A unique experience and opportunity in the marketing mix

The golden opportunity to work on a client communication strategy during the placement internship stay was unique experience and allow me to view new avenues for Public Relations Tactics. The idea never really come to mind since in Mauritius Virtual Reality is still a rare thing and using it as a Tactics within a communication strategy is something that can be viewed as Revolutionary. On a Public Relations perspective a tactic using Virtual reality to promote the service or to give the client a first-hand simulated experience is an excellent way to communicate about your product or key message. This was one of the communication tactics that may be put in place after my Internship ends in a client overall strategy

FCB Cread expertises list

Another part of communication strategy was the social media communication development plan. The need to design and pre-planned events with an overall explanation of its working was a bliss when you realise the unique opportunity to make qualitative and quantitative research to enhance your strategies. 




From content marketing post, photo contest, game design creation making use of events or make used of people passion to promote the client image, the difference in margin from the learning of the university and the job is thin but this time the importance of precision and details have a higher impact. This was part of a 3 phase plan of the client communication strategy that will be run over the course of 12 months if the client approves the pitch.

The Research and development part of the communication strategy was very interesting either on the road safety campaign or the airline company campaign. Both in terms of qualitative and quantitative research or in research of thematic for the campaigns. Some of the themes that was research upon were Vision, Visibility and safety on the road, use of seat belts and child restraint and effects of road crashes. This is where research emphasis were made on high rate campaigns by reviews their evaluation reports, view their key messages to be input in the local context and give ideas to designers for various themes that are to be implemented.

Illustration image for research quantitative and qualitative methods

The various and unique experiences of each department at Cread and Co Ltd have allow me exercise a different approach within my learning of the Public Relations discipline and made me wonder how I could be of service at times.  Mainly during the early days of the internship were I made research of how Public relations can help within the context I was in but also help me to discover new knowledge about the various opportunities that Public relations has in the marketing world and its overall importance. I must say it help me to refocus upon what i have learn in my past studies and moreover boost my confidence afterwards to perform in my internship with my own unique and personal touch from someone who have a Public Relations background.

My internship just ended on the 27^th October, I had quite a pleasant time with an amazing opportunity to learn and understand how the background of the advertising world to the finish line where the communication strategy is dissipated within the newspapers or radio spots. This unique opportunity to work within a marketing mix medium and have various types of clients with unique jobs demands. From the working of the full fledge communication strategy to simple facebook videos, radio spots or newspaper advert, the amount of knowledge acquire within those 22 days have pique my interest to know more about the communication world and the Public Relations added benefit upon a business communication strategy.

Understanding the work place Environment

Understanding the work place Environment

I tried to upload on my instagram account but it takes an eternity to upload and display all I wanted for this blog post. So let's go, As the second week of my internship come to an end, the opportunity to meet and familiarise with others members of the company come in hand with the knowledge acquire with it. Taking the opportunity to learn from others of what their jobs consist of within the company mostly as an observer is not only is a great way of making professional contact but also the allows an internal insight of the company works. 

As a disclaimer: First of all I am not a Fan of Instagram using this #CurtinPRIntern #PUBR3002workspaces is a nightmare for me being more of the PC / Laptop guy. So I download a third party app InstaPic to be able to upload on this social media app.

The Kitchen and dinning room at Cread Ltd

This is not a surprise, sharing a meal is often the best way to get to know people and know start making connections.

As most of them being communication professional either as Marketing officers, retail designers, Finance and accounting department, Human resources department or strategy officers. Their time is usually precious and it hard to get to know them during their working hours as being most of the time hang up to the phone or communicating with client using emails or simply out of the office for business purposes.

Cread Ltd Retail marketing department

 The Retail Marketing department

The official placement place I was assigned to but its is just because there was space issues. This department consist of a marketing officer dealing with the media directly for booking, advert placement and act as a media liaison for the company with media outlets and the company client. This is the home of most of the designers of the company working on adverts, brochures, annual reports and strategic design requirement for the company. 

Cread Ltd Design Branding and Innovation department

Design Branding and Innovation department

This department can be called the brain of the company as it is where communication, marketing, Branding design and all decision making take place. This is also the place I am able to learn from and discover how events such street guerilla tactics, the application of the 4 Why's of marketing applies, the purpose of a big Idea in the story telling and copy writing for radio script, television scripts and Facebook and social media strategies with the use of visual identity

Cread Ltd  Second Meeting room

The Main meeting Room with the CEO

For my working experience that I was able to acquire either a web designer or freelancer, I never met a such friendly character  and experience in his profession as the CEO and Executive Director of Cread Ltd. This room is either where meeting with Clients occur or the meeting with the DBI team or marketing officers occur. This room is where generally all strategies of the company are approve and decision making task are taken for the company. 

Those areas of the company is full of resources that I can exploit as a PR Intern, the internal communication among department is excellent and the convivial atmosphere mix with the pressure of deadline creates a unique working environment. This allows a better understanding of the communication world, its realities, flaws and joys which is a blessing in disguise. 

Re-learning the basics: Finding PR in an advertising company

My office Desk at FCB Cread & Co Ltd

The good news is I have finally manage to complete my first week of internship. The bad news there is no Public Relations department present and I have no experience in marketing as to speak. 

This was the tale of my first day of my internship which was apparently dull and uneventful in regards to Public Relations experience.

The next day I get to do a translation, trying to understand the language technicality use in the company and the various words use for commercial applications

Shortly after I am ask to do some media monitoring, ask to contribute in a media plan, ask to participate in the media advert booking and participate in the proof-reading and text correction before sending it to the company client.

How is that related to Public Relations one may wonder? 

In fact it does not but it helps to applied the discipline knowledge acquire during Public Relations Practice classes.  As Media planning, media monitoring, media booking at some point, proof-reading and validation are fundamental concept of Public Relations officer daily routine. 

So how is the internship related to Public relations?

"Excellence is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle

Apart from discipline knowledge, it is hidden, like if it is playing hide and seek throughout the various department of the Advertising Company.

The luck that I have is the FCB Cread & Co Ltd is a communication and advertising company which is among the top 3 best agencies in Mauritius in its industry. They are very well equip and also have a small staff dedicated staff that are very generous as to speak in terms of providing help or provide knowledge.

One of the most obvious PR related works is copy-writing in this company from translation of brief of client to a comprehensible formatted document, to script writing for adverts, radio commercial, radio messages, Television spot, Thematic ideas, Facebook post, blog post and website update. The copywriter job in the company does not end there, there are newsletter, annual reports, Brochures and flyers all waiting the copywriter to write for them, from small story to formal writing, it requires a certain level of dexterity and knowledge of the client activity.

So what did you do then?

My first work was to convert a commercial email into a formatted document, a little research and put to use the knowledge of segmenting stakeholders or publics later, I have created a detail document that the company can use by other staff members like designers, copywriters from the creative and design department, strategic marketing development department and highlight the misunderstanding point that the email may have. 

From this small document, I was able to participate to the naming of the product to be design and have 3 potential names that the client may choose from and develop a potential theme for each, writing a small storytelling experience about them and learn to implement it into the integrated marketing mechanics.

Newspaper storage

Yes, my internship may not be like the other students and to be directly integrated in a Public relations department but I am grateful enough to realise that Public relations is not only what one may have imagine to be. 

One thing is that have strike me the most is how advertising clients completely disregard the work of the integrated marketing process and how public relations in Mauritius is not view as an avenue for promotion tool or as a means for publicity.


It is present in every communication department from Visual literacy, design, copy-writing, planning, negotiating with clients or the media and with the task of Key Account officer I have manage to re-learn the basics of Public relations.

Discovering of a new world

Hi fellow interns,

Here I am finally for my first blog post which is just AMAZING. I am actually a BCOM student at Charles Telfair Institute in Mauritius (Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management and Public Relations). After 2 months of sending emails and calling companies in vain, Mr Cyril Palan from Logos Publicity Ltd was the do-gooder to accept me for my 20 days of internship.

MY FIRST DAY

Officially trainee in Logos Publicity (25^th March 2014). I stayed the whole day and was introduced to the employees with a site visit. The director also shared with me his career path and the history of the company.  During the day, I was asked to make research about a new product for its launching advert and I also helped to prepare invitation to journalists for a press conference (Figure 1). This was to announce the first Festival of Theater and Music “Passe Portes” in Mauritius which will occur at the end of May.The festival will not only constitute of icon theater and music personalities but will also act like a platform for young talented artists from different countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Reunion Island, France and Mauritius. They will get the opportunity to present their own play(written and act by themselves). Awards will also be given for the best concept. 

SECOND DAY

My second day was really special, full with unexpected events. I was invited to the press conference held in the evening. This was a great pleasure as it was the first time I assisted such event and it was exactly what I wanted to discover.  This was really impressive to be surrounded with important personalities (such as General Director of Total Anne-Solange Renouard; Director of Le Caudan Waterfront, and Director of Blue Fish, Laurent Garnier, French Ambassador). Logos Publicity's roles, during the conference, were to distribute the press kit to journalists, to take photographs of the event and also for networking. 

The importance and objectives of project were clearly explained by the organizers of Passe Portes, Catherine Swagemakers and Francois Moravic.

Figure 2 pictured the organizers, French Ambassador, and the participants from Mauritius. Figure 3 shows Mme Swagemakers during the presentation. 

 Figure 1

 Figure 2

 Figure 3

 Stay connected. More to come. I will keep you update about the festival preparation.

Elodie Lamarque

CTI Student

15844167

Hearing one's speech.. interesting feeling!

Hi all,
It's Kimberley from the Charles Telfair Institute, Mauritius.
So, last week I went to a cheque remittance ceremony that was organised by one of the clients of the company for which I am doing the internship. The main reason why I wanted to attend this ceremony was to hear the speech I had written for the CEO.. I felt quite excited and proud to know that the CEO of such a big company had been taking words that came out of me when addressing important people, because yeah, the minister of youth and sports was there!
The overall experience of this event was good. I got to see how things go about, met some journalists, seen a minister from so close.. hehe.. The cheques were being awarded to NGOs that were working towards improving the lives and social conditions of young mauritians in need, which I find is a good cause.
And after the ceremony was over, one of my colleagues distributed media releases to the journalists. Here, I learned another procedure that comes with being a PR agent, distributing media releases, and hooooooping that there would be some coverage generated afterwards.. In the case of this event, the response was quite positive due to the importance of the issue and the presence of high profile people. But in many cases, we end up sending media releases without actually being sure that journalists would find it newsworthy enough to publish in their outlet. I find it being quite a shame, knowing how hard PR people work in order to produce media releases and a lot of other things on behalf of their clients.

And I wanted to know, people out there, how are you finding handling both the internship and the courses at the same time and not being able to attend the internship more than 2-3 times a week? Personally I think it draws us away from the company's daily activities, and when we come on our free days, we have to run to them in order to have something to do.. Maybe it is because Mauritius is a small island and that everything is done quickly.. Well, otherwise the job itself is not so bad.. :)

Talk soon guys..
Kimberley..

In this picture, The President of the National CSR Commitee, the minister for youth and sports, members of NGOs, CEO of Swan Group, president of Swan Group Foundation

PR should be experienced, not just taught

Hi future PR practitioners,

This will be my last post and it will wrap up some of the things that weren't taught and experienced in previous PR units. I firmly believe that a PR degree is just a starting point and as Harrison (2011, 15) has said, “Graduation is not an end to study. It is the start of a lifelong process”. By now, I can tell that only a portion of what I have learnt at university will be useful in the workplace because not only I will always be learning new things as a PR practitioner but also some of these things have to be experienced. Likewise, PR is a fast-evolving profession, so every PR practitioner has to constantly adapt to the changes in this demanding profession.

Things I didn't learn and experience at university:

1. Drafting media releases and communication plans in French (Written communication is mostly done in French in Mauritius and most PR Practitioners need to have an excellent grasp of the French language)

2. Media monitoring – Writing and sending daily Media Alerts to clients on positive and negative articles about them.

3. Calculating Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) for media coverage of PR generated news stories by measuring the dimensions of these articles and multiplying to the newspapers’ advertising rates.

4. Assisting in Press Conferences – Greeting journalists, marking their presence, noting down their contact details and distributing goodies/media kits to them.

5. Contacting and following up with journalists – confirming if they have received invitations for event/media function/press conference/round table and calling them again to mark their presence.

6. Working without a proper brief – Sometimes, we are not given a written brief for a particular task while at university we always had those for every PR assignment that we had to submit.

7. Implementing a PR Plan – We've been writing a few PR plans for real life clients at university although we've never executed any of these and this is the most complex part.

Although this internship is just a foretaste of the real thing since it was relatively short and we didn't experience everything, it actually prepares us to join the workplace confidently. Moreover, I do believe that I've done quite a lot in one month and learnt many new things. If it wasn't for the PR 393 Professional Practice unit, my knowledge and understanding of PR would be limited to only general PR concepts and guidelines. So, kudos to Curtin for having introduced that unit a few years back because it certainly allowed us to put some of the teachings of the other PR units into practice.

Okay fellow PR 393 students, now that most of us have already completed our internships and we are nearing the end of this semester, it's time to move on to other things. It felt great to share my internship experience with you and to read about yours during the last few months. I would like to seize this opportunity to wish you all best of luck with the report writing and for your future endeavors.

P.S: Do you guys have any anything else to add to the list above? You’re most welcome to do so in your comments :)

Much love,

Houmaira Ramjaun

15102108

CTI, Mauritius

References: 

Harrison, Kim. 2011. Strategic Public Relations - A practical guide to success. South Yarra: Palgrave Macmillan

Tick! Tack! Tick! Tack! ....

Hello everyone,

As you can easily guess from the title, the main topic for today’s blog is ‘Time’. When entering the real world of PR, I quickly realised that Time is a very valuable yet always scarce resource.

During the course of our studies we were often given the opportunity to work on “real-life” clients and provide “real” solutions. However, a very important aspect was missing: Time constraints (It’s true that we did have deadlines for our assessments but these are trivial compared to real-life deadlines).

As an intern, my main issue was to adapt and take in these new skills and understanding of the PR world while at the same time try to keep up with this rapid and demanding world.

Our daily workload has its specific, often short, deadlines which require a quick and almost instinctive decision process. And that is why I believe that work experience plays a crucial role in the PR field - and any other field - ; experienced PR practitioners will have an intuitive feel when working and will automatically know what the task/situation requires.

Interns first have to go through a series of internal mental processes to understand the context and its requirements so as to be able to provide their own inputs. On the other hand, experienced PR practitioners will, through practice/repetition, skip some of these processes and are thus able to put more emphasis on their inputs.

Unfortunately for organisations, it means that most interns are at the learning stage and that the real inputs that they could bring to an organisation only come with time and experience - which alas often comes by the time their internship is over.

So that’s the main thought that I wanted to share today.

Until next time, best of luck for those still doing their internships!!!

Where do we stand?

Hello World!

Just a quick recap;

I am currently doing my internship at a Media and Public Relations Communication Consultancy firm. In my previous post, entitled “Unlearn what you learn!?”, I talked mostly about the gap between what we learned during the course of our studies and what really happens when working in the PR industry.

So back to today’s post!

Recently, I had the opportunity to take part in a conference held for one of the company’s client. The consultancy was in charge of the pre-event communication process with the guests and was also present on the day itself for recording purposes and last minute fine-tuning.

The communication activities included checking if invitation emails had been received, whether the individual had gone through the formalities, and if ever the person was not free, try to find another person who could attend and record the contact details.

On the day of the conference itself, we were present to finalise any last minute issue related to the conference. We also welcomed the guests, ensured that their attendance was recorded and distributed name tags and branded goods.

The main experience I gained from this event was how a consultancy interacts with a client organisation. However, I also realised that the potential and importance of PR may still not be properly understood nor maximised by some firms. The issue is that PR may sometimes be seen as only a tool for one-off/one-way communication and not as a boundary spanner between a company and its public.

Though there’s one important aspect to consider in this particular context, the PR role is being endorsed by an external party and not by an internal department of the client company. Thus, it could have led the client to perceive the consultancy as only a short-term service provider who caters for their immediate needs in regards to this particular conference.

It nevertheless does shed a light on the relationship between a consultancy and its clients. Consultancies do have long-term clients with whom they work on a regular basis and where they act as boundary spanners. However, they also have other clients who may only require their services on singular events or on an as per-need basis.

Thus showing that PR consultancies role may vary and that even though the idealistic role of the PR practitioner is portrayed as being those who create and sustain a relationship between an organisation and its public, in some cases, the practitioner’s role would depend largely on the actual relationship between the organisation and the practitioner, and ultimately what that organisation expects from them.

So that’s it for today.

Hope you enjoyed the post.

Until next time, I wish you the Best!!

Keep Calm and Stay Professional...

Hello everyone,

Hope that your internships are treating you well and you’re making the most of this learning experience. I'm sure that we’ve all had our fair share of difficulties during our internships and this is one of mine:

While interning at Blast Communications, I had to contact many parastatal bodies, embassies and consulates in Mauritius to obtain the contact details of senior officers for a list of database. It got tedious at times because I had to talk to 3 people in order to obtain that information and each time I had to repeat the same thing. I also had to phone journalists from different media outlets on a number of occasions to confirm whether they had received invitations for a round table and call them again 1 to 2 days later to mark their presence. Sometimes I had to phone the media outlets up to 3 times in order to obtain an answer and I had to do it because I had to provide my supervisor with an updated list of the attendance sheet.

Well, to be honest, I found that task quite nerve-wracking because I’m not much of a talker and I really didn’t know how to make intelligent and constructive conversations with those people. One of my colleagues has really encouraged me because she sensed at the beginning that I was feeling stressed and unsure. So, I drafted my phone call script in advance because I didn’t want to stumble when talking to them and I found this very helpful. Also, I did my own research and gathered some information in case they asked me a few questions. I’d sound really unprofessional and sloppy if I didn’t know what to reply to them. So it’s important to be well prepared before contacting people.

At times, I felt like the people on the other end of the line were being annoyed because I had to phone several times. There were also people who were really rude and cold to me on the phone, but I still had to keep my cool and stay courteous when speaking to them because that’s part of the job. It is also an important aspect of being professional which is paramount in the PR Realm. Likewise, certain people put me on hold for a long time but I had to remain patient. If I hung up on them which might be considered as impolite, I could face the possibility of not having them cooperate with me when phoning them again.


That's pretty much it for my third post. Keep me posted with your internships :)

Until next time,

Houmaira Ramjaun

15102108

CTI, Mauritius

Happy Birthday, Mauritius! – “Celebrating our diversity the Blast Way”

                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                  Courtesy of Blast

Hello aspiring PR Professionals,


I know, it’s been a while since the last time I’ve posted something on the PR 393 Reflective Blog and I'm truly sorry about the delay but I was hoping I could make up for the it with this vibrant post. So today, I’m going to share an incredible experience with you: the celebrations of Independence Day at Blast Communications. For those who don’t know, we were celebrating the 45^th anniversary of Mauritius this year and because the 12^th March, which marks that occasion is a public holiday, the Blast team has chosen to observe this event on the 8^th March instead.

Luckily, I have been able to participate in this glorious event that created a very spirited and fun atmosphere at Blast Communications and I was truly mesmerized when I saw all of my colleagues play a part in this event. To put it in PR terms, it was basically an internal campaign which took place for a few days. It first started with the design team proposing a few visuals for an advert of Blast Communications to show its patriotic pride to the public. Brainstorming sessions were carried out so that everyone could agree on a visual and the tagline that would accompany it. After that, my colleague Emilie, PR Executive, negotiated with specific media outlets to have the advert placed in their newspapers at an affordable price. Of course, we had a very limited budget allocated for the placement of these adverts.  

Moreover, a list of activities on the 8^th March has been devised by the PR Think Tank to mark this event by involving everyone at Blast Communications. They are:

- Lunch served with typical dishes of the different communities in Mauritius (entrée: Chinese and main course: creole etc...)

- Handkerchiefs for lunch decorated with Mauritian flag ribbon and all desks adorned with a miniature Mauritian flag.

- All Blast employees wearing personalized t-shirts (black as the background color with the logo and the chosen tagline “Celebrating our diversity”) and a badge of the Mauritian flag.

- A photograph of the Blast team forming the number 45, taken from the roof – photograph which will be used on the website, Facebook page, E-newsletter and also on an e-card which will be sent to all Blast’s clients and partners.

- Launch quizzes/guessing games also known as “Sirandanes” (which forms part of our Mauritian culture and tradition) throughout the day and a winner will be announced in the afternoon.

- Have all Blast employees plaster their handprints on a canvas board to make a four-colour chef-d’oeuvre (using acrylic paint of the four different colours of the Mauritian flag: Red, Blue, Yellow and Green)

All of the above mentioned activities have been successfully put into place, with the help of every Blast employee. On that eventful day, everyone wore the same personalized t-shirt at work, thanks to the designers, Kim and Ritesh who came up with the t-shirt’s artwork and to the event coordinator, Diane who ordered the t-shirts and had them ready for that day. Lunch which was taken care of by the administration was really delicious and it was an opportunity for everyone to joke around and get to know each other more. 


Moreover, it was nice to see everyone get their hands dirty with paint and sing the national anthem, just like school children. Eventually, the winner of the “sirandanes” turned out to be Valérie who works in the media monitoring department; she practically guessed most of the answers before everyone else and earned a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates as prize, which she generously shared with everyone. Lastly, the Managing director, Mrs Aisha Allee-Mosaheb was really pleased with the outcome of this internal campaign and she congratulated everyone for their part in it and for planning everything in so little time.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this post because I’ve actually enjoyed recounting that experience with you. If you have any questions concerning my internship, please feel free to leave a comment on any of my posts and I shall get back to you shortly :)

Best Regards,

Houmaira Ramjaun

15102108

CTI, Mauritius

Week 3: A new week along with new responsibilities

Good Morning friends,

For my third week of internship, when I arrived at work on Monday, I was told that I would not only be doing the media clippings process, but that I would also be the one in charge of uploading all of them on the Medine Limited's Head Office's intranet.

At Medine Limited, media clippings are made daily but are uploaded on the intranet every Monday.

So far I was only doing the media clippings and was only showed once how articles are uploaded on the intranet, but was never the one to actually be in charge of the whole process. Obviously, I was thrilled at the idea of being given such an opportunity, which showed that I could be trusted and given work without any continuous monitoring and was quite a fast learner.

This task easily took up my entire Monday. When I was done with the uploading, next I had to check the PDF files one by one to make sure that it was uploaded correctly and whether they eventually corresponded to their headlines. At the end of the day it felt nice to know that I got to do this task all by me and that the day after everyone connected via the intranet would be viewing these files.

However, I observed that the particular process of scanning all the articles on the same day that they are meant to be uploaded in the Press Review section took most of my time. As such, I proposed that instead of only doing daily media clippings and filing them in their specific folders, I would also go through the scanning, cropping, auto correcting and/or re-sizing, cross checking and through the conversion into PDF files daily, so that on the next Monday, less time would be spent in going through this process and as such time would considerably be saved, as only the uploading and checking would have to be done.

During the internship, I also learnt that making suggestions and working hard never hurt anyone. Of course, when making suggestions, one should not sound as if he or she is trying to impose their decisions, but should be done politely and by giving valid justification as to why and how this might help in saving time or making certain tasks easier. Even as an intern, my suggestions were often taken into consideration and put into practice, which in a way makes one feel valued.

The following days I was in charge of document filing of the articles which were uploaded the previous day and was asked to re-organize the folders in the files in alphabetical order and make simple 'Table of Contents' documents for each file. This is where organisational skills come in handy. 

The third week was pretty much about re-organizing certain folders and files and about document filing. Another section on the intranet referred to 'Living Better Tips', for that week I was also in charge of uploading new articles/files to this section and remove old articles - in other words I was generally in charge of updating the intranet specially the press review and living better tips section.

Additionally I was asked to review and add more details to a document concerning the Fondation Medine Horizons that had to be sent to Business Magazine as soon as possible.

As usual as the days passed by, I could not get the fact that - theory learnt and applying the latter in the real world of work is two very distinct processes - out of my mind. Learning is good, but being able to apply it in certain contexts and/or situations is what we are required or expected to deliver. 

I still remember and I know my fellow friends also vividly remember that at the end of every PR lectures up until now; there have always been the slides where we were told how "To be an Aspirational PR Practitioner". I personally found that these aspirational notes/steps/tips proved to be very valuable and very much applicable not only as an intern but also as an ambassador of our campus, namely - Charles Telfair Institute. 

Well, that was it for my third week experience at Medine Limited and as promised, here are some pictures of the event that took place on Friday 15th February 2013, of the 'Laying of the Foundation Stone of the new Casela & Leisure Park' by the Prime Minister - Dr. Hon. Navin Ramgoolam, GCSK, FRCP: 

The Prime Minister - Dr. Hon. Navin Ramgoolam laying the foundation stone of the new Casela & Leisure Park.

 On the left: Mr. Thierry Sauzier, Managing Director / Deputy CEO of Medine Limited, in the middle: one of the experienced feline tamer and on the right: Dr. Hon. Navin Ramgoolam.

Dr. Hon. Navin Ramgoolam (R) and Mr.  Thierry Sauzier (L) petting the cheetah under the supervision of the feline tamer expert.

On this note, I take your leave until my next blog post.

Thanking you all for your time,
Warmest regards,
Geetika Boyjoo
Curtin ID: 15172402

Unlearn what you learn?!

Hello everyone!

Hope your internships are going-on fine and you are all having a wonderful experience or at least learning the most from it.

Well, as a start off, I’m Benoit de Lapeyre. I am in my last semester at the Charles Telfair Institute in Mauritius and I am currently in an internship at Imagine Communication. The company is a Media and Public Relations Communication Consultancy firm found in Port-Louis, the capital of the island. The company not only operates in Mauritius but also has clients in Madagascar, Reunion and other countries of the Indian Ocean. The firm deals primarily in media relations, intelligence and documentation, and event coordination, amongst other Public Relations services.

For more detailed information, you can consult the company’s website; 

http://www.imagine.mu/.

It has been almost a month since I started my internship and this whole month could be summed up by a phrase my director, Jean-Marie Richard, said on my first days as an intern;

“You are here to unlearn all that you were taught in school, only to learn again how things are really done”.

When I started my internship, having already experienced previous work environment (though not in the PR field), I did expect things to be different than what I was taught during my university years. However during my first weeks as an intern, I realised that the basic PR knowledge you receive during the course of your studies are simply guidelines, basic stepping stones. They only provide you with a global understand of the PR field. However when applied in the real life, PR becomes much more complex and extensive.

Since our first PR modules we were taught that PR should be a Two-way symmetrical model, but when applied in real life it means that we should understand and interact with the society in which we operate. It requires an understanding of society as a whole; its history, its traditions and its customs. Here in Mauritius, it is even more important taking into consideration our multi-cultural background. The insight I gained after this first month is that PR may be taught in theory but however its application in real life requires experience and on-the-job training to have concrete results.

I believe that we, as future PR practitioners, should have an open yet critical mind when dealing with our studies in the communication fields, even more for international students. As a Mauritian studying for an Australian university, I realised that my studies may provide me with an internationally recognised degree but ultimately as a PR practitioner I will only have the basic knowledge and understanding of PR. I will always require an adaptation and learning period in every context I intend to work in, even more taking into consideration our rapidly changing society.

I also wished to share a remarkable quote which portrays my thoughts;

“The curious thing is that with these exponential changes, so much of what we currently know is just getting to be wrong. So many of our assumptions are getting to be wrong. And so, as we move forward, not only is it going to be a question of learning it is also going to be a question of unlearning.” -- John Seely Brown.

The full article, which also provides a very interesting debate on Tacit and Explicit dimension of knowledge, can be read on the following link;

http://www.creatingthe21stcentury.org/JSB3-learning-to-unlearn.html.

I hope I gave you some interesting food for thought.

So until next time,

Good Luck to you all for your internships.