down Day activities. I organised a massage therapists to come in and treat the staff to a back and shoulder massage before we went out and became tin shakers for the afternoon. I had never tin shaked before and I actually didn't hate it, I wouldn't volunteer to do it again and thankfully Lifeline WA only tin shake once a year. I did hear many heartfelt stories that makes you proud to be working in the Not For Profit sector. Leading up to Stress Down Day I actually got to use my knowledge of PR and apply it to putting together a booklet to send to all Corporate partners and participating businesses to help them come up with ideas for fundraising and de-stressing activities for staff. Below are some photo's from Lifeline WA's Stress Down Day!

After Stress Down Day was over, so began the preparations for Black Diamond Supper Club! 

The Black Diamond Supper Club is the annual ball that Lifeline WA holds every year, this year would be its third year. Despite being organised and gaining fantastic PR from the West Weekend and SHEILA Magazine, ticket sales were still really low. In the end we had to arrange a meeting with the Perth convention and exhibition centre to get them to lower our minimum limit of guests so we could meet their demand and not lose money, thank fully they lowered the guest number to 450 people. We managed to fill this and the prospect of raising money was still looking good. I was in charge of gaining volunteers to help with set up and during the evening. It was a fun task, one of my tutors, Jennifer Cornwell allowed me the opportunity to speak to her second year PR students and try to get them to volunteer and gain some inside knowledge about events. It was the first time I had ever needed to speak in front of a class besides for an assignment, boy was I nervous! Luckily though, I spoke well, I even spoke slowly enough so people could understand me! I managed to get 12 students to volunteer for both the evening and the set up during the day.

With the lead up to the ball getting closer and closer Melissa put me in charge of all social media. This meant that I was responsible for Lifeline WA's Facebook and Twitter pages, it was really exciting and a great opportunity to do some actual PR!. Besides doing the Social Media I was also in charge of getting cases of wine for our wine wall, which was another fundraising idea for the ball. I never knew how hard it was to get people to donate just one case of wine, Thankfully I managed to get over 50 cases of wine, it really does come down to who you knew not what you know though! 

I was so nervous on the Friday night before the ball, I couldn't sleep. I was reading over the run sheet, volunteers info, basically every fine detail to better prepare me for the night. This was the first huge event I had ever worked on, I was so excited but also very nervous. I had actual jobs and responsibility's, I was in charge of all volunteers and making sure they all stayed on task, I was in charge of setting up the wine wall and silent auction area. Of course I had help but I was in charge, it was very exciting and rewarding. The night was a huge a success, everyone had fun, photos were taken and people danced the night away. The only truly upsetting fact about the night is that we broke even, unfortunately the generosity we had hoped for was not present and made know were near what we made last year. I did learn that this is what happens with these sorts of events, it all comes down to how people are feeling on the night.    

Below are some shots from the Ball and the PR Lifeline WA gained from the Weekend West 

The opposite image is of the Fundraising Department - Melissa Howie, Me, Natalie Bird and Exec Assistitant Gemma Scheibling - We're all dressed up in 1920's Glamour at the Black Diamond Supper Club enjoying the photo booth at the end of the night! 

The cover of the West Weekend - showcasing a four page spread about Lifeline WA's Black Diamond Supper Club! 

As the ball was my last official day for my placement, I can say I have thoroughly enjoyed my self and have also been quietly suprised by the Not for Profit industry, I never thought I would say I enjoyed working for charity but you know what I can. I will even be looking for work in Not for Profit over the next few months. I would just like to add how thankful I am to all the staff and especially the fundraising staff at Lifeline WA for allowing me to gain experience within their organisation.

Goodbye everyone! 

Karla Cavalli