More than just Body Language

I thought I share another one of my experience during my internship with the company I'm currently with (Li & Fung). This time its relative to the people that I have to work with rather than the company itself. This often involves customers or rather stakeholders that the company has relations with. As I'm only an intern I do not often deal with these people but I usually observe the staff that has been working in the company for over 20 years handle a situation.

Because Malaysia is a multicultural boiling pot of different ethnic groups, often the way we conduct conversations can be seen by outsiders as odd. This adds alittle more into the PR side of things, in one of my days at the office I notice two customers who were searching for the Manager of the office, they were there to enquire on some shipments which they had ordered but have not arrived since last month (they were overdue for more than a month ago).

Therefore the next person to speak with them was a supervisor for the sales management team. The following conversation that came was a mixture of Bahasa Malaysia, several different chinese dialects, some minor shouting and finally a conclusion. From a glance this would seem like very bad situation considering they were shouting and talking really loudly furthermore the body language given by both parties would seem very negative to anyone that wasn't following the conversation.

What really happen was that the supervisor, explained that the boss was away on a trip, and the customer wondered why is he on a trip when he hasn't received his shipment in over a month. The super then explained in a chinese dialect that the shipment is on its way however with holidays through the month of September, everything has been pushed back by several weeks. He then explained that they will get it over as quickly as posisble before the following holiday.

What seemed like a really bad situation where things would have disolved between two different parties and transformed into a fist-fight, was actually how the locals here deal with thier share of issues and problems. Often whats read in western culture as unacceptable in Public Relations, here its pretty much the opposite and I believe that all Malaysian PRs should be careful on how they communicate with others within Malaysia.

An intermission, the state of PR in Miri.

I thought to do a quick post regarding my two months at my internship and how I now feel about Public relations as a profession or career in my home city.

To start I would like to say that I've enjoyed my time and experience with the company I'm currently with. My duration is now coming to an end sadly, however what they have given me is more than just an insight into the profession. But also what PR practitioners currently face each and everyday in my city.

The PR profession in Miri isn't treated as a upstanding profession . People here tend to regard accountants, Engineers, Lawyers, Managers and Doctors (name a few) as upstanding professionals, while PR is viewed as a profession on the level similar to a salesman going from door to door trying to sell a product. I did not understand why that perception has been cast on PRs in my city until I started the job.

During my first month with my company I was introduced to an array of individuals who are public realtors by title. They each share a network of people whom they meet on a monthly basis to build their business relationship between their represented companies or businesses.

This practice usually involves regular meetings at cafes or coffee shops. They last around an hour or two where the two individuals discuss propositions and ideas on from their respective companies which later ends with an agreement or reexamination of proposal ( which means someone dislike the idea). It is odd that discussions like these are treated as PR work when it's obvious it isn't. Regardless the people here tend to believe that PR workers are similar to salesmen and therefore not require a degree to practice.

Often I find myself trying to defend what I have studied and answer questions which usually have the topics of "what I do" and "why PR should be a profession worthy of recognition".

Even a company as vast as Li & Fung have people who question the benefits of being a PR officer, due to vastness in size of the corporation, not every part of the company feels that having a PR officer is important or needed. Due to this the job of a public relations falls on to the manager or in my case the branch manager.

This man would maintain relationships with other companies in regards to crisis or continual support. I have asked him if the role is in his job description and he just said "I just do whatever they tell me to do".

That sounds very concerning because as long as a person is in charge their role will include PR regardless of your job role.

Another example is with the PR officer of our general hospital I was working with on the blood donation drive. She told me that she had never studied the subject of PR yet she's here running it for the general hospitals' blood bank. The question which surprised me the most was about what I would study in a degree about Public relations. I explain about the classes we have of course and then asked if whatever I had studied would be applicable to their work. The officer said not really as they would only need to do is organise events and occasionally contact the newspaper agents for upcoming events. Which to me sounds exactly like what we learn about in our classes anyways.


A little long of a rant however my conclusion is that I believe, this problem is relative mostly to encounters with people that either do not understand the complete aspect of what PR professionals can do or are urgent jus untrained in the art, as I have not heard similar testimonies from others that currently intern in Miri. However if any of you who share similarities in your company or city please do share what you have been gone through so at least those who have graduated and have already entered the PR world in Malaysia have an idea of what to expect from their companies, while hopefully change the perception people have of the Public relator profession.

Not for the squimish, Event planning part 1

It's been a few weeks since I previously posted on the blog, things have been busy for myself as whenever I would like to write about my day at work. I tend to leave it until after work, which by then I'm terribly exhausted and uninterested in looking at my computer. Therefore I find myself trying to compile all the things I have done over the weeks which I have not posted anything.


Day by day

So what exactly has been keeping me so busy lately?

Well, I was tasked to approach our local general hospital and establish contact with them to organize a charity event for the month of December 2012. In contacting them I was directed to thier Public Relations officer representative, who quickly spoke about donors and blood drives. It was a long conversation which ended with me providing blood for them. This was the very first time I had given blood away or even thought of participating in a blood donation. However since I was about to run my own blood donation event I might as well give it a try.

Around 30 minutes later, a pine of blood was produce and I am left drained. Having blood taken from you can be a very odd experience, which leaves you feeling either exhausted or refresehed (as I was told by my manager). I personally felt exhausted, and actually wondered who has gone to the extent of giving thier sweat and blood for thier internship.

The one other thing I wondered about was my blood type, having never tested my blood before I was curious to find out what I was made of. According to the nurse I was a AB positive type, which was not as rare or as common as other types of blood.

 After that exercise, I couldn’t really move therefore I sat down in the office for little longer and started talking to the PR officer again. Having explained how I felt and also explaining that I have a moderately common blood type. It made me curious as to how long the blood can be kept in the hospital before it is thrown away due to expiry. She then explained that due to the resources at hand in our local hospital. The blood collected from the month it is extracted from donors, only last up to a month. In which after a month has passed, the hospital may be in shortage due to a lacking of donors. I was then told that even with say 600 donors giving their blood. Roughly 6 of those who have donated their blood can be considered usable by the hospital. She then explained that donors who are frequent, are only allowed to donate blood once every three months as it would take that long to completely produce enough blood for another donation.

Having understood, I was more determined to make the blood donation in December a great success for both the company I was representing and also to save lives.

Overall the entire experience was very unique and I felt as though I made a difference in someone’s world that day. In my next post I shall talk about the planning and venue selection for the event.