Exceeding Expectations

We all went into our internships knowing what the overall aim was - being to develop our professional skills and prepare us for a career in the 'real world'. I think I can speak for everyone when I say that the experience has done more than improve our skills, but instead has improved our  overall confidence in a way that never would have been possible in-side a classroom.

Granted we do work in teams for assignments, and we know how to interpret a brief and work toward an end product or goal. But the variety of jobs we undertook and the initiative we had no choice but to develop and use showed us that, combined with the theoretical knowledge we gained during our studies, we are more capable than we thought. 

Jobs I had never done before, and as such had no plan to follow or experience to derive information from, forced me to think critically, research, analyse and formulate a working style that allowed me to get the job done. For example writing for someone other than myself was challenging,  but had I never done so before entering the workforce, I wouldn't have developed the skills or work ethic that are now so valuable to me.

Some days I would come into the workplace and my supervisor would have new jobs for me that hadn't been previously set out in my brief, forcing me to think on my feet and work effectively - previously a weakness of mine. 

Working on jobs outside my industry or typical job description also helped me feel confident taking on jobs I wasn't normally used to or comfortable with. E.g. researching/tracking down tech equipment for the business and photography.

And of course no internship would be complete without its fair share of 'crappy jobs' as my supervisor liked to call them - which included invoicing for two of her three businesses. 

Interning definitely exceeded my expectations and benefited me in more ways than I anticipated, how about you?

Thanks for reading!

Bianca

Different PR approach within different Industry - CTI

I am privileged to work with one of the leading pioneer company within the tourism and aviation industry in Mauritius that is Rogers Aviation (RAV). It was difficult to find a suitable placement because

     •Little PR acknowledgment in Mauritius’ firms

    •I am not Mauritian so it was difficult to find and initiate the internship earlier

RAV is the parent company to numerous organisations and a partner to a list of well-renowned national and international companies such as airlines Air Asia and Etihad Airways. The PR/communications aspects of the company is led by the Marketing department, fortunately my tasks are tailored to encompass the PR criteria. This internship is putting into practice what we have inculcated over the years but customized to meet each organisation's wants.

Currently within the first week and a half I am working on;

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLcpqNXhXVH/?taken-by=curtinpr
• the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) which is the crisis management plan for RAV and their sister company in Mozambique.

• quality check on RAV’s website and subsidiary organisation resaplanet

• press releases for their website and Mauritian press

• writing blog articles and social media posts

• work on the event - Le Salon du prêt-à-partir 

For these tasks I had to adapt to alternate terms for example BCP instead of crisis management plan, multitask for different organisations and adapt to different working environments.

To highlight my first ever work experience in the world of Public Relations, here are some tips for your successful start.

Basic tips for first-timers as a PR practitioner

Searching for Placement: Approach organisations that you know already has a PR department or what appeals to you as PR aspects within their organisation. Note some firms are clueless about the functions of Public Relations, take this opportunity during your interview to pinpoint their current work and reference as a PR feature. In your CV or cover letter elaborate on what you want to cover (PR-related) within their organisation referencing potential and their existing PR work. This gives your supervisor an overview and understanding of what is expected from you.

Internalise jargons: Prior to initiating the internship, familiarize yourself with not only your company but the industry’s abbreviations and idioms. A PR practitioner has to adapt to an industry’s ‘culture’ and this differs from industry to industry.  Ideally, the language spoken within the Health sector would be different from that of aviation/tourism. For example, abbreviating all flight destinations is common semiotic within the aviation industry furthermore, the ‘Cockpit’ is the name given to our company’s intranet. This also extends to the company’s font preference for documents. Internalising these basics will facilitate interaction and note-taking. However, be careful not to use these technical terms in official documents such as media kit or interacting with other stakeholders that may not be aware of these terms.

Jot down everything:  Public Relations functions encompass a wide range of activities from multiple press releases, events, blog posts and planning which is bound to numerous meetings sometimes in one day.  Organisation is vital and investing in multiple planners, agendas or notebooks is ideal to keep track of future events and note taking. It is ideal to jot down information whether it is from meetings, online and traditional (newspapers) media relative to your industry and tasks. This will give you a better understanding of the organisation by gathering as much facts as possible. Since we write/blog a lot in PR, these notes will inspire your final content and give you more information to work with.

Self-taught PR skills: Aside to the academic knowledge it is essential and beneficial to gain some skills to better your professional capabilities and reputation as a PR practitioner. Familiarize yourself with these self-taught online tools and list them on your CV.

Surveymonkey.com – design surveys and generate creative/organized presentations.

Canva – simple photo editor, include a blog illustration or social media tile with your article and await approval from your supervisor. Also create and recommend a letterhead to your company if they do not have one.

Photoshop – most common photo editor which is requested by employers.

InDesign - to create company newsletters or flip information files for both online and offline.

Radius6 – social media monitor which compiles all mentions of the organisation or key words online. Learn about implementing keywords used in SEO and paid search.

These would not only impress your employer but facilitate your work in a creative way.

Build a PR network: Include/add a PR-related account to each of your personal social media presence. Recommending; @PRPERFECT account on Twitter, PR lifestyle for the fashionistas on Pinterest and most importantly networking and interacting with PR content on LinkedIn. Aside to social media, use RSS feeds or applications such as Pulse to stay-up-to-date with the PR industry. Consider becoming a member of PRIA or other relative PR organisation. You’ll get to say a thing or two or at least understand these corporate ‘lunch’ conversations.

Feel free to add some more tips for first-timers in the comment section below!

Logging in...Social-media revelations!

Being part of the generation Y, the use of social media was regarded as "easy" for me. Since the beginning of Public Relations studies, we have learned the theories and importance of using social media in PR and it was (for me personally) way simple as “keep it short, simple and precise”. Yet in the real world of work, behind the scene of keeping content “short, simple and precise” lots of hard work resides.

I thought that managing social media contents were not so complicated. After all, posting news, entertaining and grabbing the attention of audiences did not sound that difficult, I was wrong. My internship at Flymates revealed that I was actually completely off track about it.

Regular contents formation demands lots of time and daily researches. And while having audiences’ attention was quite easy sometimes, keeping their attention was way more difficult as Flymates uses social media to not only promote their image and keep in touch with stakeholders but also to drive traffic to their website. Therefore, I learned that applying PR in social media is paramount for any businesses as I observed that it acts subliminally. However the quality of the posts must be up to the level.

 I realized that strategic planning and timeline applies for everything, even for scheduling of content when it comes to social media. And having “likes” and “comments” on a post after much work is way satisfying.  

What I learned so far:

• ·          The world of social media is constantly upgrading itself and to be able to grab audiences’ interests, businesses should evolve together with the social media features.
• ·          Apart from researches, a post should hold consistent content and be as far as possible creatively presented.
• ·         Strategies and goals should be set up prior to posts and constant monitoring is important.
• ·         Published posts should not only be newsworthy but should also be introduced in a social media friendly way.

Finally, keeping contents “short, simple and precise” stays fundamental. I will never ever again qualify social media as "easy" again after the insights gained at Flymates. 

I hope my posts helps and till then thank you for reading.

Doralie.

Charles Telfair Institute.

Getting the hang of it - Lavinia Wehr - Bentley

Hi everyone,

My name is Lavinia, I am interning this semester with Perth Racing. Perth Racing runs both Ascot and Belmont Park racecourse along with all the events that go along side, these include Belmont Bonanza, The Masters series and Perth cup as well as other private events including corporate and social. Perth Racing is a vibrant place to be in something is always going on!

After my second week at my internship I have already seen A LOT, Perth Racing is a very fast pace environment and a lot can happen very quickly, especially with the Spring Carnival vastly approaching! It is everything I expected and more. I am very lucky my mentor at Perth Racing is great, I am so lucky to have someone like her, she has a lot of connections and knows everyone who is anyone in Perth, In recent years she had her own PR agency and is very willing to work with me to teach me a lot of her industry knowledge!

The team is really great and very approachable and easy to get along with, I have felt so comfortable the entire time, I am very included in all that is happening and really am starting to feel like I belong. So far at my time interning I have been working on establishing the 2016/17 media list. I have worked with our previous media lists to create a new one with the relevant media to communicate with them and issue them with new media passes, media car passes, and complementary tickets to help encourage the return of them for the new spring racing season. It is important to have a strong relationship with your media in order to be able to get press when you need it, especially for Perth Racing as they have a lot of consecutive events they need to keep the public engaged with the racing over the summer to draw a crowd!

I have also been working on the trip advisor pages for both Belmont Park Racecourse and Ascot Racecourse. Perth Racing want to generate more reviews and interest to their trip advisor pages and I was assigned the task to create strategies to do so here is what I came up with.

Top 5 strategies
 1. Thanking customers with positive feedback and encourage them to come again through promotion, or two for one tickets because this will encourage people to bring their friends and also their friends may also write a review.
2. Authenticity, thinking about the situation before answering and really answer according the comment, personal replies sound a lot more cordial and people are going to feel more likely to forgive previous mistakes, if any exist.
3. Highlighting the positives and mention the upgrades or improvements that might interest return or potential guests, enticing patrons to want to come back give the situation another go.
4. Good Customer service suggests you reply to all reviews, if you want more people to review on trip advisor, they are more likely to if they get a response, People like to be acknowledged and enjoy knowing that the company is taking on their suggestions.
 5.  Updating the Ascot and Belmont pages,  need to include  more information, photos, and more interactive to the website and our other social media platforms, also the info graphic suggested including an icon of trip advisor on the website I thought that could encourage more people to review. Or just be aware that we have the pages on trip advisor.


I have also worked on backgrounders for both Ascot and Belmont Park, and picture selection, hopefully the new and improved trip advisor pages should be up and working in a few days so you can all check it out! I will let you all know next week more about my next task working on our Privè fashion show event next week!

Here is a picture of me if anyone is wondering what I look like... or not.

The rise of social media

As I told you all in my previous blog post, I began my internship at Devahasdin Public Relations after I worked there in 2010 and found my love for PR.

I've completed 15 days of my internship and after looking back at my time from 2010 and the past few weeks, there is one significant change I have noticed: The rise of social media.

Of course, I'm aware social media was around in 2010, but the ways in which it was used has now changed dramatically.  Although social media does not replace traditional media and the importance of a good media release or news coverage, I believe pairing traditional PR practices with new technologies and social media is the most powerful way to get a message across.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with my supervisor and we devised a social media plan for the month of May for their client Queens Riverside. You can view some of the things that I helped to plan here.
Here's a version of a previous social media plan done by Devahasdin so you understand what they look like, but I can't show you the one being currently used before the plan is carried out, sorry everyone!

A social media plan didn't even exist when I last worked in this office.  I was shocked at how much work is actually put in to posting on social media on behalf of a client.  Even though the tone used is conversational (number one rule when posting on social media!), the effort put into deciding exactly how to seem casual when communicating to the client's stakeholders is crucial.  You must include important events happening in Perth during the month but also making sure events used throughout the month aren't similar to one another.
For instance, Wicked The Musical is beginning to show at The Crown in May, which means that it would be best not to use any other theatre events in the rest of the plan.
It is incredibly important to make use of plenty of hashtags, most importantly the few that are essential to that certain client, and as I have stated, the tone in which you post is vital.
I learnt all of these things in Techniques and Media Relations, so it was nice to be able to put some of what I knew to good use.

The social media plan covers what should be posted on many platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Facebook post for Queens Riverside posted by Devahasdin.

Instagram was only established in 2010 and not even on anybody's radars when I last worked at Devahasdin, now, it is becoming one of the first ways in which clients can directly communicate with stakeholders.

We have discussed the rise of social media and its uses in PR many times during class, but seeing the social media plan mapped out in front of me for an entire month really did give a lot of insight to what we have been talking about for the past few years.

The use of social media allows for direct two-way communication and real-time feedback between an organisation and its stakeholders.  Through the use of these platforms, many of Devahasdin's clients have been able to develop a stronger relationship with their clients, as there is ongoing communication mapped out for each month.  Stakeholders involved with Queens Riverside are able to see ongoing updates of construction via pictures (the staff at Devahasdin, including myself are also in charge of taking these pictures) and posts on these platforms.

Ongoing construction at Queens Riverside taken by Lauren Sydoruk (Account Support) and myself

Although social media allows organisations to engage proactively with their publics and the speed of information has significantly increased, there is a negative to using social media and that is in the form of complaints etc which can be seen not only by the organisation itself, but by the general public as well which can severely effect an organisation's reputation.

As we are all aware by completing this part of the assessment, blogs are also a large part of PR practice nowadays.  While being at Devahasdin I have been asked to compile media distribution lists for a number of different clients.  Another thing I've noticed about the rise of social media is that blogs and different bloggers are now targets for PR practitioners when reaching out to the media.  This also wasn't a large occurrence the last time I worked for Devahasdin.

Has anyone else been highly involved with social media during your placement?
Were you shocked at the large amount of work that is involved to post on social media on behalf of a client?

Let me know guys! :)

Claudia x

Say 'Fact Check' 5 times fast

The importance of fact checking.

We've been told about it at least a million times, from every PR tutor we've ever had.

But you never really understand something in full until it's sitting there, in the outbox, staring at you.  The media release email you've sent out highlighting an upcoming event with the 

WRONG NAME OF VENUE.

Absolute nightmare!

I was working alongside Lauren, the account support at Devahasdin.  Her job was to show me how to send an introductory email with a media release attached to prospective media outlets.  It seemed like a job that would run quite smoothly. The release and email had been written, we now just had to cater each email to each individual outlet.  Other members of the office had read the release, Lauren and myself had read the release and nothing clicked to any of us until it had been sent out.

I was reading the release one last time when I noticed the venue name was 'The Deen Hotel'. I then suddenly remembered my girlfriends saying 'The Deen' was no longer 'The Deen' and  was now some sort of sports bar.  I brought this up to Lauren who quickly did a google search and there it was: 'The Game Sports Bar, 90 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge". 

 We both looked pretty shocked.  I, for two reasons.  The first is that, this is a fairly big issue that hadn't been noticed until now and second, I was the one who has spotted the error.

Aside from stressing about how to send the correction in the fastest way possible, I was also quite pleased that I managed to stop an even larger crisis from happening.  No venue wants to host an event without having their correct name sent to the media!  

As soon as it happened I immediately remembered countless tutors of mine reiterating the importance of fact checking and there it was: proof that it really is a number one priority when working in PR.

Thankfully, I had noticed the error in time and the issue was resolved in a very efficient manner but once again, my placement taught me a practical lesson to the theory I have been learning in the classroom.

Event Listing on EventFinda.com.au

Thanks again guys!

Let me know any other dramas you've had to face during your placement :)

Claudia x

Consultancy>In-House

Nearing the end of my degree, I've noticed the talk during class changing.  Sure, there's still the usual 'Oh God, I forgot to do the readings! Did you do them?!' or 'Do you think the tutor will let us have a break so we can go get coffee while sneakily staring at the good looking barista?" But, like I said, things are changing.  Now, you hear everyone discussing where they'd like to eventually work.  Consultancy, In-house, not-for-profit- there's plenty to choose from, but which is right for YOU.

Even in my group of friends in class, there's still varying answers even though we all seem to have the same interests outside of university and work.

For me, it has always been consultancy.

I began my university journey studying nursing straight out of high school.  A big change to what I thought I wanted to do with my life. True to my initial instincts,  I decided it wasn't for me, so deferred and entered the workforce.  It was then that I landed my first administration role.  It was at Devahasdin Public Relations and where my love for PR began.

Devahasdin Public Relations is a boutique consultancy operating in West Perth which focuses on five key services: publicity, marketing, events, promotions and writing.

The core team working in the office daily consists of Sandra Devahasdin herself, three other account managers, account support/administration and on my placement days, me :).

So yes, there I was at 19 in my first 'proper' job and being overwhelmed at the fast pace but incredibly exciting environment I had found myself in.

It was after working at Devahasdin for 6 months that I decided to get straight back into studying and applied at Curtin to study a Bachelor of Mass Communication, promising the team that I would be back once I was qualified.

And here I am, nearly completing the first half on my placement.

Being at Devahasdin has shown me how demanding the field of PR can be, but also how rewarding.  The team at Devahasdin have once again instilled in me that this is what I want to be doing, I feel like I'm in the right place.

What I love about working in a consultancy environment is that every staff member has the same attitude towards PR and believes it is important.  We've heard in class before how some in-house PR professionals struggle to convince a CEO that Public Relations is worth spending some of the budget for or that it is important enough at all.

Consultancy is all about PR and there is no struggle at work to convince your boss that the job you're doing is actually valuable.

In my first ten days at Devahasdin, not only have I gained a large amount of knowledge about the PR field, I have also learnt that working in a consultancy is exactly where I want to be.

Speak to you all again soon!

Claudia x

So what's the point of it all?

Hi everyone,

So as I'm now at the end of my placement and getting stuck in to my final report it's got me wondering what exactly the impact of Public Relations has been on Cancer Support WA.

After these years of study I was already of the opinion that Public Relations is an important component of any successful organisation. However, it was only after working at CSWA that I came to realise the integral role it plays in the success of not-for-profit organisations in particular.

With a limited budget and a number of other departments taking financial priority the promotion of the organisation and the services it offers is expected to be done through the acquisition of media coverage and stakeholder communication free of charge through Public Relations techniques.
This strategy being adopted out of necessity means that the organisation is dependent upon the PR department to perform.
 
As Grunig and Hunt put it "Public Relations is the management of communication between an organisation and its publics", and it is clear to me now that if PR was overlooked at CSWA there would be no effective communication between the organisation and its stakeholders which would inevitably lead to a huge decline in the number of new clients as well as donations and volunteers. Since CSWA is a charity and not profit driven this wouldn't just jeopardise their earnings, it would ultimately mean less people in need would receive assistance. 
The hard work of all of the other departments is backed up by effective public relations to make the most of the organisations potential to do good.

Well, that's about it. 20 days didn't sound like long going in, but I have learned SO much during my time with Cancer Support WA. I couldn't be happier with my internship experience and am thankful to have spent my time within such a fantastic organisation. 

Kelsey

Fast as lightning . . .

.... that is how fast time has gone over the last 10 days.

 

Two of us interns and the sponsor wall!

 

The Telstra Perth Fashion Festival 2014 began last Wednesday, September 17th and finished with a bang on Monday September 22nd. I was going to post a blog in the middle of the festival but time is an elusive concept when you're busy. When you're working an event a good nights sleep becomes a thing of myth. I was in the office at 9 or 10am every morning and finishing at the venue at about 11pm every night.

 

The issues that arose over the week were innumerable, yet everyone was on the ball problem solving, and only a few arising issues ever actually became major problems. There were also one or two possible full blown crisis that never came to pass. THANK GOD! There were also some difficult people, but when aren't there really? Overall I have to say that the whole even ran smoothly. Talking to the staff at TPFF who have worked one or more festivals before this year was interesting, considering I thought this year was fantastic. They were concerned about us first timers and the experience that we had, as they believed that this year was "absolutely manic". Below I have tried, to the best of my increasingly dimming memory, to create a brief timeline of events over the 6 days of the festival.

 

On the way to the city the morning before the festival opened, I heard on the radio that one of the designers from opening night criticized Perth's models hip size. All I could think was what a nightmare this was going to be. Fortunately I have enough of a brain and training to know that this was possibly taken out of context, and people had blown this out of proportion. I was right. Opening night was showing two designers who  design couture in Asia, and a Perth designer Alvin Fernandez of Ae'lkemi. Michael Cinco normally designs for the Asian body shape which is considerably slimmer than the normal Australian model. Thus his gowns, that were bought to Australian pre-made to a certain size and shape, had to fit on the models provided for the show.

 

a Michael Cinco creation, courtesy of the Perth Fashion Festival Facebook page & Stefan Gosatti

 

The first day of the festival, going in to the office, I had no idea what to expect. I was thrown into the deep end fixing media tickets and seating charts. Certain publications couldn't sit together, certain people requested to sit with each other and other people who we had seated in the front row had pulled out at the last minute. I had to get one of the other interns to check the envelopes to make sure the right ticket for the correct seats were in the envelope with the right name. I was cross-eyed by the end of it.

 

The night times were much the same, do not let anyone backstage who didn't have a backstage pass, do not give out back stage passes without express permission from the BOH manager (one of the PR girls), media do not interview without permission from the PR girls, and one of them has to be present. People turned up without their media passes, media turned up who did not RSVP for the night and we either had to turn them away or scramble to find seats. Often there were no seats to be found. One media delegate told me another member of their publication was not coming so her ticket was reallocated, then the person in question showed up. Very confusing! Fortunately everyone left happy at the end of the night, and we seated everyone 99.9% of the time.

 

Two of us interns with our BOH passes

 

 

The highlight of the week would have definitely been Ascot. The Ruth Tarvydas tribute show as well as Galvanised showed at Ascot of Friday night. Logistically it was a nightmare, preventing people getting into places that they weren't supposed to be in was a lot harder and on top of that the volunteer roster was wrong, so set up took longer than expected. But everyone who was at Ascot for set up pulled together and got everything done. By the time people started to arrive at 4:30/5pm we were pretty much ready. Certain media arrived early for a pre-arranged interview with Rebecca Judd, other media got their early to try and get one. As Rebecca was walking the runway that night her time was short. I was lucky enough to be shadowing the PR girls that day so I got a glimpse at everything. For the record, the high light of the night for me was when one of the models ate one of the cheeseburgers I bought for the staff!

 

Prepping the purple carpet for Ascot

 

 

The shows during the day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday were great. Saturday was so hot I had to send a volunteer home with heat stroke after making him drink a PowerAde and a bottle of water. I also had to get water and PowerAde for a few of the media in the Fashion Central Marquee because it was so hot, even with the air-conditioner going! It was on Saturday, during the Telstra show that Samantha Jade performed for the crowd, everyone wanted to interview her, but unfortunately as we weren't the ones who bought her to Perth, Target was, it wasn't up to us which interviews she took. Fortunately we managed to organised two interviews with the assistance of the team from Target.

 

View of Fashion Central from the TPFF office

The most eye opening issue that popped up involved the face of TPFF 2014, Caitlin Lomax. She is one of the nicest people I have met, she is gorgeous (obviously) and has a great body. She's not unhealthily skinny, she just is. As Bec Judd didn't want to wear "that red dress" during the Tarvydas tribute show, the honour fell to Caitlin Lomax. and she pulled it off stunningly. Yet one woman took to one of the TPFF's Instagram photo's of the moment to vent her dissatisfaction in a rather catty and hurtful way. Instead of TPFF responding, we simply reported the comments and they were deleted. I think that was the most responsible way to handle the situation, or it could have gotten very messy.

 

Although technically my 20 days are now up, I am staying on once a week to help out with the preparation and PR for some other festival related events of the next month or two. I still have one more Blog to complete so hopefully I have some more interesting news for you!

 

Interns in the office! Last day of TPFF2014

 

 

Until then....

Ashlyn out! xo

 

 

 

Six things to do in your internship

Professional Practice 393 has been the most rewarding unit I have done at university. The placement with Corporate Sports Australia has been the highlight of my time at university. I’d like to thank all of the girls at CSA for guiding me and allowing me to give everything a go. We got on so well that I was even offered a job with CSA!

So as I graduate and head out into the workplace I would like to wrap up the six things that I think are essential in trying to prove your worth and for getting as much out of your internship as you can.

Jump at opportunities

When someone asks you to do something, even if it is out of your comfort zone, then get out there and do it! It is all experience and you only move forward.

Know how to write

...Press releases, email pitches, website and blog content. If there’s one thing in PR that you need to memorize it’s the structure and layout for a press release.

Pick up a phone

You need to be a good people person – it’s all about building relationships with people. Because at the end of the day it will be a person who decides whether their company is going to sponsor your event, or run your story, or give you a cheaper price for a job.

Get creative

Punchy headlines, cool designs and different unique ideas will get you noticed.

Be time efficient

Set deadlines for each task and get them done pronto! Every minute counts – don’t be one of those people who waste time on their phone or Facebook during work – not appropriate!

Have Fun

Be enthusiastic, friendly and have fun with everything!

Good luck to everyone with your final reports and best wishes to those about to start your internships!

Steph Price

14855689

We definitely chose the right career

I was very nervous about heading into the ‘real’ world as an intern at Corporate Sports Australia. But I soon found that I couldn’t have scored a better placement.

Great people, great events and great experience!

The events I'm covering at my time at Corporate Sports are the Bupa Bike Hike for Asthma - WA’s largest cycling event (which involves shutting down the Kwinana Freeway for half the day), and the Perth Garden Festival, a four day festival previously known as Garden Week.

What has surprised me about my internship is that I actually get to do proper PR activities that we have been learning how to do at uni and not just the general office duties that I expected to be doing as an intern – like printing, enveloping letters, etc. 

I have been assigned with a lot of writing tasks – which, as well as design, I absolutely love because it's what I feel confident in doing, as well as enjoying to do it.

Some of the tasks I have done so far are:

• Write a press release/blog post on the transport arrangements for the Bupa Bike Hike for Asthma.
• Create content for the event websites.
• Write the content of the Perth Garden Festival email newsletter.
• Write a press release announcing the appearance of Peppa Pig at the Perth Garden Festival.
• Write four press releases announcing the Chevron City to Surf for Activ is back for 2014 in Busselton, Karratha, Albany and Geraldton.
• Create the content for the Perth Garden Festival program.
• Write human interest press releases for the Bupa Bike Hike for Asthma.

What I learnt

1. The biggest thing I have learned about the PR profession in the first days of the internship is that it is not just strictly PR that you’re doing, but a big marketing mix! It all intertwines. You are doing anything is takes to make your event a success.
2. One of the skills that you can’t prepare for is breezing between the different events you are working on with ease. I found it tricky to constantly switch between the two events but I have finally picked it up with practice!
3. A lot of people will say after their experiences in the PR work place is that PR is not glamorous and it's all a myth. With this frame of mind going into my internship I was still very blown away at the happenings around the office (e.g. filming a commercial at Channel 9 studios and amazing staff lunches at the 1907 Bar and Restaurant).

From what I have experienced so far I feel like I have ventured into the right career. It's fast paced, interesting, fun and no two days are the same.

If I can leave any advice for people yet to start their internship it would be not to worry about whether your PR skills are adequate enough, because everything you have learnt at Curtin prepares you for this – you’d be surprised how easily it comes to you.



Steph  

Stephanie Price
Events Assistant
Corporate Sports Australia 

Community Relations: FIFO perspective

As a part of my time interning I’ve encountered community relations from the both the city and regional perspectives. In the Perth city office, strategic planning, projects and goals for the organisation and the community are developed for the future. The other component of my time working in community relations has been on the ground within the regional communities of influence. I have the privilege of working with Community Relations Officers on the ground in Tom Price and Paraburdoo. Working out in the communities provided insight into in the ground realties and the lifestyle of FIFO workers, most importantly I gained insight into the lifestyle of a Community Relations Officer and the pressures and responsibilities associated with representing the company in a small community.

Upon arriving in either town, you know you’re there for business. The combination of the small population, isolation from other communities and role of the mine gave a distinct impression that you arrive to work, with the mine shaping the community. I quickly became immersed in the towns, and found my own working rhythm, of twelve-hour working days, exercising, eating then sleeping falling in sync with the town and its mining heartbeat. Understanding the lifestyle and culture that surrounds these mining camps through experiencing the way of life furthered my belief in the crucial role of Community Relations.

Community Relations Officers within the towns are the link between community and the mine. The role as a company representative within the town was acutely aware due to the small size of the town. In a community where most people know each other the personal and professional behaviour of the company staff was frequently criticised. Venturing into the communities provided me with the insights and pressures of small towns and communities on Community Relations Officers.

Relevant videos are attached for greater indight into my experiences in community relations in a remote mining community.

It's Your Style - Curtin Sarawak Spokesmodel Contest

Hello everyone!

This post will be about It's Your Style - Curtin Sarawak Spokesmodel Contest

The contest was held within the campus and opened for all committee members of Curtin Sarawak.
The participants chosen will be used as Curtin Spokesmodel to appear on Curtin’s promotional materials such as billboard, handbook, advertisement, websites and more. It is very important to have right spokesmodel because they are the one who represent Curtin’s images. 
A suitable spokesmodel will give a good impression to the public to maintain the images of the university.

A photo shooting booth was set up in the campus for the event. Students and staffs are welcomed to walk in and register to participate as contestant. 

In order to attract the participants, the Department used eye-catching prizes as motivation (shown in the poster above). 

On the day, my job was to encourage and persuade students to participate in the event. 

From there, I have learnt how to approach and communicate with people. And, I also learnt about as a PR practitioner, it is important to master more than a language speaking skill. 

The brand new billboard of Curtin Sarawak

Grand prize winner.

People choice award winner.

Take care!

Kindly Regards,

Joanne Ting

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