Brainstorming and moving forward.

Hello friends,

Week 3: 

In my first blog/week I got to pitch some ideas to our senior management team for our potential sporting/leisure client. In my third week our COO was collating the official pitch for our presentation to the client and asked myself and a few others to expand on the initial ideas. 

I was paired with one of the Brand Executives I hadn't yet worked with, to explain the original concepts Eva and I created, as well as discuss some of his ideas. It was a really great brainstorming session and no matter how big or small the idea, it could be bounced off of one another and potentially expanded.

It reminded me of a PR Consultancy class last year where we learnt and trialled creative brainstorming tactics; one of the tactics was to think of the craziest ideas we could to solve a global problem or issue; if ethics, money and environment were not a factor.

The tactic was designed to teach us that the craziest ideas are often the start of innovative and creative approaches. I found this worked really well for me personally, as there were less restrictions and boundaries in the creative process. I tried to apply this to my thought process when working on the pitch.

We eventually narrowed our brainstorm into a few major ideas and presented these to our COO in a power point presentation accompanied by the relevant target media for every idea.

Our COO collated our team’s ideas to present to the client. I was lucky enough to attend the official presentation, which was extremely beneficial. I had never been on the consultancy side of a professional presentation before, other than in an academic setting so it was interesting to see the delivery and communication style between my senior management team and the client.

During the meeting our client was also given the chance to express more of their wants and expectations. This was a great opportunity to see how we could adapt our thought process and original pitch to create a successful PR plan (if hired).

Well, until next time. 

Hannah 

Will you sink of swim?

Hi everyone!

I am in my final semester of my Management and Public Relations degree at Curtin University and I am currently in my sixth week of my PR internship at St John of God Murdoch Hospital (SJOGMH). This blog post is concentrating on everything I have done from the first till the third week of my internship and boy have I learnt a lot in a short period of time.

The first challenge I faced during this unit started way before I took my first steps into the PR and Community Relations department of SJOGMH, and that was finding a placement. I'm not going to lie, finding a placement wasn't my cup of tea. The idea of cold-calling an organisation in the hopes of scoring a twenty day internship terrified me and three weeks until the start of semester I knew I had to get my butt into gear and just do it!

After a week of procrastination and researching various organisations I finally made the call to SJOG and I'm glad I did, as they said I could definitely do a placement in their PR and Marketing team at their Murdoch campus on the days I was free (I work 30 hours already). In all honesty the last six weeks have flown by and I don't think I could have selected a better organisation to intern for.

For those who don't know, SJOG hospitals are private, non-profit and located throughout Australia and New Zealand. SJOG appealed to me as an organization as they were non-profit and I always wanted a career in health care.

But enough about that and let's get down to how my first three weeks went.

The first week of my internship was the sink or swim period, and to say I was thrown into the deep end would be an understatement. My first day was centered on looking at all their publications, social media, community relations and events archives so I would have a feel for what the PR and Community Relations team does at SJOGMH. Then on the second day my first assignment was to interview two caregivers; a doctor and the Arts Program manager, and write up two separate pieces by the following week to be published in the SJOGMH quarterly newsletter "The Murdoch Messenger"

My boss, Roshan, asked me if I was comfortable jumping straight into the interviews solo and I jumped at the opportunity to shine. So, armed with a trusty tape recorder in my hand I set off to prove I could conduct a successful interview (I mean we all did them in PR 250 Media right?) and come up with a story with an angle that the public would be interested in, boy did that backfire at first.

I went into the first interview completely unprepared and it took only three minutes. I knew as soon as I was walking back I had screwed up by not preparing my questions beforehand. We were taught during PR 250 Media that preparation is the key when it comes to interviews, both as an interviewer and as an interviewee. I was not making that mistake again!

Heading into my second interview I still had my trusty tape recorder, but I was also armed with a sheet of questions that I had prepared which would hopefully start the ball rolling, and it did. I was more confident and I found I was able to probe deeper and get more relevant answers. Seems that in this instance what I had learnt at uni had paid off going into my internship.

The second week consisted of more interviews with more people, and more pieces to boot! Again, preparation was the key to my success and the key to being relaxed and confident. Up until this point I had received really positive feedback from Roshan on my writing though it did require editing before submission. The confidence boost I received from this feedback was exactly what I needed as I remember feeling extremely nervous after I had sent off my first piece to Roshan for approval in case it wasn't up to the standard of a university graduate.

One thing I have realised is I am now learning how to push out pieces and media releases in less than two hours, sometimes even in less than an hour. This is a huge turnaround from when I was at uni and writing up media releases for assignments would take me days. Roshan told me "limits and caveats breed creativity and force you to rely on your instincts" and I am starting to see how true this is.

My third week was not as hectic and I spent most of my time researching the use of social media in health care. SJOGMH has a social media plan and is active on Facebook and Twitter but want to better utilise various social media outlets to boost their profile as the leading private hospital in Western Australia. Roshan stressed to me that social media is not just about pushing information out, but making it relevant to the target audience and stakeholders. They want their stakeholders to engage with them as a brand and this requires using various channels more effectively.

So as you can see, my first three weeks were full on sink or swim moments but I am happy to say I have loved every moment of it so far, and I'll keep you posted on what is happening in the next few weeks.

(If you want to see some of my work, follow this link http://www.sjog.org.au/pdf/Murdoch_MM%20Autumn_2013_FINAL.pdf. I wrote the 'Caregiver of the Year' piece on page 3 and co-wrote 'The Art of Good Health' on page 4.

Until next time!

 

Newbie In The Workplace

Public relations internship is definitely an essential path in helping students to land lucrative positions in the field. It provides us opportunities to be involved in the decision-making process rather than just theoretical learning, more importantly it allows us to get a vital experience in the real world working environment. 

The role of being an intern-assistant in Momentum Forum Events associates with many challenges which include multitasking, fast and creative thinking, stimulation and effective communications. It is so much more than being a coffee girl in the office who manages minor tasks for the boss such as arranging schedules, printing documents and getting break beverages. The variety of my daily work tasks involves the following:

·            Managing incoming email inquiries

·            Researching and sourcing potential sponsors

·            Helping to prepare sponsorship proposals

·            Liaising with venues and suppliers

·            Communicating with the media

·            Aiding in the development of media releases, radio advertisement scripts etc

·            File management and data entry

·            Producing electronic newsletters and other related documents; and sending to database contacts

·            Assisting in updating the Momentum Forum Website

·            Event assistant

Since this is my first office-type job I struggled at the beginning. I need to type faster; I was so nervous I could not spell the words; I was not sure how the email system works etc etc… Although I was so new I was picking up fast. I remember once the boss told me ‘you’ve done well today’ at the end of my shift I was really happy. I could not explain the brilliant feeling when I looked through the work tasks I had done for the day – there were big amounts of sponsorship invitation emails, contacts lists and more. 

The biggest thing I learnt during the first few shifts of my internship is that quality is definitely more than quantity – the fewer the words the better. People in the real business world are extremely BUSY; no one would have the time to read through your 40+ pages document, sometimes I wonder why us university students do it so much. The success key is to be straight to point, I have now totally comprehend why they say it’s all about quality rather than quantity. I couldn’t help it wondering if Barbara – CEO of Momentum has even read through the 29 pages media strategy plan I conducted for her two weeks back as I started my internship. I think the best way to approach strategies is to go straight into the innovative ideas and benefits; I have some ideas regarding the use of active social media event promotion, I need to think about an effective way to communicate the pitch.

Another issue I have come across with during the first days of my internship associates with professionalism and confident. I can be a very shy person in the new environment; sometimes I totally lose my confident and speak in a very soft voice. There was a time I was asked to make a phone call to confirm a corporate contact detail with one of the manager’s assistant, I spoke so quietly the person over the phone could hardly hear me even after I repeated myself numerous times, it wasn’t professional. After the phone call my boss told me that I must speak louder and be more confident. “If you don’t speak with confidence you have no value, how would people listen to you when they can’t even hear you” my boss said. She was extremely right. I need to work on my self-confident and overcome the language barriers. Barbara is also an immigrant and she has a Polish accent, but she always speaks in a strong and persuasive tone. I want to be an independent and powerful woman in the workforce like her.

The learning journey can be tough but there is so much to gain. I must challenge my limits and surpass them. 

What a Success - Article Published!

Festival De Cannes is an annual event, were all film stars come together and celebrate the world of film and present awards. The work placement I am at in London is called, Chivas Brothers and Chivas Regal is the top selling whisky brand around the world and is their major brand. Chivas Regal sponsors this Film Festival and has done for three consecutive years now. They also sponsor FilmAid which is a global not-for-profit organisation that entertains and teacher’s children through the use of film. This event took place in May, however as I started my internship in June, I was unable to attend the event but was asked by the internal communications manager at Chivas Brothers to write an article about the success of the event. I also was asked to help evaluate the event by getting feedback from the celebrities that Chivas Regal invited and took care of during the event by providing them with the red carpet experience.  For more information on Festival De Cannes take a look at this link: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html.

Here is another link: http://www.chivasbrothers.com/newsroom/news-area/news-detail.aspx?newsId=13383 . This is a Media Release written straight after the event, for you all to read, although I did not write this one it is still a good overview of how the event went.

Below is a picture taken at the Festival De Cannes in May:

FilmAid UK Chair Iliane Ogilvie Thompson, Chivas Regal Brand Director James Slack and Academy Award winning actor, Cuba Gooding Jr., celebrate FilmAid’s work in Cannes.

I was so excited to be given this opportunity to write my first real article, which will be published in an internal magazine and distributed to all employees that work at Chivas Brothers globally. For this article I had to research a lot, get in touch with a number of employees who attended the event and speak to James Slack (pictured above) about the event and Chivas Regal’s work with FilmAid. This was all necessary to avoid using incorrect information and to ensure all facts and quotes were accurate before I submitted it for publishing. I had to cross check details with my supervisor, who is the Head of PR at Chivas Brothers and once complete I proof read and also sent it to my supervisor to check over. 

Proof reading and cross checking is sooo important, I never understood it at uni when the lecturers went on about it, but now I fully understand its importance! There is nothing worse than getting told that you spelt something wrong in an important document. However I was OVER THE MOON when she gave me great positive feedback and only changed a couple of words! I then sent it off to the internal communications manager to edit and publish. She also loved my work and it is to be published in the next Salute (internal magazine) edition in August!

I have learnt a lot through the process of writing this article, one of the main points being that there is no 4 or 5 week notice to complete a task (like at uni), it is generally a weeks’ notice (if you’re lucky). I felt a little overwhelmed at first because I knew I only had a week to contact everyone that I needed and actually try to write a ‘professional’ article that will be submitted in a publication for the first time and seen by thousands of employees. Once I got my head around this, it was very fulfilling and exciting to complete, as the event was so huge and very interesting to find out how the whole red carpet process happens.

This week I also went to a creative thinking session with one of Chivas Regal’s clients John Doe, as some of the information discussed is confidential, I won’t discuss the PR and marketing concept created. However this was an all-day meeting that took place in central London at a creative thinking building called: Wallspace. The idea is to get the Chivas Regal team and PR team out of the office environment and into a room which is bright and is made for people to ‘think creatively’. This was such a great experience and I got to have some input into the upcoming PR campaign for Chivas Regal. –This was very different from anything I expected and I had never heard of such a place, but it was very cool to see.

As I mentioned in my first blog, I have also been creating documents each week which collate all the relevant weekly press cuttings which I send out to all employees to keep informed on the company news and industry.

Hope everyone else’s interns are going well- Can’t believe it will all be over so soon!

Gemma O’Hart