Great leader's advice

Hello fellow friends, 

This week I realized it has already been my third month with the agency, and I could not believe that time flies that quickly. I was overwhelmed with thoughts and the lessons I've learnt throughout my time here. I believe having supportive superiors in my agency helped me a lot during my course of internship with them.

My boss taught us a very important lesson during the weekly meeting that we had. She never fail to remind us that communications between us and a client should always be clear, to avoid any misunderstandings. On top of that, communications between a team is just as important. In a small agency like mine, it gets pretty hectic with the different accounts that we work with and the expectations of each client differs. 

It is important that the work is delegated equally and in my case, for example, if I feel too overwhelmed with the workload, then it is my responsibility to voice out and give myself the time I need. It is also my seniors' responsibility to lighten my workload wherever they can because after all, we are a team. 

The past few weeks have been busy with preparation for event launches. It was part of our responsibility to follow up with the coverage, photos, blog posts that was garnered from the event. These are a few of the many things that they don't teach us in textbooks and I feel thankful to learn from the few people that showed me the ropes of doing it well (:

As we near the dates to my last day at the agency, I looked back and thought carefully about my career prior to graduation. This experience have definitely opened up my eyes to the real PR industry. I love the people, the events, the adrenaline rush that I get from being in PR. It's also especially helpful when you are able to click with your colleagues. It makes work a little less like work and more like play. 

I hope in the future I am able to be as good as my superiors, handling so many things at once and doing it well when they're on the job. I'm glad that at the end of these few months, I don't go back empty-handed. I have a suitcase full of lessons learnt to bring back home. 

Thank you CROWD, for welcoming me with such open arms and for all the friendship made while I was on internship. This will not be the last time that you will hear from me. (:

Cheers,

Faizah

New Challenges, New Experiences

Hi everyone. My name is Deva and I’m currently in my final semester of my Mass Communications degree. This will be my first blog post for the unit.

Last year, I completed my placement at WA Water Polo. Being a person that doesn’t really play much sport and having no prior knowledge on water polo, I figured that doing an internship with a sports organisation would present a good challenge for me. Unlike AFL or rugby, Water Polo in Australia isn’t a particularly big sport and has a smaller fan following compared to some of the others. WA Water Polo is a small not-for-profit sporting organisation that is the peak body for the sport in WA. The organisation consists of a small team of 2 full time staff, the CEO and the Competition and Development Manager. I knew that working in a small organisation would be highly challenging and a good learning experience at the same time. At WA Water Polo, a member in the committee handles the media and public relations and there is currently no dedicated communications/public relations department. As such, on occasion, the full time staffs at the organisation also handle certain aspects of communications. On my first day, I was briefed about the current communications and public relations policies and was tasked to help out and further develop certain areas within them. Tasks included carrying out basic communications needs for the organisation such as creating a Facebook page for updates to more challenging activities that involved helping to draft out a sponsorship proposal for tournaments and creating a newsletter. Besides media related tasks, I was also asked to be involved in planning and executing upcoming events for WA Water Polo. I felt that the opportunities that were presented to me at WA Water Polo covered several different aspects in public relations and communications and even areas beyond those. I also learned more about the sport itself and even got several opportunities to interact with staff members from other sporting organisations to learn and understand how they operate at a state level.  Most importantly, I learnt that despite the lack of knowledge or experience in a particular area, it is always important to have a positive learning attitude and be willing to put in as much effort as possible.

Running into sports!

Hey everyone,

As I am now nearing the end of my professional practise at PMH Foundation, I am starting to get a much better understanding for the foundation as well as the not-for-profit industry itself and how PR is a vital tool in succeeding in this challenging industry.

If there was one thing I could take away from this and find the most important trait to carry when working in a professional world, it is to create connections, relationships and networks. As the big events are soon approaching for the foundation such as the Bear By Night Ball, Melbourne Cup Luncheon and the Urban Descent, this trait is being forced into me as I observe and assist with what is going on behind the scenes. This is something I hope use a lot soon as I am in the early stages of assisting and developing a corporate sports day for the foundation. This corporate sports day is something we hope to tailor into a package and make readily available for corporate organisations to use and therefore increase the funding received for the organisation. It is an exciting package to plan as it involves a sport that I love, but I won’t disclose which one though ;)

Getting this plan off the ground though was supported through the use of current relationships between certain staff members at the foundation and certain personalities within Perth, reinforcing the notion the value of relationships and connections.

As I am only in early and research stages of this, I will have to keep you all updated on my progress and also the ending of my placement as that is soon approaching. In planning this, I hope to create some great relationships that will benefit and support me within my professional career after university!

Thanks,

Brodie!

My experience at the DSR (part 3) - more media releases! and... burritos

This is it, the final stretch.

I have just four days left in my work experience at the Department of Sport and Recreation and I don't know what I will do when it is over (other than sleep in on Mondays again).  It has been a part of my life since January and it will be strange when it is gone.   

My main focus continues to be writing media releases but this is something I enjoy and I have a lot of freedom in what I do.  I get to identify a lot of story ideas myself and choose which ones I will work on.

Here is one story I wrote recently if you are interested.

I've begun to see a bit of my work showing up in newspapers and I find it very satisfying.  Sometimes it has very little in common with my initial media release, other times it is almost the original release word for word.  The journalist side of me might frown upon that but the PR side of me is proud that I can present a media release in such a newsworthy fashion that they run it with little changes.

We have been doing a bit of work towards getting local governments more involved and sharing any positive stories they come accross.  We have had some very good story ideas submitted and some of they are quite amazing.  We hear of kids with disabilities participating in sport for the very first time, participation rates doubling in certain areas through KidSport and even the creation of entirely new leagues to cater for the increase in demand.

One of the things I worked on recently was a few templates for local governments to use so they can easily create stories of their own when they come across something interesting without having to go through the department.  It should free up a lot of time for us as we cannot possible cover every good story idea that comes in.  Not every local government has a PR team and it is nice that they can now share some of the great results we are seeing with KidSport independently.

I also sat in on a few more meetings these past few weeks and have had an opportunity to voice some of my thoughts on KidSport and our co-operation with local participating governments.


Oh and I discovered the most awesome burrito shop ever.  Sadly I discovered it too late and there isn't possible enough time to sample all the possible combinations!

Until next time,


Luke

My Experience at the DSR (Part 2) - More media releases, more coffee and an accidental runner

Hey guys,

It's been a few weeks since my last update.  Ok that is a lie, it's been more than a few weeks but it's time to fill you in on my experiences to date.

I've found myself continually drawing from my journalism studies in a lot of my work so far.  As I joined following the launch of KidSport the majority of my time has been dedicated to identifying positive stories and working on media releases to help raise awareness for the program.

In week two (aka day two) I began my first media releases about the program which were about a group of Aboriginal boys in Narrogin joining the gymnastics club for the first time with financial assistance from KidSport and a similar story about a boy who was able to join his local cricket club for the first time - something his family had not been able to afford in the past.  These stories were sent out to local media outlets in their respective areas.  For one story I was lucky enough to get an interview with via email which gave me some well thought out, clearly written quotes to use.  The second interview was a little trickier as it was over the phone.  I was able to get a couple of decent quotes jotted down but need to work on my shorthand to make the process easier in the future.  For those interested you can read my two media releases here and here

It turns out there were a ton of enquiries about the Nicky Winmar Carnival article I had written in the previous week.  The carnival received some positive press with most of the information included in my media release appearing in the articles I saw.

In weeks three and four I changed focus a little and worked on a series of media releases for the Department of Sport and Recreation's (DSR) Community Volunteer Grants program.  I completed three articles which can be seen here, here and here.

I attended my first full department meeting in week five.  This was an interesting experience as I was able to see what all the other teams were working on - PR and otherwise.  It provided an interesting overview of the department and where our small PR team fits into the overall picture.

Monday mornings are not getting any easier.  Working nights Tuesday to Saturday and then using Sunday to try and adjust my sleeping pattern in order to get up at 7am on Monday can be very hard and my morning coffee is becoming the cornerstone of my day.  Without a good morning coffee the rest of the day just crumbles!  To help with this I have invested in a proper coffee machine and am currently sitting here pumped full of caffeine and wondering how I ever drank instant coffee. Seriously, best investment EVER.

As I alluded to in the title there was also a small mishap involving accidentally doing a runner from a cafe during my lunch hour...  I had become so used to paying for food before eating it (students can't afford to go anywhere fancy enough to charge you AFTER you eat to be fair!) that I finished my meal and simply walked out, no one said a word or tried to stop me.  An hour or so later as I went to get a drink from the office vending machine I noticed that I still had cash in my wallet.  As this is an incredibly uncommon sight my mistake quickly dawned on me.  Embarrassed,  I made my way back to the restaurant and paid for my lunch.  The staff seemed shocked that I came back to pay and were very nice about it.  Luckily for me I avoided getting on any blacklists and have been able to enjoy lunch there many times since!

Until next time,

Luke

My Experience at the DSR (Part 1) - The First Media Release (and Coffee!)

Hello everyone,

It's been about six weeks (six days) since I started my internship and I figure this would be a good time to start blogging about my experience so far.

I had originally intended to do this unit in semester two of 2011 but came to the conclusion that I would be better off putting it off for the semester and starting early in the summer.  This would allow me to do it part-time (one day per week) instead of taking an extended leave from work.

I got into contact with the Department of Sport and Recreational and was excited to hear they were willing to take me on in the new year.  I quickly agreed and crossed my fingers that they would still remember when it got closer to 2012. Fortunately they did.

Fast forward to today and I find myself six weeks into my work experience and loving every minute of it - although Monday mornings aren't getting any easier after becoming used to working nights!

In this blog I will be bringing you some of the highlights of my experience to date.

Week 1 (AKA Day 1):

I knew I was going to like the place when I was offered coffee upon arrival (and liked it even more when I learned it was a daily 9.30am ritual).  Following this much needed caffeine hit I began my first day by sitting in on the weekly meeting for the PR/communications team.  It was daunting at first and a lot of it went over my head initially but as I became more informed about what the department does and some of the programs it manages it began to make a lot more sense.  I was asked where my strengths lie and was promptly given my first task upon answering that it was writing. That task was preparing my first ever real media release, no more preparing media releases for hypothetical scenarios or preparing media releases that would never actually be released - this was the real deal.

I was a little apprehensive, I hadn't actually written a media release in almost a year but I am happy to report that it all comes back to you very quickly. 

Fortunately, the release I was to write was for the Nicky Winmar Football Carnival, a sporting event for a sport I am very familiar with - AFL.  Getting to write about a sport I know and enjoy definitely made things easier and far more enjoyable when it came to writing the media release and researching some of the material. 

I found myself drawing heavily on the journalism aspect of my Mass Communication degree, in particular the semester I had spent as a sub-editor at the Western Independent. I am proud to say my supervisor (Amanda) found no errors when I sent her the story.  That isn't to say my PR studies played no role at all, they assisted me greatly when it came to the structure of the story and the distribution.  For those interested you can read the media release here.

Perhaps the hardest part when it came to my first media release was actually issuing it.  There was no real media list at my disposal so I had to create my own. To make distribution matters harder it is a story that could be of interest to media outlets all across the state. I spent quite a large chunk of time creating a mailing list of my own which should make any future media releases I do significantly easier to distribute.  We got a lot of responses to the release and generated some decent coverage in newspapers and regional TV.

Working for a government department which is primarily involved in positive initiatives and popular policy makes it much easier to do the job. I can't help feel that I was very lucky to end up in a department such as this considering how much negative publicity and public distrust or disinterest there are towards many other government departments. It is nice being able to work on promoting the initiatives the department is involved in without having to be constantly dealing with negative publicity or a crisis. That isn't to say they don't happen and to some extent they very much still do but they are much less common than the problems other departments would have to constantly deal with.

Wow, I didn't expect this first blog blog entry to drag on quite so much as it did.  For the sake of your sanity (and mine) I will stop here for now.  Keep an eye out for some of my other experiences and thoughts from these first few weeks in part two! (coming soon-ish)

Until next time,

Luke Howieson