The Finale

2 days after the Open Day event marks the finale of my placement with the Independent Living Centre.
Here are some of the lessons I have learned during my short stint with the organisation.

1) Having good relationships with the media is crucial
Having the right connections is definitely a good thing not only does it work wonders on your resume, the chances of getting media coverage for the organisation you work for will be higher.

2) Good communications skills – written and spoken.
Personally, I’m not used to speaking up and communicating across my thoughts and opinions. I am a firm believer of ‘If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all’. However I am learning to speak up to share my thoughts and opinions because sometimes they really count. I might have an interesting idea which I thought might be completely out of this world but turned out to be well received by others. Communications really means to deliver a message effectively and clearly from one party to the other.
On the note of good written communication skills, it is equally if not more important to possess this skill as a public relations practitioner. Media releases and communication via emails are some of the basic functions of a PR practitioner on a daily basis. People say first impression matters. If the first email or media release that a news journalist or reporter receives is full of grammatical mistakes or worse the key message was not clearly communicated to them, the implications following that would be less than desirable.

3) Understanding the organisation and the local culture
I would say that this has been a very interesting experience. Being an international student working in the local environment was certainly not to my advantage. I had to understand the local culture, and local media, and even in writing, it has to be localised.

As I am new to the organisation, I have to learn about the organisation, its vision and mission, what it stands for. I believe one has to really know the organisation inside out in order to represent the organisation.
I know all these might have sounded like old news or stuff that has been heard over and over again in our PR lectures. Undeniably, they are the very tools that give you and me, potential PR professionals a head start in this competitive industry.

alison