Budget Constraints Inflates Creativity

Hello fellow interns,

Welcome to my second blog.  In this post I will share with you my experience on my first day at Diabetes WA (DWA) and also the work that was ahead of me.  

 The day began with the initial introduction to everyone in the office.  I had a tour of the different office areas and made the rounds to meet everyone introducing myself as the intern who’s here to help out a couple of days a week. 

My supervisor and I spent some time reviewing my duties and scope of work.  Together, we went through a current DWA project of marketing a first ever Diabetes First Aid Kit.  I was told this was to be my baby. I was to market the first aid kit from start to finish through what we all know as a Communications Plan, or rather what they call a Marketing Plan – it seems to be the term more people are familiar with, so we’ll go with that!- to be implemented in the near future. 

Budgeting was more flexible than I first anticipated.  I was able to make suggestions with costs attached but the more preferred tactics were the ones that are effective and cost-free. It was quite the challenge for me, going from outlandish and creative ideas that were suggested in previous university Communications Plans to suddenly being very mindful of spending and working from within financial constraints.

The more I brainstormed, the more I was confortable in pushing boundaries to ensure my ideas were as cost efficient as possible.  I consulted the internet, community events pages and other more traditional mediums to start shaping the plan.  And there has been no previous Diabetes First Aid Kits on the market, I was tasked with creating a marketing angle. I had my work cut out for me.

After spending the afternoon reviewing DWA’s past Marketing Plans and becoming familiar with the corporate style guide, corporate language and presentation of works, I consulted my own Communications Plans just for some more inspiration. 

Until next time!

Mila

Note to Self: Keep Breathing! It's only your first day!

Hello everyone! Let me introduce myself before I go telling you my little story about my first day at my internship. My name is Cassandra Lu, but you can all call me Cassie. I’m currently in my final semester (at the start I couldn't wait for this day to come, but now I'm slightly sad to see my university life come to an end) at Curtin University. I'm currently undertaking a double major in Public Relations/ Tourism and Event Management. 

I was privileged enough to have the opportunity to complete my internship at Linc Integrated. Linc is an advertising and marketing consultancy in Perth, Linc also provide other services including public relations, web designing and other various service in relations to marketing and advertising. The company consists of around 15 to 20 employees but the PR team itself consists of Rebecca Johnston (Strategic Advisor), Lisa Barratt (Senior PR consultant) and Conrad Natoli (Public Relations Consultant).

Before I go further on, I should mention my brief history with Linc Integrated. This wasn't the first time I worked with Linc and my supervisors Rebecca and Lisa. I had first met these two lovely ladies as a student volunteer for their work on Bankwest Launch event at Raine Square in October.

Although, I had met everyone on the team, I still had the jitters. As I walked to my spot, I greeted the team and was welcomed with nothing but big grins and “Hey Cassie”. After having a quick chat, I sat at my desk and began my duties as a intern.

After 30 minutes! I finally got my computer and email ready and began my first task assigned for the day; Media monitoring! Easy peasy. Media monitoring at Linc was pretty straightforward. We would each be allocated a publication, which we would then read and take note of what was technically making “headlines” and would be relevant enough to apply to our company and clients. The document only had to be 7-10 bullet points and a sentence describing the news would be enough.

Now I was up to my second task for the day. Bec briefly explained various projects that were currently active at Linc, one of which was a online/magazine portal aimed for the baby boomer market. The portal would offer content relevant to the target market and provide accessibility by allocating it all on the site.What I had to do was find blogs that “over 50’s” would most likely resort to when wanting to source their information. Topics could include current affairs, sport, finance, travel, health & wellbeing, lifestyle, events and other related topics. Putting myself in the mindset of a baby boomer, I began researching what I personally would type into the web to source my information.

After my lunch break I was given a task as a break from all the research I had done. One thing I know for sure that i've learned from this task, was the copious amount of research needed for a client/project was essential but given the limited amount of time it can be quite daunting and difficult to meet deadlines. The amount of research needed for a project can take up so much time without knowing.

Once all that was out the way, I got to the true nitty gritty areas of Public Relations! The good ole media release writing. Given time to read the client brief and various materials related to my media release, my mind was racing with a million questions such as “OH NO WHAT DO I WRITE!” Once I had finished reading the brief and understanding what my client did and what my media release required, Bec came over noticing my nerves she smiled and told me “ Don’t stress Cassie, just think of it as writing down ideas on a paper and it will eventually come naturally”.

*15 minutes later* I was literally sitting there at my desk with nothing but mind blanks! I couldn’t even come up with a title. Not wanting to look like a fool with a blank document on her first day, I began forming random titles and random paragraphs and piling information and formatting the media release with skills I had learnt in my past PR techniques classes. Quite glad I still remembered some of those skills such as proper punctuation when quoting, the triangle of information and other important media release writing techniques especially after the long uni break we all just had.

Once I began putting my ideas and thoughts onto the pages, I had noticed I had begun to form my media release and all I had to do was put the correct formatting and added quotes as requested. Once I checked and re-read my media release I handed it back to Bec and was provided with feedback on areas of approval.

First mistake I had made, which I called a rookie mistake was keeping media release to sentences not paragraphs! After reading through my mistakes and correcting my media release I sent my final media release and Bec sent me the release she had prepared earlier. Reading the two and comparisons, I learnt a thing or two and what areas I had needed to improve on for future media release writings.  

Without even knowing, that was the end of my day. Not even realising till I was told to go home by my supervisors! Who would have known it was already 5:30pm and my first day at my internship was over. Saying bye to everyone and walking out of those doors, I realised I was in fact “home” and I had chosen the right degree despite the years of doubting. I was already looking forward to my second day!

The 1st day

In my last semester at university this semester, as a final year student, a couple weeks ago I began my journey of taking part in work experience at Communicare. Communicare is a non for profit organisation, helping the community, in different ways the organisation can.

 Walking into Communicare, for the first day of my internship, was a little daunting. Having only ever done work experiences at small organisations, i began thinking to myself, what happens if my PR skills are not up to scratch and not that great.

Walking in to the Marketing and Media office, I was met by Aimee and Cassandra my two supervisors, and they were lovely, I immediately felt as ease and comfortable i. I was shown to my desk and here is when the work began, setting up email, meeting other individuals who work at Communicare , that I would be interacting with.

The first day at Communicare, it was almost like learning PR from the basics. I was explained to about media releases, the news letter as well as the different events Communicare were involved in. I was made familiar to "Indesign" a program that the organisations uses to get their posters, newsletter etc done. I did online courses and at the end of it I was still confused on how to use it,having never used it before.

During the day, I also had to go and update the address book that Communicare had, correcting phone numbers, addresses and email addresses, since it has not been done since the 2011, making it very outdated. I did this through checking the different companies websites as well as ringing them up and making sure their details were right. This was my first Pr task and I was slightly excited to be doing something Public Relations related

Reaching the end of the day, my supervisor Aimee, informed me that she was leaving Communicare in two weeks, this was quite sad, seeing as she has been wonderful to me on my first day and supportive and along with that, during my interview she was just as lovely to have me on board.

My frist week at Communicare had been interesting and I was enjoying it and I was glad that the choice I had made to study Public Relations was  the right one.

At the end of the day, I was already looking forward to my shift at Communicare :)

First Day: Email communication

Written: 2.8.12

So today was my first day and I felt a bit under dressed  I wore a nice dress with a long coat over the top but quickly realised that all the men were in suits with ties and jackets and most of the ladies were wearing black work pants and blouses. As a result I was a bit embarrassed to take off my coat for a while so as I was getting introduced to everyone all morning I kept it on. Next week I will be wearing black work pants and a collared shirt and I think I will feel much more comfortable.

After introductions and a tour of the office my supervisor went through the project I will be working on during my placement. The majority of my internship is based around researching and suggesting a new system for the Western Australian Electoral Commission (WAEC) to use to deal with the influx of email enquiries they receive during election periods. For the 2013 State General election the Commission is expecting to receive more than 6000 emails, in addition to telephone enquiries.

Overall I felt today I learnt more about working in an office environment than I did about the actual PR work I was going to do on my placement. As I’m used to working at a primary school as my part time job I was tired and ready to o home at 3pm, only to realise that office hours are till 5pm and I still had another 2 hours of work left in the day. I think the new work hours will take a bit of time to get used to as it’s all part of the learning experience.

Sam
14756614

The 'Meet and Greet'

The 'Meet and Greet'

Not-for-profit placement 

My placement was arranged almost entirely over emails when it came time to actually front up I was scared to say the least! 

My placement is for a very small not-for-profit organisation and when I was asked to come along and meet the team during their normal weekly 'team meeting' I got really worried! My main concern was that my skills and objectives would be far off what they expected of me. Walking into the meeting I thought I had zero experience. 

However after leaving the first meeting, I was overwhelmed, I realised how much I did have to offer the organisation. The beauty of a not-for-profit is that the work is so worthwhile. You can develop a passion for their cause so quickly. Within the hour and a half’s meeting I got to know the small team, and figured out that their expectations of me were perfectly in line with my expectations granted it will be a little bit of a challenge! They are willing to help me, and are going fairly easy on me. 

I’ am completing my placement as a part time equivalent, working one day a week. However, the organisation will be hosting a big range of great events that I will be helping at over the next few months. It is daunting and I don’t know how useful I’ am going to be but its pretty exiting to start putting all this university study to good use! 

My first day!

Hi everyone!

So today was my first day of my PR placement. I'm doing my prac in the Corporate Communications department of the Public Transport Authority in East Perth.

Already I've learnt about the need to write in different styles for different internal and external publications (not that I didn't already learn so in class, but it just was reinforced!). Today I wrote several stories for Transnet (the PTA intranet), which I got to write in a relaxed and casual style, very different to the practical, informative, professional manner of media releases.

I'm looking forward to getting in to some different projects over the next month.

Good luck to everyone else starting their pracs!

Tori
Bentley

My First Day at Work

HEY PR COLLEAGUES..
My name is Esther Amogelang and I am doing pr393 Intenship.The company that I am dealing with is The Voice Newspaper so I am dealing with their public relations.First of all it was a big challenge for me working with a media company which has a little bit of public relation.My attachment was supposed to be seven weeks so the feeling of working and meeting new people and professionals for that matter scared me a lot.Then the day finally comes,4 January to start my intenship.
The first impression that I come across is waking up late because I was thinking of the working environment the whole night.
When I get to the office which was not easy because of getting lost I finally met with my supervisor who welcomed me with good hands, introduced me to other staff and direct me to my seat.
The feeling of being around a lot of people scares me a lot and the fact that they were all locked into their computers makes me even more uncomfortable.
The boss makes an announcement that we can go back home since there was nothing more to do as it was the beginning of the year.
I was happy to hear that since I was not feeling comfortable I then approached my supervisor submitted the appraisal form to him and asked about the company vision, mission, goals and objectives of which he have me the brochure to read alone.
The whole week I was not doing much more and then days  passed without me interacting with other staff.Thats marks my first day of working.

Welcomed to FACET... internship begins

FACET: Forum Advocating Cultural and Eco Tourism
www.facet.asn.au

With a double major in Tourism Management and Public Relations, I have chosen an organisation that is firstly, not for profit, secondly is tourism focused, and thirdly non-governmental. I wanted to work with an organisation that was not driven by government regulations and FACET also participates in advocacy which is an exciting part of the public relations field.

I was driven to return to university as a mature age student because of my interests in both ecotourism and cultural tourism so FACET seemed to be an obvious choice for my placement.

The first item on the agenda for my internship with FACET was to attend the Business Planning Strategy meeting with the Executive Board members of the association. It was a great privilege to be invited to this strategy meeting as the Board were creating their three year business plan for the association.

Whilst the actual meeting itself was more concerned with the wording of objectives, and seemed to be quite menial, this is an important process. Ultimately, this is what will define the business for the following three years. When it comes down to it, the words used are the words that describe the organisation.

The members of the Board represent a diverse spectrum of industry, academia and government bodies. I felt in awe of the people with which I was surrounded and their calibre of experience in the areas of both cultural and ecotourism.

As the organisation is reliant on the members acting in a volunteer capacity, and have only one paid employee, a number of sub committees were formed to allocate the workload. These were:
1. Communications and Marketing committee
2. Website committee
3. Forums committee
4. Conference committee
5. Golden Guide committee
6. Senior Executive committee

I will be working within four of these committees: communications and marketing, website, conference and forums.

The first priority I have is to create a report on how to improve the website. We are also looking for someone to assist in the development of the website in terms of design, so if anyone out there would like to help, or knows someone who has these skills, please let me know.
To check out the website: www.facet.asn.au

These are some of my ideas so far:
· Starting a blog!!!!!
· Generate all newsletters online (there seems to be some resistance to this at the moment); ·
· Creating a calendar of events. You can generate the link so that the event can be automatically uploaded to your outlook calender (which I think is fantastic!)
· Encouraging the use of online payments for events through Pay Pal

This is a very exciting to be part of the transition into the digital realm of PR and marketing for an organisation like. Being able to participate in the initial planning stages for the public relations strategy is an opportunity that I am very grateful to have.

My First Day

Whew!
Krish here, from the Bentley Campus, fresh from my first day on prac at PPR.
It was pretty good! I met my supervisor Kate, who is very chatty and nice, and put me at ease straight away. Then I was taken on a tour of the building and met loads of people whose names I don't really remember (Luckily, they all have corporate photos, and the lovely admin officer sent them to me...something to take home and study). Then we went through my induction booklet, I signed a confidentiality agreement, and we were away!
The tasks I was given today were mainly adminy ones - compiling a media database for Landcorp (development, building, environmental and local publications), finding some information out about IKEA (we are pitching to them next week) and converting a spreadsheet to the national template (a very time consuming, frustrating job!).
My colleagues are extremely friendly and helpful - mostly younger women, which I expected. I am in the open plan section of the office, which is great as I can see and talk to a lot of people and beg for more work!
Kate had warned me before I started that this is traditionally a very quiet time for PR, especially in the present economic environment. I think I'm going to have to be extremely proactive in getting work, as everyone seems to be having a quiet period and doesn't have extra work they can give to me! The upside of this is that I can just spend time in PPR's fabulous training program (they have weekly long lunches where specialists visit and present to the practitioners), or just sitting in meetings, observing whats going on.
This Friday I will hopefully be going to Mandurah to an event organised by PPR - Ronald MacDonald House is donating $250,000 to the hospital for a relax room for parents. The Minister for Health, Kim Hames, will be there, so meeting him will be exciting!
Hope everyone is enjoying their experience!
See you soon,

Krish How
Bentley Campus