This week was a busy one… We had the Sharing Healthy
Conversations event, which was organised by 32 Degrees South. The
interns (me and two other girls) were asked to scribe as people shared their
thoughts on how communication could improve between people with a disability,
carers, family and health care professionals. The results were going to be
given to the Minister for Disability Services and
the Carers Advisory
Council so it was crucial that we got down everything important that
was said.
The scribes were given an information
sheet as well as sheet with all the questions that were to be asked. Each of us
was placed with a facilitator on a table and was asked just to write down
everyone’s significant points to each question. Of course with any discussion,
the conversation veered off track and attendees ended up answering questions
that were only going to be asked later on. One thing I definitely learnt from
this event is that you cannot expect everything to go exactly to plan. We ended
up writing answers to one section instead of one question. What mattered
however was that all the information was written down and could be collated
effectively. I realised that as an event coordinator, so many things could go
wrong or go unplanned however there is usually a solution. I like to think
about it as a dancing concert where if you make a mistake you just need to
carry on because chances are the audience didn’t realise the mistake happened
in the first place. No one at the event realised that they were answering the
questions out of order.
I knew that I would be asked to write
a news article about the event for the 32dsg website and
therefore at the same time as I was scribing I was also writing down quotes
from the key speakers so that I would know exactly what to put in the article.
The event was organised so professionally. The coordination between teatime,
lunchtime and question time was perfect and the speakers were inspiring. I hope
to one day be confident enough to run an event as smoothly.
We all arrived back at the office
quite late in the day and it was quite hard to get back into work mode after
spending most of the day at an event. However, I got started on the article for
the Sharing Healthy Conversations event we had just taken part in and found it
much easier to write since I had been a part of it and seen first hand how it
was coordinated and what was said. I also got to see an event schedule, budget
and fact sheet and will be keeping them as good examples for the future. The
article has to be approved by the director of 32dsg (my supervisory) and the
quotes need to be approved by all the speakers. However, the approval of quotes
will not be hard since I was there writing them down at the event.
The social media coordinator has been
trying to get people to ‘like’ the 32 degrees south Facebook page. Together we
have been trying to update daily events on Facebook that are happening around
Perth so that people can see the companies name in constant presence on their
home pages. However it is hard to get people to fully acknowledge they have
seen the posts by ‘liking’ them. I therefore decided to send a message to most
of my 487 ‘friends’ on Facebook asking them to kindly like the 32dsg page.
Suddenly we went from 24 likes to 67 and it is still increasing daily.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to just ask, and from there you can build
your presence less pleadingly.
This week I was also asked to write a
blog about the winner of last years WApp Awards (now called oZAPPS-32dsg
client), who has just launched their Big Help Mob app
on iTunes to help mobilize volunteers around Perth. The blog is
being approved for the 32dsg website and some of the content I wrote is being
used in the oZAPPS media release.
Another thing I did this week was to
write up a news piece for the Ngala’s
participation in the Perth Baby Expo.
Since Ngala is one of 32dsgs clients this news piece will be given to Ngala and
put on their website just like the Ngala Gala
dinner piece I wrote a week ago. I also wrote a blog on the same
event for our website.
After only a few weeks of working
here I am getting a lot faster at content creation. I was able to write a news
piece in a professional journalism style and a blog in a relaxed style quickly
and confidently. I cant believe how many opportunities I have had to create
content for their website. I have been documenting everything I have been doing
and looking through my portfolio yesterday I feel so lucky to have gotten such
a great opportunity.
When there are no blog posts to be
written up or news articles I have always got the big task of trying to draw up
a PR plan for 32dsg. I am constantly updating an events calendar so they have
events to blog, Facebook and tweet about in the future as well as looking at
companies similar to 32dsg and events content for their website.
Wow what a week… I love being busy,
having lots to do. I am so lucky that there is no such thing as wasting time at
32dsg.
Next weeks week 5 out of 7 and it has
just flown by way too quickly!
I’ll be blogging here next week!
Xxx
Martine
