Over the last two and a half weeks I've been involved in a number of different communications endeavours at Scitech. It's incredible to experience first-hand how much preparation, organisation and effort goes into the promotion and delivery of each and every exhibit, exhibition and event at Scitech. The end of August and beginning of September saw the Scitech After Dark: Top Secret event and RoboCup, two completely different events targeted towards opposite demographics and organised by the same amazing group of people.
RoboCup has by far been the highlight of my placement so far. 400 primary and secondary school students flocked to Curtin Stadium on Friday 23 and Saturday 24 August for the WA RoboCup. RoboCup is an educational initiative that aims to foster and promote shared learning, development and research in the world of robotics to students across Australia. The WA competition saw robots dancing to music, playing a game of 2-on-2 soccer and negotiating challenging obstacles in a specially built arena while performing a rescue. The event allowed networking opportunities with journalists and photographers, as well as, yet again, incredible insight into the support Scitech gives as a not-for-profit organisation to the education of children. Social media was used to promote Scitech's involvement in the event across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter platforms, as well as a media release in the lead up to the event, and a post-event media release with photos and a list of the winners, sent to local newspapers in a number of different circuits around the state. RoboCup was supported by Rio Tinto, also a major sponsor of Scitech.
Scitech After Dark is a unique, biannual event showcasing Scitech's current exhibition in an atmosphere created specifically for those aged 18 and over - NO kids allowed! On this particular occasion (August 31) the event was themed 'Top Secret', inspired by James Bond and based around the espionage exhibition by the same name; guests went undercover with their trench coats and spy gear to solve the mystery of the stolen computer chip. The night encouraged "fun without the kids" and as usual the popular event was just a few tickets from selling out. Unfortunately I was bedridden with the flu for the event, which in all honesty I was really disappointed about, but I assisted in some of the communications preparation which certainly impacted the success of the night. Media event listings were distributed to local online websites, family and adult-oriented, a media release was written up as well as a draft for a post-media release. We also lined up a competition with Experience Perth in which promoted the event on their website and allowed three viewers the chance to win 3 x double passes to the event. Photo's from the night were uploaded to FaceBook and it definitely looked like an enjoyable night was had by all!
As well as working on events, I've also been exposed to more behind the scenes communications tools used at Scitech, such as Joomla for website management. I was given the opportunity to write an online article for the Scitech homepage (www.scitech.org.au) about a new exhibit launching in anticipation of the October school holidays, 'The Visible Hive'; a live bee hive that allows visitors to observe what really goes on inside a bee hive and the roles each kind of bee plays in the 'bee world' (bees can even exit and re-enter Scitech through a clear tube allowing visitors to observe the neat processes of pollination). I'm now experienced with adding content, media and formatting to online websites while following the tone of voice and theme preferred by Scitech to appeal to both young and mature audiences. Unfortunately, because the exhibit hasn't been launched yet I can't provide a link to the brief website article, but it will be published and ready to be included in the appendices of my report. I'm also currently working on a media release for the bee hive in preparation for the launch. Writing content for both the website and the media release was a lot of fun; even though I was writing for varying audiences the vocabulary was playful and I was encouraged to use as many bee puns as possible!
With the October school holidays coming up, the communications team have many plans in place to push their exclusive holiday programs, promote new exhibits and enhance awareness and involvement on the closing exhibition. I've sent out media event listings, as well as a media release to local newspapers for their 'school holiday' sections, and even content for both 'What's On at Scitech' for the City West Newsletter, and a Scitech ENews article through the use of 'MailChimp', another web content management program.
I've also been working on each of Scitech's social media platforms but that's an ongoing project, and this blog post is already long enough! This Friday (20th September) is scheduled to be my last week on internship, so I will post a final blog outlining my final achievements, experience and performance afterwards.
That's it from me for now, over and out 99!
Natasha Weeks
Curtin University, Bentley
14853926
Showing posts with label 14853926. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 14853926. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Friday, September 6, 2013
National Science Week!
National Science Week was from the 10th-17th August, and it was crazy. I was unable to find the chance to write a blog entry over the last few weeks due to my typical hectic schedule juggling work with Uni with my placement, but thankfully I wrote myself some fairly thorough notes so that it was still easy to share the experiences.
As the largest state with diverse population, National Science Week works to showcase the science, technology, engineering and innovation that drives our communities and our economy; it is an annual event, which this year incorporated a new range of events and activities celebrated through art, film, comedy and theatre (National Science Week 2013).
Scitech's involvement in National Science Week included the festival event on Saturday the 10th August, and Science Cafe on Wednesday the 14th August. National Science Week Festival was a day of celebration and family fun, incorporating science, education and entertainment for all ages. It was also a great way to introduce some of the headlining organisations showcasing their science endeavours over the week. The day kicked off with a live broadcast of the 720 ABC Perth breakfast program, followed by interactive science displays by local organisations. Dr Chris Smith from The Naked Scientist also provided some entertainment! Fundamentally, my role for the National Science Week Festival was mainly carried out post-event through media event listings sent to local websites promoting events and places to visit around Perth, and making up a list of scheduled social media updates to add to HootSuite touching on the daily highlights of National Science Week.
Science Cafe was an event held in Winthrop Hall at UWA for 300
secondary students from schools around WA - completely different atmosphere.
Students were invited to spend morning tea with around 80 inspirational
scientists from a range of
organisations including UWA, Curtin University, ECU University, Murdoch
University, Scitech, DEC, CSIRO,WA Museum and SKM. Sarah Lau from the Chem
Centre hosted the event, which gave students the opportunity to speak one-on-one
with scientists to find out what inspired them to take up science and where
their science careers have led them. Chris Smith from The Naked Scientist, also made
an appearance at this event as a keynote guest speaker. My primary role at this
event was to liaise with the photographer and assist him in getting quality
photographs of a balanced range of schools across several media circulation
areas. Part of this was making sure students had their name tags on display so
that they could be identified later. I also assisted my supervisor, Charlotte,
with noting quotes by guest speakers as potential leads for the post-
event media release.
The week following Science Cafe, Charlotte and I sorted through the
photos that were taken at the event (part of being a NFP means time is
frequently consumed performing such tasks), put together the post-event media
release and emailed it through to relevant media contacts!
Phew! Getting a behind the scenes look at the impact of NFPs on
education and science in younger audiences was an awesome and very rewardable
experience!
That's it from me for now, until next time...
Natasha Weeks
Curtin University, Bentley
Curtin University, Bentley
14853926
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
The start of something new
Hello all!
My name is Natasha Weeks and I'm a full-time student at Curtin University in Bentley, Western Australia. This is my final semester (woo!) of my Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Marketing and Public Relations. This has certainly been an eye-opening journey for me so far. Exciting doors are opening that I want to just leap through after graduation!
I have been patiently waiting for PR393 since the start of my degree, and after two and a half years of classes, towards the end of last semester I landed an internship opportunity at Scitech WA. I began my work placement -twice a week- just under three weeks ago, so I've now completed the first quarter of my 20 day placement. I am now fairly settled into my work environment and can comfortably discuss Scitech as an organisation, as well as the activities I'm destined to be involved in during my time here. I'm really excited about working here because in all honesty, Scitech takes the cake for coolest place to work at voluntarily!
Scitech's mission statement illustrates that it is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to increase awareness, interest, capability and participation by all Western Australians in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Scitech 2013. http://www.scitech.org.au/our-mission/notices/our-mission/Page-2.html). They are West Australia's leading science education centre and offer a number of experiences for visitors of all ages and demographics. Scitech features exhibits, live shows, an in-house CSIRO lab, Australia's largest Planetarium - Horizon, as well as an extensive touring program that visits every regional and remote community across Western Australia.
As you can probably tell just from the above paragraph, there is always a lot going on at Scitech so it's a really exciting atmosphere to be a part of. My first week included a lot of getting to know the organisation, so discussing the IT Policy and the use of photo release forms (a lot of the time we work with children and schools), and reviewing the company's five year plan; their vision, key programs and financial targets which gave me a good idea of the direction the organisation was headed. I spent a lot of time meeting all the friendly faces around the office and sat in on a couple of awesome shows with the kids (getting to know the company, I swear!). I also spent quite a lot of time on data entry for maintaining customer feedback and inputing coupons from discounts, I started during the school holidays - the busiest time for Scitech - and although the process seemed monotonous at the time, it's actually given me a great idea of how Scitech's target stakeholders - their guests - view the company.
During my second week I went behind-the-scenes of Scitech's social media and now understand the uses of HootSuite; collating all social media platforms onto one handy tool, and Mention; a communications tool used to monitor an organisations online presence by highlighting FaceBook comments, Instagram posts, websites, blogs and everything else you could possibly find on the internet with the word 'Scitech', I felt a bit like a spy!
National Science Week, Scitech's 25th Birthday and Scitech After Dark are major events coming up, so I've been doing work on draft media releases (gulp!), and archiving media clippings that date back to as early as 1988! That was extremely interesting, it brought back a few childhood memories for me as well as gave incredible insight into the history of the organisation and the contrast of events and exhibitions from then and now.
Here at Scitech there are also other projects I've begun working on - they're stories for another time :)
We learn things in class, but it really doesn't compare to getting out there in the real world and putting textbook knowledge into practice. This really is a new, exciting experience! Good luck to everyone. Though we're all in the same position, each of us will have unique experiences and I'm excited to read all about them.
Over and out!
Natasha Weeks
14853926
Bentley
My name is Natasha Weeks and I'm a full-time student at Curtin University in Bentley, Western Australia. This is my final semester (woo!) of my Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in Marketing and Public Relations. This has certainly been an eye-opening journey for me so far. Exciting doors are opening that I want to just leap through after graduation!
I have been patiently waiting for PR393 since the start of my degree, and after two and a half years of classes, towards the end of last semester I landed an internship opportunity at Scitech WA. I began my work placement -twice a week- just under three weeks ago, so I've now completed the first quarter of my 20 day placement. I am now fairly settled into my work environment and can comfortably discuss Scitech as an organisation, as well as the activities I'm destined to be involved in during my time here. I'm really excited about working here because in all honesty, Scitech takes the cake for coolest place to work at voluntarily!
Scitech's mission statement illustrates that it is a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to increase awareness, interest, capability and participation by all Western Australians in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Scitech 2013. http://www.scitech.org.au/our-mission/notices/our-mission/Page-2.html). They are West Australia's leading science education centre and offer a number of experiences for visitors of all ages and demographics. Scitech features exhibits, live shows, an in-house CSIRO lab, Australia's largest Planetarium - Horizon, as well as an extensive touring program that visits every regional and remote community across Western Australia.
As you can probably tell just from the above paragraph, there is always a lot going on at Scitech so it's a really exciting atmosphere to be a part of. My first week included a lot of getting to know the organisation, so discussing the IT Policy and the use of photo release forms (a lot of the time we work with children and schools), and reviewing the company's five year plan; their vision, key programs and financial targets which gave me a good idea of the direction the organisation was headed. I spent a lot of time meeting all the friendly faces around the office and sat in on a couple of awesome shows with the kids (getting to know the company, I swear!). I also spent quite a lot of time on data entry for maintaining customer feedback and inputing coupons from discounts, I started during the school holidays - the busiest time for Scitech - and although the process seemed monotonous at the time, it's actually given me a great idea of how Scitech's target stakeholders - their guests - view the company.
During my second week I went behind-the-scenes of Scitech's social media and now understand the uses of HootSuite; collating all social media platforms onto one handy tool, and Mention; a communications tool used to monitor an organisations online presence by highlighting FaceBook comments, Instagram posts, websites, blogs and everything else you could possibly find on the internet with the word 'Scitech', I felt a bit like a spy!
National Science Week, Scitech's 25th Birthday and Scitech After Dark are major events coming up, so I've been doing work on draft media releases (gulp!), and archiving media clippings that date back to as early as 1988! That was extremely interesting, it brought back a few childhood memories for me as well as gave incredible insight into the history of the organisation and the contrast of events and exhibitions from then and now.
Here at Scitech there are also other projects I've begun working on - they're stories for another time :)
We learn things in class, but it really doesn't compare to getting out there in the real world and putting textbook knowledge into practice. This really is a new, exciting experience! Good luck to everyone. Though we're all in the same position, each of us will have unique experiences and I'm excited to read all about them.
Over and out!
Natasha Weeks
14853926
Bentley
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