The Importance of Communication

Communication is key. I feel as if I’ve heard it since I was born and, to be fair, I probably have. I’m sure our parent's regret encouraging us to speak as toddlers at times, you know, those times that they just wish you would shut up and leave them alone. In fact, as I typed this I received an email from my mum which began with a cheery “Because, you annoying little cretin…”; this is real love people. Shift communication out of the home and into the workforce and you have a process with a whole other level of importance and nuance. E-mail is a wonderful thing but it's best to remember that if it is in writing it can come back to bite you (surprisingly my mother actually did first teach me this yet still sends colourful emails!). Emails, or any written word, can also easily be miscomprehended, taken out of context or received completely void of context and meaning or simply be (sometimes wilfully) misinterpreted. Of course these issues aren't restricted to online communication, communication of any type can be tricky.

So why the focus on communication. YMEA – Young Meeting and Event Association. My very first professional networking experience. Those attending were from event hosting venues throughout Sydney with a range of ages and even different languages represented. Perhaps the best thing I learnt from attending YMEA’s Christmas in July networking function on Wednesday 22 was actually from one of their sponsors – The Fun Department - in the form of an icebreaker.

Separated into groups by a letter, we were allocated the letter L and instructed to choose a team name 5 letters or less; we chose Lunar. Our very first game involved a bit of a play on Chinese whispers. A member of the group viewed a picture and had to remember the image's details then return to the group and whisper those details into the first person’s ear. Those details were then passed around the group and the final participant had to draw the image onto a board. Our final image was a ranger in a jumper and red glasses. The actual image? An Indy reindeer in a Christmas sweater complete with red nose and glasses. Hilarious but certainly concrete evidence of our slightly below par communication skills in this activity and a great reminder of the importance of communication.

Aside from the fun and games, it was interesting to attend a real networking function. As it was a night specific to the events industry, many of the attendees had previously met or heard of each other to the extent that the event operated as something of a 'catch up'. Certainly, the positive experience of speaking to people I had never met or heard of from the industry - particularly as it was in another state -  was an amazing opportunity which will encourage me to attend and communicate at future networking events.

The very next morning, I took the opportunity to connect with the woman who introduced me to Zadro agency and suggested me as a possible intern. Having never met her before, I was keen to thank her. The path to Zadro was certainly a circuitous one.  I work part-time at a Perth hotel that is part of a world-wide chain (IHG) and approached our internal Marketing/PR contact with the aim of securing an internship in the hotel on the East a Coast or overseas. She put me in contact with Annmarie from IHG in Sydney, who is a lovely lady with an amazing career, but the company were unable to accommodate the timeframe. A number of email communications followed during which she reached out to a friend at Zadro agency and, in the end, my internship was arranged with surprising speed. The opportunity for us to connect was not a daunting experience at all, it was a great opportunity to thank her and discuss a range of topics around university, interning and the work she does with IHG.

The communication theme of also spilled over into my working week. On Wednesday afternoon, I sent out a round of emails to specialised magazines with the aim of securing a written promotional article for a client. I then spent hours on Thursday phoning contacts on a client’s database to update their information (some of who didn’t realise they were even on a database), a total of 100 contacts required updating.

Looking back over this post, it strikes me that this is probably closer to an essay than a blog post but that is exactly how I felt over those two days….and I love it. In the space of just one short working week, I've had the theory of good and strategic communication in the workplace reinforced continuously in practice; I'm waiting to see what other theoretical aspects of PR I'll get to see in practice over the next week.

Signing off

Bella