A Purple Beginning...

Hi everyone! My name is Stav and this is my first blog post.

Like the rest of you, I am in my final year of my double degree (PR and Professional Writing and Publishing), and I am really excited to have landed an internship with Cannings Purple. For those of you who may not know, Cannings Purple is a highly acclaimed PR firm in Perth, specialising in corporate affairs, government relations, stakeholder engagement, and other B2B PR-related areas. I decided to apply for an internship with Cannings Purple as these are the areas of PR that interest me the most, and I wanted to go somewhere that would give me a wealth of knowledge and experience in the world of corporate PR.

I go in to Cannings Purple two days a week, and my first week went by really quickly. On my first day, my supervisor showed me around the office, and it is really cool! It feels like a real office, with boardrooms, and people in smart clothing - the office looks out onto Perth's skyline, which makes it all seem very grown up and professional. I learned that the team has a brief meeting every morning to go over what everyone is up to, so that the whole firm is aware of what projects are undertaken and to have a general catch up. I was introduced in this meeting, and everyone was very nice and welcoming. After the meeting I got everything set up - I got my very own laptop, desk, and email address. I was given the task of writing up blurbs about hip local restaurants, bars, and shops for a client's website. This task flowed onto the following day - day two, where I worked closely with the Design & Digital team.

On day two, I joined the Design & Digital team at their weekly meeting, and it was a great insight into the more creative side of the firm (as opposed to the corporate side I had seen previously). I was responsible for creating social media content on Photoshop, working alongside the Art Director and the Digital and Social Media Consultant. This all tied in to the previous day's task, as these social media images linked to the blurbs I had written. On day two, I was also given small tasks by other directors in the firm which was mainly to do research on various vendors for events. It was nice to work with the Design & Digital team as they were all really friendly and keen to help.

My first week was enjoyable! Although the tasks were simple, I enjoyed writing and creating content. My supervisor highly praised my work which was nice, and I was proud to have played a part in creating content for a client. Looking forward to the rest of the internship!

Walking into the workplace

Hi Everyone!

This is my first blog titled "Walking into the workplace". I wanted to share with you what I have learnt in the first few days and some advice I have from my initial processes into getting my internship.  

Firstly I would like to share this quote as it demonstrates the feeling of walking into the big old world and starting somewhere new.  “You should never get nervous about anything. What today seems important tomorrow isn't so anymore” – Spanish athlete Tito Vilanova, 2011.

Starting somewhere new is always a scary concept; will I wear the right thing? Will they notice my nose ring and think differently of me? Does my background change their opinion of my knowledge and understanding? There are so many things I worried about the night before my first day in the office. I tossed and turned wondering what would happen when I first walked into the workplace. I know people aren’t to judge on minor things such as the piercings I have, although we are only human and that’s how we work.

I started my Public Relations internship at Cooperative Bulk Handling (CBH) in West Perth. This organisation has a focus on agriculture and the grain industry in Western Australia, as well as nationally and internationally. This is an area which is very close to me personally, being a farmer in rural WA, therefore I was excited to delve into the business and corporate side of what my family does.

The business world did not seem like a place I could put my experience and knowledge of grain farming to use although my inputs have been noted and used within my first few days as an intern. My first experience with this was at a Corporate Affairs meeting where I was introduced to the whole team who have roles in; internal and community relations, media relations, digital marketing, corporate affairs and marketing. This means that my experience at CBH will cover all areas of PR and help to give me an understanding of what I want to do in the future. 

At CBH I am learning many new things about different roles within my qualifications and sometimes it branches well away from what I have learnt at university. I have been filing a lot of photos as the photo program hasn't been updated in the past 5 years. I have also released a media release and completed a few social media posts, also helping to create an information document for a stakeholders trip to Vietnam. 

Although before all this I had to apply for this internship and be accepted into their work place. My advice for people applying for an internship is BE ORGANISED, I had a completed file of unit outlines, forms, company information and important templates that I had received over my studies which allowed me to be prompt in responding to my employer. 

Organisation is KEY in public relations as it allows you to keep on top of all your tasks. All in all I am enjoying my experience at CBH and hope to keep you all updated soon! 

Happy Interning !!!

Rachel Clarke 

Organizing a Press Conference for a Client

                                      
Hello buddies,

It's my really first blog post and I am on my third day of internship at Immedia Agency. My first day started last week and it was quite relaxed I shall say. I came to met my new colleagues and discover my new working environment and how things work out there. I was really surprised to see a lot of newspapers of practically every media outlet in the country.

Basically Immedia is an Art, Entertainment, Advertising, and Public Relations agency mainly specialised in event making since 1987. Their events featured some artists like: Gad Elmaleh, Yannick Noah, Pascal Obispo, Khaled, Mathieu Chedid, and Groundation. At this point of time they are busy planning for two major events namely: The Phantom of the Opera and Tikoulou which will be held at the end of August and September respectively. 

On my second day, well, I received a phone call from my supervisor on the eve telling me to attend a press conference for one of their client. Before that, Immedia has as main client, Emtel World, whereby Immedia is in charge for some communication projects for CSR programs of Emtel.
This time both Immedia and Emtel are working together for the program: Emtel Painting Sensation 2014.
On the day of the conference I was quite anxious as it was my first press conference. We arrived early to settle everything. Then I discovered how things worked while organising a press conference, firstly when I entered I saw the sound technician installing the sound system and secondly the catering service settling a table with a lot of food! I haven't ate nothing since the morning and...   I was really hungry!

The first task my supervisor asked me to do was to welcome the journalists at the reception, take down their names and which media outlet they work for. I liked this task as there were some pretty nice journalists who gave me their phone numbers (I don't know if it was for working purposes or personal...).

I was already given a list of media outlets which had confirmed the invitation of my agency. After everything was settled in the room and that my supervisor had prepared the CEO of Emtel for his speech, I was given the signal to bring all the journalists upstairs.

After the conference, came the question time for journalists who did not ask too many question (only two in fact) and when I asked my supervisor why they didn't ask that much, he told me that journalists in Mauritius had become very lazy. In fact, I think that they were more interested in the food we were offering them.

The best part was when we invited everyone including the managers of Emtel and journalists to eat and drink something after the conference. It was a way to invite everyone to socialize and build contacts which is important when being a Public Relations practitioner or even a simple journalist. I myself was presented personally to the CEO and other managers at Emtel by my supervisor who gave me their business card too. The worst part was when everything was over and that we had to get back at the office and had to write the press release concerning the press conference.

To finish, I spent only three days and I already had some good experiences and there are more (including bad experience too)  to come. For the moment, Love My Job!

Mehdi 

              

       

   

Pick up the phone and make something happen!

Hello everyone, I am Chashanee and I am currently in my third year at Charles Telfair Institute. Well I am presently enrolled in B.Com Tourism, Hospitality, Events Management and Public Relations. I am doing my internship at Fortis Clinique Darné (FCD) which is one of the largest private hospital in Mauritius. It has been only two days since I joined there but today I am going to share few things that I have learned and observed.

Fortis Clinique Darné

On the first day I was happily welcomed by the PR/Marketing officer who will be my mentor during the internship. Of course the first thing I did was a site visit so as to know the premises. Then in the afternoon the real work started as my mentor gave me few letters to respond along with a deadline. One of the letter was about sponsors agreement which I found quite challenging to respond but eventually I did manage to complete my tasks at the given time.

However, something that keeps on making its present in that small office of Fortis Clinique Darné is the TELEPHONE! I feel like the telephone never stop ringing and I think in the coming days I will be great at picking up the telephone at the first ring itself.

Nevertheless of its annoying sound I believe that the telephone is one of the most useful and amazing equipment any organisation can have especially the marketing/pr department. So basically I have learned that anything could happen from a single phone call. For example, the telephone can give a simple information but at the same time it can finalize an event.

Well that was my two days experience I had at Fortis Clinique Darné and I hope I get to share more interesting things in the future with you all. 

Have a nice internship experience people!

Chashanee Badrisingh

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

How do you think a university student with 3 years’ worth of knowledge in public relations will feel on an internship at a PR/Communications firm? Confident? Quite the opposite.  

I am doing an internship with Blast Communications in Mauritius, a firm that has been existent and successful for 10 years now. It has a relatively young team, and handles the most clients of all the PR firms in the country. Their motto "Because your reputation is priceless", carries with it the familiarity of the ethical considerations one learns in classrooms; however it was the only familiar element. I came into this experience thinking I would only reinforce theories I have learnt in university. The truth is, as soon as I came in I was doing anything and everything which required assistance, whether I was comfortable with it or not. It is unnerving.  

I am a jack of all trades at the office, so to speak. In one week alone I've had to call journalists, lend my voice to a radio ad for one of our client companies, attend an event for an environmental cause to take pictures, and even translate texts from French to English. I may not master any real PR trade, but things must get done regardless. In lectures, they do not tell you that this is what you encounter and how to deal with it. However it is taught in our PR modules that a PR person has to be a well-rounded individual capable of fitting into any situation. I find that to be very true. Experience is proving to be more important than any theory I have learnt.

While some concepts come in handy (if you can remember them in the given situation) it does not necessarily prepare you for office work. One merely learns principles and key concepts, but no amount of essays and PR Briefs will actually prepare you for the working world. It is one thing to know how to execute a plan, and another to actually call people over and over again until you can reach them, send emails back and forth, and compromise when things don’t go as planned. Only then does the glitz and glamour of attending events kick in. 

This is going to be very a very useful experience. You evolve in every moment spent on the work, and your expectations change based on the reality of the working world. So far I would highly recommend undergraduates to seek some experience as well. It may inspire you to continue in your field of practice, or it might reveal what you are like in a professional setting and help you decide what you want to do after your studies.

I look forward to the following weeks to come.  

Sasha-Lee Marivel

Note: Blast Communications also has an official website.  

Week one done and dusted

So I have just complete my first full week at my placement and I thought I would take the opportunity to tell everyone about it.

I'll start by saying that I am completing my internship at the Department of Transport (DoT) at 140 William Street in the city. Unlike most students I am doing my internship all in one hit, yep that's right four weeks straight. There are a few reasons behind my decision but mainly I wanted to see exactly what people in the industry do on a day to day basis rather than seeing small pieces over 10 or so weeks. Also it means that I’ll be able to get my head around ongoing projects much easier so the work I do complete will be much more in depth. Especially over the last couple of weeks of my placement.

Completing my placement at a government agency was never really something I had thought of but now that I am here it’s really interesting to see just how much goes on, on a day to day basis. My first day was a fair bit of reading and trying to absorb as much information as I possibly could. After that I was put to work straight away updating media contacts and finding new ones for an upcoming media release, sounds boring but I found out just how important it was to do regularly. The list I was given was not that old and many of the contacts had changed so for me it was good to know I wasn't just doing busy work that most people may expect during their internship. 

So far I have been asked to draft Newsflash stories, which get published on the intranet, draft communications plans, review competition entries and improve them where possible, review scripts for travel smart information videos and a number of other interesting tasks. What I have found most interesting though is just how well the team works together. While member of the communications team have their own particular fields they all collaborate and assist each other when ever it’s needed. With a few staff members down at present they are all under the pump but you wouldn't realise. 

So far the team has been fantastic to me and they are always willing to help should I ever need any. It been a really informative first week and I’m looking forward to the next one. All I can say is if anyone has the opportunity to complete their placement all at once, do it because I have already learnt a great deal and I still have 3 weeks to go. 

Learning to Adapt: New Experiences

So, my first week as a (full time) Public Relations intern at The Wilderness Society (TWS) WA has come to an end, and I must say that it was one of the most overwhelming and insightful experiences I've ever had. First of all, I was very quickly confronted with the casual nature of the organisation and the way in which it operates. My initial expectations were thrown out the window as I realised that the organisational culture at TWS allows its employees and volunteers to work in an extremely friendly and down-to-earth manner. This was a very nice surprise and it helped me to get to know everyone i'm working with and has helped me feel very welcome in the office. I've learnt that TWS is comprised mainly of volunteers, and only a few paid staff, which means that there is a lot of pressure on community/volunteer organising within the company.

In terms of the work that I've been doing throughout the week: I've done a little bit of data-entry; I was given the task of drafting up an email that would be sent out to a list of approximately 5000 volunteers across WA, and I also re-designed an informational flyer about the Helena Aurora Range. To do this I had to learnt how to use Adobe In-Design which I quicked up relatively quickly and I'm very happy that I'll now be able to put this skill into my CV.         Also, I have already been involved in the planning for a few major events that TWS will be holding in September and I've been told that I will be instrumental in organising an event to be held next month on World Environment Day. Planning and organising for this event will officially begin next week. I'm very excited about all of this and i'm incredibly grateful to have been included in such huge plans so early-on in my internship.

On Wednesday I was included in the team's staff meeting which allowed me to get to know each person's role a little better and listen to what they've been working on. It was also good to see how the team communicates with one-another and it was interesting to learn about how things are done in the office.

Overall, I'm incredibly happy with my placement at The Wilderness Society WA. Everyone in the office is incredibly nice and their passion about the environment is so inspiring. I've learnt that the doubts I had about my ability to practice PR are relatively unfounded because, after this week, I now know that I have the necessary skills to do well in this profession and I have a basis of knowledge that I can build upon through experience. I'm very excited about the work i'll be doing over the next 3 weeks and the experience i'll be able to gain from it all.

Getting used to what my future will look like.. week 1

My first day of work was quite unusual for a first day I should so. The story is I have got an internship will a small consultant company called IMS ltd. Everyone is friendly and we are a small team, yeah I've already adopted the we because I feel part of this family. So to come back to where I was heading, my first day of work was quite unusual. It was on a Thursday, the boss and his assistant had summoned me for an appointment and gosh I was excited. I was with given all the tasks I was expecting to complete during my internship and it sounded nice and challenging. Finally I would be able to put in practice what i had learnt in real.
Anyways during the appointment, the assistant manager informed me that they would be organising an event: the annual dinner reception of a closed group in Mauritius. I was so excited when she told me I could come and help. It is true that they had already done the running sheet, the checklist and everything related to the preparation of the event, but still being involved in the realisation of it was DA BOMB.

So I got at Sir Gaetan Duval at 4.30 on this very 8 of March and the settings were already in place. The assistant mananger, Vandana had given me the table arrangements and name lists and i had to assign a seat to the 170 guests. Then had to check names at the door, prepare gifts to be offered to the ladies present since it was the world's women day.

On top of that, I got yummy food for free, got a lot of contact and had a splendid night with people im sure i'll meet again in some over occasion..

Take care and another post is soon to come..
Cheers, Rachel

Dive straight in!

Hi all,

I am currently studying mass communication; I’m streamlining in PR and web media. I have one unit to complete after I finish this semester; therefore I’m close to finishing my degree.  I’m currently doing an internship at Networking WA 2 days a week.

My fist day at Networking WA was very interesting; I was very nervous but excited as well, I was very enthusiastic to get a feel for what i'll be doing when I graduate, not to mention I love office attire. When I arrived I got introduced to the stuff; there's Rebecca, the owner of the company and Adriana who deals with graphic design, also works on the events and other tasks.
 The rest of the staff are all interns and there's normally 3 on at a time. I got a writing task for their websites blog immediately, and they took a photo of me to accompany it. I had to write a few paragraphs about myself, my studies and why I chose their company to be published online. This was so Clients and their audience could get to know who was working for them.

I was kept aware and updated about all the events that the company was managing in the next few months. One of the other interns and I got given the task to brainstorm for event ideas for next year in terms of a fashion event theme and host, a philanthropic event and speaker, finally an event affiliated with natural resources in Australia.

The next task we had to do was organise some props and merchandise that the company distributes for branding and purposes and to promote their business. We also had to come up with a witty tag line to write on the tags that accompany the merchandise. Next I was to write another blog entry about Christmas events, i emailed it to Rebecca and Adriana at the end of the day.

Overall my first day had already taught me a lot in terms of what kind of tasks would be expected from me. I also learnt a little more about the industry and how staying relevant is important, and  using the internet to update your clients on your company’s progress  is very useful.

Regards
Twiza Singoyi
15484505
Curtin University Bently Campus

That first week!!

Hello there!

I'm Kimberley, from the Charles Telfair Institute, Mauritius.
I am actually writing from the office, I've got some time after a hard day's work. Overall I feel like working in the PR field looks a lot like what we have seen during our studies, while having some differences, of course!

I've been doing a lot of media monitoring so far, which enabled me to better familiarize with the firm's clients and to understand how demanding and time consuming it all is. I've been so scared at first to miss important articles in the newspapers concerning the clients that I ended up reading every article instead of just passing through, loosing a lot of time of course!

In those few days I've also learnt a new thing; press digests.. Never heard of them before! It actually is a list of all the times the client or its competitors have been mentioned in the media in a given month. I thought it was kind of boring to do, but in the end, it is very useful to the client, in order to know what is being said about them, or their competitors, or if they should in the future generate more coverage to compete more on the media sphere.
And today I was asked to draft my first media releases.. STRESS! I was wondering what I would be writing, if I would have enough information to have a decent media release.. In the end, turns out it was not so bad. My supervisor told me it was good and only needed a few corrections.. I was quite proud of myself..
To sum up, that first experience in the PR field, so far, is not as bad as I thought.. I am learning new things, confirming what I already knew, and improving my self-confidence concerning my skills..

See you later people!

Kimberley Cunden
CTI MRU

My First Week of Internship in Singapore Red Cross.

Hi All

I am glad that I finally got to start my internship a week ago. This was due to many weeks of waiting and empty promises but the past is the past and we must now focus on the present.

I managed to get an internship in Singapore Red Cross' Corporate Communications department.  A short introduction of the Singapore Red Cross. They are a Singaporean humanitarian organisation which is part of a world-wide, non-political, non-religious movement that bases its work on the fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality. They are focused on six areas namely: blood donation, first aid,
 caring for the vulnerable, community services, serving humanity and international services.

On my first day, I was thrown into work by reading reports and brochures of services that the auxiliary of government organisation provided.

A Picture of my work desk.

 

My supervisors and colleagues have been very helpful and willing to allow me to help them out in their work. In particularly, my supervisor had already drawn up a list depicting the things I should do while I am there.

As of far, I have had the experience of collating media clippings, calling up the media and confirming they have received the press release sent, helped in facilitating a press meeting and co-wrote the emcee script for the upcoming awards ceremony.

My first task actually terrified me the most, I was given a list of blood donors and I had to call them up, find out their stories behind donating blood and send them to the public relations agency. I had a lot of phone calls to make and as the office is a open concept, everyone could hear every conversations made. This made me tune my voice down and a few times the person on the other end had to tell me to speak up. Overall, this was a very interesting task and I did well as the modules in school has already trained me to find the key points that the public relations agency could use to pitch as a story to the media.

At times when I am feeling distracted and need a pick-me-up, I always go to the cabinet picured below. Do not look down on this simple cabinet for it is filled with a variety of sweets, chocolates, potato chips, instant coffee and tea and even instant noodles.

This sums up the end of my first week. I cannot wait to start another week and learn as much as I can.

Thanks for reading!
Jacquelyn Woo
Curtin Singapore
15658504