Story of my 'PR in Writing'

Hi fellow PR interns,

This post is the first blog I’ve done so far in this unit. I do not have a habit of writing blogs, but as this is part of the grade of the PR internship, I plan to do this in four consecutive weeks (starting from today). My blogs will contain stories and thoughts I have collected and cherished in my head on my Public Relation experiences in Clubs WA – a not-for-profit organisation that associates and represent licenced clubs across the Western Australian region. <http://www.clubswa.com.au/>

I will now start into the topic with an introduction of my internship.

I first got my internship in Clubs WA, while looking for one in Gumtree.com. I got an interview, got in and one of the first jobs given to me is writing an article.

The article I had to write about is on the topic on ‘how a club can communicate and connect with their community by managing a Facebook page at a daily basis’. It is meant to be directed to club managers and would be published as part of the September bulletin. My supervisor wants the majority of the article to be emphasised on a professional business tips. So I was assigned to write and interview a business professional on pointing up the benefits of social media for clubs. I was given a week (8August to 15August) to finish it up.

After interviewing a number of club managers to support my article, I then looked for a business professional that I could interview. Coincidentally, I was helping out in my friend’s (Michelle Tran) Metier Connect’s networking event called the ‘Think-Tank Connect’, and one of the marketing mentor panellists is a Business Marketing professional. So after the Think-Tank Connect event finishes, I asked her for a very quick interview and got some answers.  The next day, I finished it and send the draft to my supervisor. I finished what I was assigned and was pretty much satisfied.

I would soon find out things were not that simple.

A week after that, my supervisor gave me back the article with lots of corrections – over paragraph forming mistakes and quote mistakes. There were also words that were not conveyed correctly; words that were too implicit; and such and so forth.

In addition to the corrections made, the quotes I got from the Marketing Professional I interviewed was not well-received by my supervisor. I would have to agree with my supervisor’s opinion; I did not find much helpful quotes, perhaps due to the rush preparation of the interview questions that produced weak quotes to my article.

It was then that my supervisor suggested the idea of interviewing a university professor in Public Relations. Liking the idea, I turn to none other than our beloved PR tutor, Jacinta Goerke. She has taught me in two classes (Corporate PR and PR Principles), and ever since, she has been one of my favourite teachers in my university years. So I made contact with her and asked if I can interview her as a business professional owner of Communicators International. With a new deadline on Monday 1 September, I was given four days (including the day I was reassigned on Friday 29 August) to fill the majority of the article with Jacinta’s quotes. I sent Jacinta an email containing a list of ten questions that she can answer over the weekend.

Jacinta is a great interviewee. Knowing the position I am in, she emailed me back with a 2,000 words document to my questions (and she did it in a night!). I was able to quote as many as I want and got them done on one whole Saturday evening until midnight. I finished it, and send it in right away on that Saturday, hoping that it would be published in the September bulletin on Monday 1 September. I got very tired that day and my restlessness did not wane for a few days afterwards.

Again, things did not go that simple as I thought it would.

It was a mix feeling of brokenness and optimism when I saw that the article I had rushed through was not in the article. My supervisor wanted it to be on the October bulletin, due to the rush of many things on the publishing day. I was given one more chance to edit my article, and besides, Jacinta wanted to check if I may have misquoted her in my article.

Jacinta is a great PR teacher. Not only has she given me her time for interview, but she also voluntarily toned up my article in a way that would enlarge her opinion on the theme of my article (social media for clubs). I was really grateful to her kindness, and she does indeed shows an immense amount of passion on the teachings and research of Public Relations. My internship experience was enriched greatly with Jacinta’s help.

So after all that, I sent in my draft and my supervisor finally received it with gladness. It has been confirmed that the article would be published on the October bulletin.

Overall, this writing experience has enriched me to the professional art of writing skills I would need to do an appropriate and professional job in my Public Relations career. The obstacles were there to challenge my skills and patience, but a true Public Relation person should indeed persevere through all the hardship. No wonder Marie-Louise in PR Consultancy class showed us the daily lives of a PR person to be pressured with hardship (especially when facing crises).

Some of the techniques I learnt from PR Techniques unit also came up in guiding my writing of an article, specifically on writing news release. Although the article I wrote does not necessarily apply with news articles writing techniques, the news release content came to mind to throttle my first words in the article. Truly, my learning experiences in Curtin has greatly prepared me for the profession of my intern job.

PR in writing is one experience I have acquired. I have more thoughts and stories to come on my experiences in Clubs WA that would hopefully share and enrich your experiences in your internships as well.

Stay tune for my next blog!

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

My journey at Therapy Focus has made me think about how much I have actually learned from my Public Relations degree.

It has also taught me about what to expect in the world of PR when working for not-for-profit organisations.



After completing my journey, I have come to the conclusion that I would like a bit more work experience in the PR field. Perhaps, trying a consultancy practice in Perth, whether boutique or medium-sized. I say this because I am still unsure whether I want to purse a career in Public Relations. I am still interested in pursuing a career in Advertising. However, this experience has helped me in so many ways, and I have learned more about my work ethics, both good and bad.

I would definitely say that my writing ability has improved immensely. I now have the confidence to communicate on a professional level that is effective, engaging and targeting the intended audience.

One thing I can take away from this experience is that marketing and public relations are very intertwined fields. Although, I already was aware of this from studying a Marketing unit in my first year at Curtin. Working at Therapy Foucs, I could physically see how the two are connected. Basically, everything is done to what is most essential to the not-for-profit organisation and not what it wants to do.


It was amazing what the communications department at Therapy Focus is able to accomplish in short periods of time and working under tight deadlines. This is something I admired the most. What kept them going was passion to help see the lives of children with a disability better.

To me PR is a valuable asset to the any organisation that cannot be seen in monetary value. Its' value may take time to be seen but will be worthwhile in the end.

My placement was a great learning curve for me, and I am thankful I was given the opportunity to intern at Therapy Focus.


Goodbye for now.


Maria
15508764

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing" - Werner von Braun

I think research was one of the first steps I did every time I was assigned a task, particularly when it came to writing. Interning at Therapy Focus, who provides therapy disability services for children, I have come across medical terms used by the therapists that I am not familiar with. Some terms I have heard before but never really understood what they meant.

One role as a communicator in Therapy Focus is being able to simplify these terms and understand them, in order to give sound advice and information in Therapy Focus Resource Booklets. All the information provided needs to be accurate and up to date. However, our department can always ask any of their friendly therapists about something they did not know. They're just a phone call or email away.

When it came time to write an article on how funding from Help A Child Grow Fund helped  a child receive much needed equipment, I first looked at the background of the child and why his family needed the equipment. Then I researched  more about the child's disability.

This process helped me gain a better understanding of the path article would likely be going.

Studying public relations, lecturers have always stated the importance of research, whether writing a media release or developing a communication plan in group assignments. I think those tasks have assisted me through my internship in more ways than one.

I guess what you  can take way from this is to "never underestimate the importance of research in public relations".



Until next time,

Maria Nabankema

15508764.

Becoming a guru in 45 minutes – adapting your research and writing skills to connect with your client’s publics.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts and as I’m sure you’re all familiar with, working in PR can mean creating a run-of-the-mill media release one second to running around town to find a unique place-setting for an event the next; the work is ever-changing and one has to adjust quickly. Essentially, you are an octopus trying to pull together your resources and knowledge to satisfy client demands in a timely and satisfactory manner. This particularly rings true when you’re trying to reach out to people on a topic you yourself are not familiar with.

I’ve found the topics and clients I write for at GO vary greatly. Being a consultancy that aims to cover all bases of PR (issues management, CSR, rebranding, events etc), the scope of our clients was understandably broad. The diversity of clients meant I had to change my writing skills to suit their company profile and stakeholders (e.g. corporate, conversational, critical etc) as well as often having to become well-versed and knowledgeable in their core competencies and the messages they wanted to communicate.

In my first major writing piece, I had to write an article about cyber-security that would be sent out to thousands of clients in an e-newsletter. The company dealt primarily with complex computer software, but periodically wanted to send out updates in laymen’s terms so their clients could stay up-to-date and the client would remain relevant in their customers’ minds. 

My supervisor asked me to have the piece researched and written, and sent back to her in an hour. Eep. Not only am I a complete noob in anything beyond Microsoft Office, I wanted to prove my worth in my first major output so I would continue to receive writing work. My mind flickers to the Albert Einstein quote:

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”

To apply this to the piece that lay in front of me, I spent the next 45 minutes researching current cyber-security threats and risks to the average user. Four years at uni and countless research assignments have taught me how to filter through the unnecessary information and how to highlight what is actually relevant to one’s needs. The foundational PR classes that really honed in on the basic tenets of writing and tried to nurture our transcribing skills also gave me a confidence boost; I could interpret my findings to suit the necessary context and power out a report in 15 minutes. N.B. I’m also convinced Malaysian Red Bull is considerably stronger!

I initially felt somewhat hypocritical giving advice to customers on a subject I am completely unfamiliar with, however I was reassured when my supervisor and the client came back happy. The basis for the recommendations were of course of upmost importance, but being able to translate the information to a language which the targeted public would understand and respond to is one of the most challenging and enjoyable doctrines of PR.

It has been a whirlwind four weeks; in between working 9+ hour days, pushing my writing and creative skills, and experiencing first-hand the ups and downs of working in a consultancy, Hannah and I also tried to squeeze in as much as we could into the rest of our Malaysia experience. Weekends were spent in Highlands clinging to dear life as we faced impending doom in a skylift (or at least that’s what it felt like), tasting the most amazing cuisines that emerged from the unification of three distinct but cohesive cultures, and hanging out in one of the coolest, culturally rich cities I’ve ever been to. 

I hope you’ve all enjoyed your internships as much as I did mine and I wish you all the best with your future endeavours.

Until next time!

Wrapping it all up – PR and charity events

Throughout my time at Cancer Support WA, I’ve been exposed to tasks to refine my skills in Public Relations, marketing and event management.

The key skills I have learnt/honed during my internship include the following:

Writing to suit the organisational house style. Since I wasn’t working in a corporate setting, I had more creative leeway and didn’t have too many restrictions on how I wrote fact sheets and media releases.

However the basic rules of correct grammar, punctuation, and structure had to be followed in order to maintain quality and professionalism in my work. I was appreciative of the honest and constructive feedback I received from the helpful staff at CSWA.

I also became familiar with the importance of networking and communication whilst in a professional setting and beyond. One of the main ways CSWA raised funds was by contacting previous event sponsors, ie: Individuals in the community, organisations and public figures across the state. From there we contacted people in their professional circle, and so our email database (of sponsors) began to grow.

This reinforced in my mind the importance of maintaining strong professional relationship with clients and stakeholders even after said business transactions are completed. You never know when their assistance (or contacts) may be needed in the future.

Today I attended an afternoon tea as part of 2014 National Volunteer week in Australia (12-18^th May). It was basically an opportunity for the team at CSWA to get better acquainted, and reinforce that sense of community that has been established in our organisation over time. It was a really enjoyable experience as it added that personal touch to the organisation, and solidified our motives for being here (ie: to support a good cause, break into the media industry).

All in all, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here at Cancer Support WA. From the moment I started I was welcomed into a professional, friendly and team oriented environment. I have not only honed my writing skills, but adapted new skills which will assist me in being an even better PR practitioner for future years to come. 

Natasha Scekic 15498315
Curtin Bentley