Network Ahead!

One of my earliest memories as a young Curtin PR student back in 2010 was my tutors fervor in ensuring we learnt how to 'network, network, network!'

I remember thinking back at how tedious this "networking" business sounded and my head swam with visions of suited men and women discussing topics beyond my realm of first year knowledge. 

This may have attributed to my severe lack of networking experience until I started my work at my current job/internship placement at the not-for-profit organisation MWLP in Campbelltown, NSW.

I was to learn (and quite quickly at that) the power and significance of networking for the not-for-profit. For many NFP organisations the budget left over for marketing and communications can be small and it is the role of the person in charge to try to stretch this as much as they can.
Networking is a budget saving and personal way a NFP can work to circulate their brand within the community at a fraction of the cost! Business owners and professionals will often take a keen interest in hearing what you do and if dome right, remember your name (and hopefully your organisation) in the future.
Moreover, networking is that perfect opportunity to make industry contacts and meet with people who represent organisations you may want (or need) further contact with in the future.
When offering forward a proposal, having that personal contact with a person can be invaluable, particularly in the case of a NFP seeking something in return.

I am proud to say that to this date I have hosted over 40 networking events and have attended just a many, if not more. The contacts and relationships I have made and maintained during these events has been invaluable to me personally and professionally and my trepidation for these types of events is a thing of the past. 

You Won't Always Win

POLICY CHALLENGES

Choose Your Battles.

One of my first tasks as an intern, was to assist with the creation of Public Relations materials. I was very excited because I had been looking forward to testing out my creative skills with a graphic design program, called Canva. I was given two weeks to do the draft but I had it done by the very next week. I met with my Supervisor and presented the e-flyer that I had created. We made more changes to the content and layout, before sending it away for second-level approval. When word came back, we were told that my work was rejected because of a photo that I had used, of our Bentley campus. I had sourced the photo online and initially thought that the photo was owned by Curtin University, because it linked back to Curtin’s website. I hadn’t perceived any issues with using the photo, because I could see that the photo was copyrighted by Curtin. I would have been happy to take my own photo, but I didn’t want to disadvantage the team by taking an ugly photo which could have made our marketing materials look unprofessional.

I soon learned that using photos for anything Curtin-branded, is actually a very complicated process; so I clarified with my supervisor whether or not we should just submit the content to the University’s official marketing team, who could design the e-flyer and present it in the manner which they felt was best. My supervisor asked the question, but the response we received, was that it was our responsibility to create our own marketing materials. The second time around, we had to use Curtin’s logo and select our photo from the cloud-database, Google drive. My Supervisor was given access to a Google drive folder, which was full of photos that were specifically available for our School to use. 

We were allowed to use these photos because they had not expired yet, which is something that had never occurred to me; photographs can have expiry dates!

In an effort to make sure our work was approved this time, I decided that we should take inspiration from the existing handbook. We imitated the colour scheme so that there was consistency between our marketing materials and how Curtin had already branded the school. This time, our final draft looked much warmer and more personable. We used a photo of an elderly woman and a smiling carer. The smiling carer in the photo, was actually one of my Supervisor’s colleagues. It was nice to learn this, because somehow, it softened the experience of having to redo our e-flyer all again. Again we sent it away for approval and again it was rejected. This time, we were told to abide by a template which we could download from the Curtin communications toolkit. I was fairly distraught, but at least now I know that some organisations keep template-toolkits. 

After one final attempt, we sent our content within the exact confines of the template. They sent us back the approved version. Oh, but both our photos had been replaced. One was replaced because of image quality (okay, fair enough). The other one was replaced because I guess they didn't like the one we chose - and didn't realise the damage that they were inflicting on my soul by replacing it unnecessarily.

 In essence, you won't always win - but don't feel defeated, demoralised or like nothing you do is good enough. Choose another battle, and keep going. You can do this.

- Mivalaa

Onward, Noble Steed.

Sayonara Internship Program, see you in another time!

Today marks the last day of Internship program that I had for the Public Relations unit as part of my Bachelor Degree completion, focusing on final exams and hopefully I will be able to graduate on February 2017 *yeayme*.
Inul Vizta Family KTV has been an interesting place for a fast pace of working place. The company is eager to compete with another companies who is offering similar type of purpose which is Karaoke for customers such as working people, students in schools and Universities, families and corporate events. The company can be said as a leading franchisee based company that succeed to achieve a positive brand image and media coverage toward the company.

By completing the Internship program, I will of course miss the company and my small desk (more about it below) and I cannot wait to apply the skills that I have learned to the real world later on. I will mostly feel grateful to my supervisor, Herry and his assistant, Hendra to guide me when I was interning there and receiving important information about the company and to know more how to work in an office environment as personally I have never been working in an office before doing this Internship.

These below are some images of the office that I worked for:

 This above is the desk that I sat during the Internship days.

This image above is the situation of the 5th floor office at Inul Vizta Family Karaoke KTV Palembang, Indonesia.

This table above in the image is where me and the supervisors have a weekly meeting or daily follow up in the office.

Therefore, by creating this blog post marks the end journey of Public Relations Internship and my journey as a University Student.
Thank you my small team members and people in Inul Vizta for the precious memories and fun working situation that we had. See you in another time.

Thanks for reading my blog posts guys :)

Sayonara Internship Program, see you in another time!

Today marks the last day of Internship program that I had for the Public Relations unit as part of my Bachelor Degree completion, focusing on final exams and hopefully I will be able to graduate on February 2017 *yeayme*.
Inul Vizta Family KTV has been an interesting place for a fast pace of working place. The company is eager to compete with another companies who is offering similar type of purpose which is Karaoke for customers such as working people, students in schools and Universities, families and corporate events. The company can be said as a leading franchisee based company that succeed to achieve a positive brand image and media coverage toward the company.

By completing the Internship program, I will of course miss the company and my small desk (more about it below) and I cannot wait to apply the skills that I have learned to the real world later on. I will mostly feel grateful to my supervisor, Herry and his assistant, Hendra to guide me when I was interning there and receiving important information about the company and to know more how to work in an office environment as personally I have never been working in an office before doing this Internship.

These below are some images of the office that I worked for:

 This above is the desk that I sat during the Internship days.

This image above is the situation of the 5th floor office at Inul Vizta Family Karaoke KTV Palembang, Indonesia.

This table above in the image is where me and the supervisors have a weekly meeting or daily follow up in the office.

Therefore, by creating this blog post marks the end journey of Public Relations Internship and my journey as a University Student.
Thank you my small team members and people in Inul Vizta for the precious memories and fun working situation that we had. See you in another time.

Thanks for reading my blog posts guys :)

It feels so great to be entering the last week of semester! I finished my internship last Thursday, and now I can finally see the end of the road.

My last day at Cannings Purple was amazing! We had a morning tea with pastries and muffins, followed by a quick speech from one of the managers thanking me for my time there. I followed with my own thank you speech, expressing my gratitude towards all the staff and for the wonderful experience they had given me throughout my placement.

Despite it being my last day, I still worked on projects and fortunately, went out with a bang with a writing task I thoroughly enjoyed. BCG has released their own company Bulletin magazine, designed to share the stories of the company’s projects, events and employees. I was to write three articles that were going to be placed over a two-page spread of short pieces. My first piece was on BCG’s participation in the City to Surf event, followed by a piece on the recent collaboration between BCG and Industry Gold Group. Both pieces were kept to a 60-word limit. The third article I wrote was a 200 word piece about BCG’s Development division, and the new Paradis Apartments that had just been completed at Alkimos Beach. I look forward to seeing these pieces in the Q4 December edition!

Reflecting on the semester, I did find it hard trying to juggle the internship, writing the report, keeping up with my other units, work, and all the other stressors that life throws our way, but I’m glad I did it. I learnt so much from the internship, not only about how PR runs in the corporate world, but also several skills such as working in an office, the importance of developing strong relationships with clients and how to juggle a number of tasks. I am looking forward to working fulltime and earning an income.

Congratulations to everyone for getting through the semester and completing their internships! Judging from all the posts, it sounds like all the students had a wonderful experience and learnt a lot.

The world of public relations is definitely getting a better run for their money these days, as it has become an integral aspect of many businesses. I believe we are all going to do well, there is some amazing talent at Curtin.

To those of you graduating, best of luck for the future, and again, well done for making it this far.

Ciao everyone!

My desk at Cannings Purple

The Last Hurrah : Making Recommendations

The Last Hurrah : Making Recommendations

The last day of my internship is long gone and my report well underway, so I figure now is a good time to stop and take a look back at my notes and musing of what I think should be different about PR at Netball WA.

In writing the organisation overview, thoroughly reading the marketing and communications plan and other official documents like the corporate sponsor introduction booklet ('Becoming a Partner Booklet') and the five year strategic plan (2013-2018), some major things stuck out that needed to be addressed to maximise the good that PR could do for Netball WA.

For starters, there were soooo many channels; right from the normal stuff like a range of social media accounts and websites, through to a whole range of regularly sent electronic direct mail. On top of this, across four sectors of the workplace, almost every employee had regular contact with a range of external key publics – from parent of developing players to corporate sponsors. These communications take place without monitoring or significant training from the communications team, meaning that communications coming out of other departments is varied and the communications experience at each interaction differs.

Another strange aspect of the organisation’s operations was the four key pillars of objectives and the four functional sectors of the workforce do not link well, it seemed very odd to have such a serve an imbalance of resources for each of the organisations key objective areas.

Another aspect was the residual impacts of the ‘go with the gut’ communications strategy that was in place at Netball WA until recently. While the team have developed a five-year communications strategy that is currently implemented and seems to suffice, there is very little reference to any research or environmental scans, meaning that decisions to implement or alter strategies are often made with little background knowledge about organisations implementing similar tactics.

As well as a revamp of internal communications to achieve streamlining of work efforts and follow on communications coming out of the organisation, the communications strategy objectives are not SMART (which isn’t surprising due to the insufficient research done prior to their creation).

It was definitely a learning process from day one where operations seemed to be effective and smooth, to the final day when I had notice a number of potential changes. It takes a critical eye to see through seemingly effective operations and onto the areas in which it could be improved.

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

The Ins and Outs of working in an office

Hi everyone! My second blog post comments on how different it is working in an office compared to working in a casual customer service job.

This internship was my first experience working in an office.

I have spent the last 7 years working as a casual employee in the hospitality industry. I have worked at a number of cafes, restaurants and bars to fund my way through school and university. Whilst I have gained a lot of skills in customer service, function management and can definitely say I am very good at remembering people’s orders, I was introduced to a very different type of work when I began my internship.

I currently work part time at my local pub as a casual employee, usually doing about 20 hours per work. Whilst I am at work I am constantly being supervised and kept to a very strict timeframe; I must start at this time and cannot leave until this time.

When I came to the internship, I was very surprised at the amount of freedom you have. Before starting I assumed I would be under strict time constraints to have my work completed by, and envisioned being constantly schooled and checked up on by the boss. But I wasn’t. It was as if they just trusted me to get the work done…

For example, you are pretty much free to begin and end your day as you please. Some employees choose to start at 7.30am and leave by 4.30pm, others may start at 9.00am. At the end of my first day I was very unsure of what the protocol was to leave. At 4.45pm I looked around and noticed majority of the staff were no longer in the office. I went to find my supervisor to ask when I should leave as I had finished my work for the day, but was told she’d already left. Apparently I was fine to just leave when I wanted. I was very surprised at this level of freedom. I was able to go on lunch when I wanted to, and I was able to leave to get coffee whenever I wanted to- a major plus for me.

One important note I learnt after my first day was do not wear heels! I got a bad case of blisters and struggled to walk around for the rest of the week.   

Overall, I have really enjoyed working in an office and the perks you get with it. It is very different to customer service and hospitality, but I am done with that chapter of my life and very much ready to start my new chapter in the corporate world!

The office has a very open floor plan, which allows for easy interaction between the different departments.

Finding an internship is like finding an ant in the sand for me

Hello friends, this is Isabella I know it's really late that I just post my blog post for the 1st time for the internship. Let's just get started :)

First of all, I have no idea that finding an internship as a PR student will be really really hard and requires a lot of time and receiving replies when you apply for the position is kinda giving mixed emotions like excited to work as intern but a bit sorrow when the company does not want us in their industry. But all is good now because I will finish my intern position soon enough after finding it with much effort and struggle.

I have been enjoying my intern position as a social media assistant in managing the company's Facebook page and the website for the company. I work for a karaoke industry called Inul Vizta in South Sumatra, Indonesia. It has been a pretty successful company as it's been running from 2008 and everyday there is always guest or customers who want to sing at the place.
The name for the company is pretty unique because the franchiser use Indonesian singer to work as the icon or ambassador for our company. The company also has a lot of branches across Indonesia such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Lampung, Medan, Makassar, Depok, Tangerang and many more.

At first, I was really nervous on how to work as an intern in a company because I don't have much working experience in general let alone as a PR intern. Also, finding an intern position in Australia is really hard for me as I am an international student and don't have significant experience in working and most companies want people who are already have skills in working as intern.
When I work at the company, the manager trains me on how to do the work in general, giving me guidelines on how to work with the teams, what things to post on the accounts and the people are really friendly too as I have known them before I apply for the job.

The one thing that I am concerned with at first was the difference theories applied for PR in general. Like in Indonesia, PR is known more as public speaking, presentation and writing reports. It is seen as communication and promotion tool for the company. But in Australia, it isn't like that, there is more to PR than what I know before studying it in University. So it is kinda interesting to tell my fellow colleagues about what I studied for PR, the techniques, theories, understanding and application for PR in working as well.

Well, I think it is enough for my 1st post ever in this blog. I will write my intern journey soon enough and doing my best as a student as well.

Week one: Success!

Hi everyone! I am currently entering the second week of my PR internship at Cannings Purple, located in West Perth. 

On my first day, I arrived at the office at 8.20am, surprisingly feeling much more relaxed than I had anticipated. As I walked into the office I introduced myself to one of the colleagues I recognised from my interview a few months prior. She gave me a tour of the office and pointed out what the different areas were and who worked in which department. I was introduced to a number of people and was greeted with a warm welcome from everyone who passed me in the office.

At 9.00am, the office has a daily meeting which they call WTF, or What’s the Focus. These meetings are designed to keep everyone informed of the daily activities occurring in the office, and give people a chance to put their hand up for extra work when they have capacity. The meetings are usually quite short, but there is always some form of banter going on between everyone and a lot of laughter. I think the meetings are a great idea, as they not only keep everyone up-to-date, but they also get the energy of the office up and create a happy environment for everyone to begin their day.

Once the meeting was finished, I had a brief chat with one of the executives to discuss what I would do on my first day. She directed me towards the Investor Relations area, and from there I was given a research project on dysprosium, a rare earth element that is predominantly mined in China. The reason for this research was to gain an understanding on the future outlook for dysprosium in order to give advice to investors on whether they should invest in a client called Northern Minerals. Northern Minerals is a mining company that is currently set up in the Northern Territory who are the first mining company in Australia to mine the rare earth element. My research for this project is still underway, however I have definitely learnt a lot from it, as it has not only broadened my understanding of the element and its uses, but also on how to conduct effective research. I found this task very interesting, as I discovered that dysprosium is a material used in many sustainable energy innovations, such as electric vehicles and wind turbines. As sustainability is an area I am very interested in and hope to end up working in, I found the content that I researched very valuable to learn. 

I was then given my second task for the day, in the area of Corporate Affairs. This task involved generating social media content for a client called Business Foundations. I produced a total of 18 Facebook posts and 18 Twitter posts on a variety of subjects regarding the company and their service offerings. My supervisor was very pleased with my work, which was a big confidence boost!

My second day was very similar and just carried on completing both tasks from the day before. On day three I was given a new task that required urgent research for a client called Landscorp. I was instructed to gather information such as population and economic data for various WA towns. The information needed to be sourced from credible sites and completed by that afternoon. Finding population size and demographics was quite easy, as I gathered most of this information from the ABS website. However I was surprised to find that the most recent data was taken from 2014, and even then majority of the information I needed was from 2011. I began to stress that the client would not be pleased with these outdated results. From there I became more stressed when trying to find information regarding any major projects occurring in the area and really struggled when it came to some of the less well-known areas. Thankfully I sent a draft copy to my supervisor of the work I’d already completed and was told I was on the right track and to continue doing what I was doing. That was a major relief and suddenly the task was much easier to do.

After completing my first week I can definitely say I am looking forward to graduating university and entering the workforce! I know that this internship will be a valuable learning asset towards my career and I am very excited for the days ahead!