Everything you say or do is public relations!

Hello PR people!

Today I am going to share the experiences I had during my last week of internship at Fortis Clinique Darné. I had the chance to attend a corporate health screening that was being made at BPML cyber tower at Ebene for the Orange employees and again here I understood how communication within the team is an important factor to be considered. Well on that particular day the staffs had to be present as early as possible to prepare the medical equipment that would be used for the different medical tests. There were around 3 nurses who were taking blood samples and measuring blood pressure while in another room there were 2 doctors examining the patients. I found out that having such a health screening program is an excellent idea since these people working at Orange do not really have the time to undergo screening tests. And by bringing the clinic at their workplace it will help them to know their health status without having to look for a free time on their calendars. So, I found this initiative, undertook by FCD, quite a thoughtful act.

Well besides these different activities I was a part of at FCD, I have definitely learn how real work are actually done. I mean I have seen how tasks are being done from a client perspective, what is going on with the client, what are they thinking about or what are the thoughts they are overlooking and how the Marketing/PR team helps them achieving their goals. So basically my days during the internship were more focused around how communications between the client and the Marketing/PR team were carried out. I must say that due to this placement I have learned many new skills especially my communication skills which have improved. In fact before this internship I always had the thought that Public Relations is actually not a domain I wanted to venture into but now I have a totally different idea. I mean I can see myself in the PR field later on.

This internship has also made me understand the fact that the internet is a really important tool in the marketing and PR department. Actually in whatever department you are, the internet is a must! The internet helps the organisation in innovating, marketing or simply networking with the world. In addition, public relations have changed especially since the internet has turned the world into a global village, thus making us closer day by day. Nowadays companies are more aware of the importance of having a public relations department and as Bill Gates said “If I was down to the last dollar of my marketing budget I'd spend it on PR!” So that why nowadays, the PR department is regarded as one of the vital arm of any company.

Another observation I made during my internship was that I have also seen how powerful the media is! My idea being that they have contributed so much in changing people’s or even organisations’ point of view either during times of crisis or success. It can be said that the media is one of the most powerful entity on earth. I mean that they have the power to make the innocent guilty or the guilty innocent and that is something powerful and scary as well.

Well I hope you are all having a nice experience during your internships. I really enjoyed mine and I got to learn so much in these 20 days. Actually I am grateful that the Marketing/PR team at Fortis Clinique Darné has given me valuable notions which I could not extract from books and I hope in the future I will apply them in the best possible ways. Now I understand why our lecturer has always encourage us to do internship because these internships really help us to apply what we have learned in PR classes into practice and these internships also help us to experience how sometimes theories are not always textbook situations or simply cannot be put into practice. So this is where we have to use our skills or at times hidden skills. So I would suggest you to use your internship as a valuable experience gathering, knowledge inducing and skills perfecting time. Remember you will not always encounter PR situations as in books; hence you will need to be resourceful enough to tackle them so in the links below, you would find few readings that might help you.

• http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/17244.aspx
• http://www.prnewsonline.com/water-cooler/2014/09/09/5-keys-to-successful-workplace-crisis-communications/
• http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/17224.aspx
• http://www.prdaily.com/mediarelations/Articles/17203.aspx

I hope that you are enjoying your placement and as said by Steve Jobs “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.” So make the most of this placement and all the best for the future peeps!

Best regards,

Chashanee