In Malaysia where I am interning, outside it is hot and humid most of the time. Inside however, especially at GO Communications where I intern, it is so cold! There is no in between. Week one was both exciting and eye-opening. I knew that completing my internship in Malaysia would be both culturally insightful and equally challenging with a differing media landscape, varying communication techniques and a very different political landscape. One key question on Monday morning was, what is appropriate to wear in Malaysia? As I knew it was a primarily Muslim country, I was unsure of the expected attire or how “corporate” I should dress. When I first reached the office, I felt much more relaxed and saw there is a huge variety in dress from pencil skirts and heels to short summery dresses and sandals.
My first task on Monday morning was to follow up with media for the upcoming Ghostbusters attraction launch and Malaysian film premiere at Sunway Lagoon. This was very challenging at first, I couldn’t say anyone’s name right! From ‘Mohd Fazli Zainul Abidin’ to ‘Noor Ateeqah Mohamad Yusop’, I knew my pronunciation was way off. Furthermore, with the Hari Raya holidays just hours away, most of my calls went unanswered as workers were already sitting back with their feet up somewhere else.
Completing
this task taught me to “build a thick skin” and accept a large amount of
rejection. Many people hung up on me, just because I have a foreign accent,
others declined the event invitation, and many media contacts were no longer
working in the field. After at least 30 phone calls, I had only one acceptance.
However, I endured until I reached the end of the media list and definitely had
the feeling of accomplishment. The calls did not
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| The office |
stop there however, on my
second day I followed up a press release for a Sunway’s Lost World of Tambun
CSR initiative to ensure the release had been received and to find out if it
will be covered. Following up press releases and invitations was a new concept
to me, as I was not aware that public relations practitioners did this so
thoroughly, however this may be a cultural difference in Malaysian PR practice.
This makes me question how much I know about a day in the life of a PR practitioner,
and realise there is so much more knowledge to be gained. I will definitely be
asking this in class next semester!
I also
experienced my first team meeting early in week one. Although we are based in
Malaysia, I soon found out not even one person in my team is Malaysian! Nevertheless,
it was interesting to hear about all of our clients, in particular the upcoming
Ghostbusters event at Sunway Lagoon and Jr. NBA also with upcoming events. Furthermore,
I learned from attending the meeting that many of the clients at GO
Communications have a ‘CARE’
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| View from the office window |
campaign of some sort, their Corporate Social
Responsibility initiative. This is valued highly by Malaysian corporate
businesses and is commonplace, and although many Australian companies have
their own CSR campaigns, I definitely hear about them less.
As my
week continued, I was soon taking on media monitoring as well. This consisted
of memorising the firm’s clients and competitors, and then going through
newspapers to find anything related or relevant to this. It was particularly
interesting experiencing this side of media monitoring, as at my previous
internship the organisation paid for a third party to do this job. I spent days
at DFES sifting through our media monitoring portal, looking
for key themes in a specific search, but it had never occurred to me how much work goes into media monitoring side. It definitely makes me appreciate those who do it a lot more! Overall, there was a lot to learn and plenty to look forward to.
To read
more about interning in Malaysia and at GO Communications visit my fellow
student/traveller/roommate Mikayla’s blog.
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| My team - 'Elite' |
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