Morning fellow PR students,
This is my first blog but it is well overdue as I started my placement over six weeks ago and how my life has changed since then! First off my name is Sally Knight and I am doing my placement at Platform Communications in Northbridge. Platform is a public relations and graphic design firm who only consult for companies in the mining/oil and gas industry.
When I first started I was put in a team of three to coordinate a Production Launch Event for a company called Lynas, which was to be held in Laverton on the 23rd May 2011. I spent over a month and I have calculated about 50 hours working on this project to come into the office last week and have my boss tell me that our client has postponed the event!! Well I can tell you I almost broke down in tears, I had put my heart and soul into this project and so much of my work had gone to waste. I had spent hours doing itineraries, budgets and looking at the finest details of day. The reasoning behind the postponement is because our client has now decided they want top WA government personnel to attend, this obviously changes the entire caliber event. We recommended this in our first proposal but it was rejected.
In a situation like this it is easy to get down as you feel like you have just wasted time but I looked at it in a way to show my professionalism and demonstrate maturity by being proactive in making the requested changes by the client. I presented my ideas to my boss and she was really impressed. They next day when I got into the office she had bought me a voucher to the Day Spa down the road! Score!
Everyday I learn more and more about event management and the fact that client’s can and will change their minds at the most inopportune moments, but in reality that is events! I think what I have learnt over the last six weeks is perseverance is key, when you have the opportunity to display your commitment to your boss go over and above and you will come out on top. On the 8th day of my placement my boss bought me into her office and told me she wants to create a position for me with her company. She wants to expand into doing more mining events and wants me to be in charge of the Perth office. All I can say is OMG, I really was so shocked that I didn’t realise until I got home what had happened!
I wish everyone luck in their placements! I will blog again soon as I am now organising a community and employee event to be held in Laverton with David Wirrapanda doing a guest appearance! Fingers crossed this one doesn’t get postponed too J
5 comments:
Hi!
Sounds like you're working very very hard and you have a really great placement. I am interested to hear more about it and how the future pans out. Do you think you'll get a full time job there? Or is this just for work experience? Good luck for the rest of it!
Wow Sally!
Your placement sounds really exciting and would be a great place to gain experience in the events industry. You sound as though you are working extremely hard and it’s great that your efforts are being recognised and rewarded by your boss. It sounds as though you've set yourself up after uni and that's the best possible outcome!
Congratulations, and I look forward to reading more of your blogs in the future.
Sally, I feel your pain, to have put so much effort into something and then have it not come to fuition. But like you say, thats all part of the job. I'm working at Sunset Events (an events company specialising in music festivals), and we recently decided to postpone indefinitely a festival called One Movement for Music, it has been run for the past 2 years, but this year, the numbers just didnt add up, and instead of running at a loss, the directors decided to cancel. This didnt affect me too much but the communications manager who I am assisting had already been working on the marketing and publicity and it was quite a blow to have it cancelled like that. I suppose the thing to do is take it in your stride and not get too down about it. Sounds like you are having a fantastic placement. Good luck over the next few weeks!
Thanks for your comments guys :)
Meredith- I have been offered full-time work when I graduate yes, its all verty exciting but really scary as well! I will start around mid June!
Congratulations Sally!
Sounds like you had a pretty tough gig but made the best of a bad situation and it has come out really well for you. We all know the frustrations of putting our time and effort into projects which either get rejected, postboned such as yours or even cancelled but this is the nature of the events industry. I guess we should just be thankfull for the experience and learning the ability to deal with this and bounce back from it.
All the best for your future.
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