The End (for now)

I've finished my 20 days at the WAEC and it's definitely been a journey. Our last week was still filled with some interesting experiences and conversations.. as well as very sad goodbye to our supervisor Sotear (who is also leaving the WAEC).

This week consisted mainly on filming for our social media content. On Tuesday we went to Curtin University for a few hours and attempted to record some vox pops with students about voting and our new mascot/character (currently named: Vincent the Voting Screen). While we were only able to interview 5 people (due to our shyness and some of the locations we attempted not being very busy), we got some great footage and content that we can definitely use in the final product!

Thursday's filming was less successful as there wasn't many young people in the city area (and TAFE wasn't the best location to film in because of the way the campus is set up). It wasnt the best feeling to come back empty handed but to make up for it we will be trying to film at a couple of universities next Tuesday instead. After viewing Tuesday's footage we worked out what we can improve on to help our success rate and will implement this on our next filming trip.

We were also asked to view the final version of the training videos that Ed and Winnie had been involved in earlier in our internship experience. It was great to see the finished product and we all had a laugh when Ed or Winnie appeared on the screen. Again, our feedback was wanted and appreciated.. an aspect of the internship I really enjoyed.

Our last day with Sotear was a somewhat emotional one. We had a debrief meeting over coffee where she thanked us for all the work we've done over the past 20 days and gave us praise for completing some major projects that would've taken much longer to complete without our help. We were also asked about our feedback of the internship in terms of what we enjoyed and didnt enjoy and there was definitely more pros than cons. It really was a great experience.

While the 20 days are done, we have all said we're willing to come back and help at any time with further involvement in our projects. The 20 days has also helped me to see a side of PR I could definitely be interested. Social media management and creation wasn't something I ever saw myself doing and yet here I am after 20 days wanting to do more!

This is goodbye, for now. For people who are still completing their internships, enjoy it and work hard as it'll be finished before you even realise.

Isabella Olivera (17742580)

Group photo with our supervisor Sotear (next to Ed) and Jodie who is currently in HR

Receptionist Pina says goodbye to her children! We will miss you too

A surprise thank you gift on our desk from Sotear. Yummy!!

All good things must come to an end

As I am writing this post I have just finished my second last week at the WAEC (it really went flying by didn't it?!). While it is sad that my internship is almost over, it definitely hasn't been all doom and gloom.

Some exciting things have happened and are happening at the WAEC! Firstly, I worked at my first proper event, helping out with the WAEC's enrolment drive at the Royal Show last week. I was given the task of helping to confirm enrolments of those who were interested in our booth, the freebies and our competition (involving an IGA gift card & and iPad Air 2!). All interns were given a WAEC polo top to wear on the day (and to keep) and it definitely helped me to feel even more a part of the team. A great experience I'll remember!

Secondly, the fellow interns and myself have been given the fun task of creating some social media content to link into the new advertising campaign and the other social media posts that have been created. We will be at Curtin University next Tuesday to do some Vox Pops with students, asking them to name the new election mascot/character and a few questions about elections and voting. We'll be in our WAEC polo tops so if you see us around, definitely say hi and get involved (we may have some freebies to give away too)..

After almost 20 days at the WAEC, I feel very proud of myself and what I've accomplished. I began the 20 days with the big task of improving our social media channels and have successfully created some images that will hopefully be used during the election timeline from enrolment to polling day. I definitely wouldn't have been able to do this alone and would like to thank my fellow interns for their great ideas and constructive criticism.

Now to make the final week count! See you in my final blog post!

Until next time,
Isabella Olivera (17742580)

WAEC @ the Perth Royal show 2016 - Photo Credit: WAElections Facebook

Just one of the social media posts I've made for our election timeline! This one is a reminder for early voting

Benchmarking and Recommendations: A real world perspective

My project is all about improving the WAEC's website & social media and in order to do that, the topics of benchmarking and recommendations are heavily involved.

Firstly, the WAEC aims to make their website more user-friendly and easier to navigate. My task was to go through the website, the content and how it was all organised.

As a student who has had to visit the WAEC website to find information for assignments, I had an understanding of what information could be made more accessible and how information may be able to be presented differently. Regardless, I thoroughly analysed the website's presentation and content in order to provide recommendations for how this could be presented differently.

I have recently been told that my recommendations have been taken on board and that a couple will be featured on the new website. One of these recommendations is the creation of a legal page that will include all relevant legislative documents as well as information on election fines (that are issued for not voting). I was very surprised and ecstatic to hear this news.

Improving the social media channels however, has proved to be a more difficult task. It is important to mention that the WAEC has regulations on what can & can't be posted to social media to ensure political neutrality. In order to make recommendations for the WAEC's channels, I first had to look at what the other electoral commissions in Australia were posting to their channels.

Benchmarking has always been emphasised in our PR units and I've never really given it much thought until now. By having a look at the other electoral commissions, I found a great amount of similarities and differences.

Some of the similarities include but are not limited to:

• Social media guidelines regarding political neutrality
• Promotion of election information and content (as various states are in the process of conducting state & local government elections)
• The specific social media sites used (every commission has an official Facebook page and a majority also use Twitter and Youtube)

The major differences between commissions is how the information is presented. For example the Victorian Electoral Commission uses animated videos to provide electoral information while the NSW Electoral Commission uses power-point lecture styled videos to present similar information. 

There were also differences in the consistency of usage. For example, the Tasmanian Electoral Commission has not updated their Facebook since July, while the WAEC tends to update their Facebook weekly. 

I have found the benchmarking process very eye-opening and helpful for the creation of recommendations for social media content and presentation. My next project involves the creation of a content schedule as well as the creation of content for fixed events in the election timeline (role close, early voting, etc.) and thus the findings from my benchmarking & recommendations will very much come in handy.

Only 10 more days left of my internship and the pressure is on to make the most of it.

Until next time,

Isabella

The first 4 days: my experience at WAEC so far

Hi fellow PR interns.

My name is Isabella and I've just finished my second week working with the West Australian Electoral Commission (WAEC), and so far, have loved every minute. I first found out about the WAEC through the Public Relations Planning & Evaluation unit last semester as they were our client for our 2 major assignments. 

I work at the WAEC office (located on St Georges Terrace) twice a week on Tuesdays and Wednesday. On Tuesdays I am joined by two other Curtin PR interns - Ed and Winnie. I have had one class in the past with Ed and none with Winnie so it was nice to meet some somewhat 'fresh' faces.  All three of us our based in a little area in the middle of the second floor, called the ROLO area. This area is the most central part of the office which will be very helpful when we need to interact more with certain staff members on our projects

WEEK 1

Day 1 of the internship began with a guided tour by our supervisor Sotear, who introduced us to all of the staff members. It was interesting to see how diverse the team was and how some staff members have been working at the Commission for a really long time. [I can understand why after only being there for a few weeks! All the staff members are so friendly and definitely try their best to make us feel comfortable].

After the introductions, the other interns and myself along with Sotear and our secondary supervisor Katherine went to one of the meeting rooms upstairs and brainstormed in our  Engagement Strategy Workshop, where we discussed the various projects we will be working on for the duration of our internships. My project will be of a similar focus to what was covered in Public Relations Planning & Evaluation as it relates to how the WAEC can improve their social media channels while also engaging youth in enrolment and voting. 

During the session we collaborated together to brainstorm ideas for  all the projects which also include internet voting for disabilities and voting on campus. I definitely enjoyed hearing all different ideas we had and the input and feedback from our supervisors. 

Once the workshop was done, it was time for lunch and we made ourselves familiar with the kitchen facilities available and the tea room area. It was then back to another meeting but this time with IT who sat us all down to explain and emphasise the organisation's online security policies. After this we received our log in details and began typing up our workshop notes in to a document as asked for by Sotear. 

My second day at the office was spent alone (as I'm the only intern on Wednesdays) and while it was lonely, I enjoyed the ability to work a little more independently. I was given the task to create a ‘Project Briefing Document’ that would cover my project and focus on  the objectives, outcomes, resources and contacts that I would need to consider in all stages of research, implementation and evaluation. This process was one that I did not find too difficult thanks to the notes from the strategies workshop. As a result  the document was completed earlier in the day and emailed to the supervisor. As I had finished a little earlier than expected I started to work on the research component as outlined in the document. Our supervisor Sotear had a few meetings that day and I was unsure on how to tell her I needed more work so I was somewhat bored for a while until Lena (the Commissioner's assistant) came by to see how my day was going. I told her that it had been good so far but that I needed a little bit more work. She was very friendly and even gave me a phone list so that I could contact Sotear and other key staff members if needed. I later received an email from Sotear outlining some more tasks to do including some meeting points about new social media platforms the WAEC could possibly use and the ways we could use them, as well as possible issues and how to manage them. 

WEEK 2

Day 3 of the internship was somewhat similar to the first day in terms of the busy meeting and activities schedule. We began our day at a meeting with the Commissioner, David Kerslake, who had briefly spoken to us on our first day. The meeting focused on feedback from David regarding the documents we'd worked on during the previous week and it gave us some ideas on what to work on when we had time. Later in the morning we had another IT meeting that focused on the specific program used to save documents. I appreciate the effort the WAEC has made to ensure to make us feel welcome and part of the team.

After an early lunch, we joined our secondary supervisor Katherine (who is looking after us while Sotear is away in Darwin) for an excursion to the WAEC'S Electoral Education Centre. We took the local CAT bus to the EEC which is located across from Parliament. We were introduced to Nigel who explained what the EEC does and gave us a quick tour of the facilities before we were joined by a year 9 group from Butler College. The program for the afternoon focused on the levels of government and the preferential voting system used in both the state and federal lower houses. It was really interesting to visit the EEC as I had never done so during primary and secondary education.

After the visit was over it was back to the CBD where we decided to have a second lunch and a quick visit to Nespresso for a coffee sample.. then it was back to work where we began working on some of the dot points mentioned during the morning's meeting with David. We started to collaboratively research contact details for universities and disability radio services for final part of the work day.

Day 4 was a very productive day yet again I ran into an issue but this time it was more to do with not being able to work rather than not having any work. I began the day working through the meeting points that focused on the social media project and included how social media could be linked to the other projects as well as a seperate youth focused strategy and plan. After this I decided to create a document for important contacts that would be involved with all the projects. Both of these documents were sent to Ed and Winnie to review when they were in office the next day.

I had a quick look at the briefing document I had made on Day 2 to see what tasks could be done. I decided to work on one of my main research elements, which involves analysing the WAEC's current social media platforms as well as their website to see what types of content were being used and how this could be improved and if anything was being missed. I had no issue completing this task for the website as a link is easily found on the staff intranet and there is currently no external content on the page. My main issue with this task however was that I do not yet have access to social media sites from the office computers (although a request for access has been put forward by our supervisors). Instead, I had to improvise and use my own mobile device to access the WAEC's social media and analyse the content. I was able to complete the Facebook portion before my phone decided to go on low battery. Again, I improvised by focusing on social media platforms the WAEC currently doesn't use such as Instagram and Snapchat and how those platforms could be of use to communicating with the 18-29 year old demographic and how it can be used effectively and appropriately. Thankfully I already had notes on these platforms from the meeting notes I had made the previous week and from
my social media plan I had made earlier in the day.I emailed Katherine to discuss the issue of the social media access and to ask if I could finish work 30 minutes earlier because of not being able to finish this task and not having any further work to do.

Overall, my experience at the WAEC has been great and my only complaints are really about the lack of tasks to do, although I'm sure we will start to get very busy over the next few weeks ; and the lack of social media access which is key to my project but hopefully shouldn't be an issue for much longer. I've really been enjoying working in such a friendly and comfortable work environment and having two other PR interns has made the process of interning a little less daunting than I was originally thinking it would be.

Until next time...
Isabella

BONUS: Here's a photo of my work space along with  my  handmade name sign which is now pinned up to my wall so staff can remember my name! There is also a phone next to the computer and a few draws that contain essential stationary items