Hello
dear PR people,
I
hope that you are having a great time enjoying your internship like me.
I
must say that it has been the hell of a busy week for me at PROAKTIV PR Ltd because
we had so much work. We have currently an upcoming event this week and what I
have noticed till now that it is no piece of cake organising an event! It may
seem very easy at first sight but there is so many things to take into
consideration and so many details to take care of and yet not enough time!
We
are actually working for a road marking company and they told us to work out
something for them to mark their fifteen years of existence. They wanted a
better media coverage in Mauritius and we did not have much information from
this company except a summary of what company does. So, basically, we had to
start from scratch to celebrate their 15 years.
At
first, when we realised the number of things we had to complete in a short
period of time (only two weeks), we were completely assailed as we had several
ongoing affairs, and it goes without saying, adding to that our daily affairs.
However, nothing can beat the good old to-do list to list up all the things
that has to be done!
We had to generate
various media releases, corporate profile, BIO-data of the directors,
create banners, design invitation cards, send press invites, phone journalists,
order stickers with the company logo and many other corporate materials that a
company should have within hands… But how to do all that if we do not have one
of the most important thing?!... They did not even have a company logo and we
had only two weeks to organise the whole event! But then again as a PR,
our job is to make the impossible elegantly probable! We found out a graphic
designer to design and create a modern and attractive logo for them!
However, what I can say
is at two days before the event, much have been done during this long week to
be able to be on time for this event and the best is yet to be done till Tuesday
before the event! We all know that the last minutes before the start of an
event are always the most crucial.
I will be happy to
share my experience of this upcoming event with you all later in the week.
Stay tuned,
Keshya S. Rassen.
7 comments:
Hello Keshya,
That must have been a hard week for you, considering the fact that you are doing your internship in part time, it surely must have been exhausting!
I like how you define our job as PR ‘make the impossible elegantly probable’! I think this is so true! I think clients do not realise how hard our job can be and they really do not understand the importance of image. I cannot believe that this company has been operating since 15 years without a logo. I guess this is the reason why they need us...
About two weeks ago one of our clients was launching a new product and wanted to make a buzz on Facebook, we recommended that she paid the $3 needed to ‘boost post’ and she did not want, we finally convinced her and she was quite surprised about the results! Sometimes, I do not understand clients, they employ us to do something, but they do not trust us…I guess as PR student we did learn that client can sometimes be annoying but we have to deal with it with our most beautiful smile.
I hope that you are taking the most of it, I, myself had two busy weeks lately and had and event this morning! And as you will read, I learned a lot about it, but I am exhausted!
I wish you all the best for the event and stay motivated, I understand how tired you must be, but after the event you will be able to relax.
I cannot wait to read about your event.
Enjoy it,
Isabelle
Hello Keshya,
Events always lead to a hectic week but I am sure you will be able to complete your tasks on time.
Well as a PR student I think that the Public Relations field is definitely a place where patience and focus are both fundamental elements needed especially when it comes to organizing an event. However, if your team is well-coordinated and organised I am sure that the result will be good as well because a well-coordinated and organised team eventually lead to a successful task.
In addition to that I must say that sometimes clients are too demanding but again its our jobs to satisfy them with what they want. So basically, we must be ever ready to serve our clients since we are here because of them, for them otherwise we would have been somewhere else.
But, I personally think that sometimes clients should be demanding. I mean I do not blame them because they have invested money on us and they would definitely want the best services in return. So to some extent we should understand them.
Well I hope your event turns out to be a great success and I am looking forward to read more about your experiences at PROAKTIV PR Ltd.
Regards,
Chashanee
Hi Keshya,
It must have been a very hard week for you, I myself have loads of work to do since we are organising a major event during the weekend and the office is quite under tension.
This remembers me the PR module where we had to prepare an event plan, timeline, and checklist. Even though, organising events is an interesting job, you get to know new faces and build some contacts.
Keep up doing your good job out there.
Mehdi
Hello Isabelle,
For sure, it has been a very hard week before the event, but then, it has been a harder one after the event. Yeah, I can understand your incomprehension towards some clients' attitude. Recently, at work, we've just got a client that made us prepare a lot of things for them and we spent so much time on thinking, brainstorming, putting ideas together and finally setting up a whole creative document with full of bright ideas for them. But after showing them our work, they finally said that they were not interested and will be doing their own PR in their own way. Nevertheless, we told them that it was fine to not take our document but the document was in exclusive rights of PROAKTIV PR Ltd and that they had no right to take the ideas after reading our document.
Although it might be really annoying, disturbing and enraging, as a PR person, I think that we need to have a total self-control above and beyond all and that we need to have one of the most precious skills: Patience. Furthermore, we have to always bear in mind and constantly remind ourselves that the client is King! And what the King wants, we make it elegantly possible!
I don’t know for you but I really think that you will always have some situations where the client will ask you things that seems quite impossible on the moment. But I always remember that famous quote from the great Nelson Mandela: "Everything seems impossible until it’s done". However, as you said, I am taking the most of it. I am actually taking it very positively. I am considering that situation as being an acquired knowledge and experience and that now I know how to face this kind of situation.
It's been a real pleasure for me to read your comment and your sharing your own opinions with me.
Stay tuned for further details about my Post-Event.
Keep it up.
Keshya S. Rassen.
Hello Chashanee,
It’s nice to hear from you and, yes, I do, totally, agree with you that PR is a field of patience and focus especially while organising an important event. However, I think that as a PR person, one of our main skills should be teamwork skills. If we don’t have teamwork skills, there might be a lot of problems as well as many conflicts that may arise in the team while organising an event.
Moreover, I do really think that if you do not have any teamwork skills and want to be in the PR field, then one might need to change that very quickly. It is essential that everyone in the team work together in the same direction toward a common objective.
But what I can tell you is that being a PR intern is not a cup of tea and sometimes working in teams in the real world might seem very difficult especially when you want to voice out your ideas and you are afraid of telling your ideas because you feel that they will laugh at you! However, I did take my courage in both hands and proposed a number of things that seemed to me good ideas.
Hence, to conclude, I would say that some clients might be very demanding at some point but I can understand them too. If I were in their shoes, I would be as demanding as they are! But then again, it all comes back to my point of view: It’s our job again to make the impossible elegantly probable!
Thank you very much for sharing your personal opinion with me.
Stay tuned for my upcoming post-event Blog post.
Cheers,
Keshya S. Rassen.
Hello Mehdi,
It is really nice of you to share your personal experience with me.
Yeah it’s been a really tough week for me but I am really enjoying working as a PR.
However, it is amazing how the PR field can help you develop yourself in so many ways. For example, as you said earlier, it helps to build new contacts which is always good in this particular field especially with journalists.
And I can say that this is one of numerous advantages of working in the PR field that I love. The constant communication and interaction with other people were one of the main reasons why I choose to do PR.
Coming back to the event, stay tuned for my next blog post.
Keep doing a good job at your workplace.
Keshya S. Rassen.
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