You Leave and you Learn
9 July 2010 By Northern Lights
by Gabriel St Aimee, Intern at Northern Lights PR
My first week as a PR & Marketing intern with Northern Lights has just ended and WOW!!! My Student Brain is fried. I have learnt so much but it can all be summarised into one theme- getting it right for the other person is necessary in PR.
What I mean is that there is a human element to everything- I gathered this from my master classes in press releases, photography and CV skills. I would like to thank Ruth Badley, John Furlong and Jane Hustwit for the exciting talks.
The target is always the Human being. Newspapers do report the facts but there is another side just like with finding a job and taking a photo. It is all about relating with your target audience and making your CV or Press Release relevant by enhancing certain elements. Saying that the reason you want to work with a company is because of their community ethos is very similar to a photographer darkening a raw image or a sub editor writing a headline “Man bites dog”.
In PR achieving greater intimacy with a subject flaunts your ability to solve their problems. Really simple. I would stress that whatever you do to suggest intimacy with your subject there is still an aura of professionalism.
I am a Modern European Historian- an academic, according to my degree, so PR sounds like a mountain to me. I had no knowledge of PR or Marketing except for the misconceptions I had of political “spin doctors”.
However I have learned that it is not that difficult, providing you remain open (creatively) and there is no such thing as an original idea; “The best ideas are nicked from somebody else but done better,” according to Victoria Tomlinson.
Being open to ideas fosters a positive working environment and creativity. Therefore, if you are better able to provide a service you need to let it be known and that is what I have learnt from my first week.
My blog is based on the session with Victoria Tomlinson and Karyn Fleeting, so I would like to thank the two PR entrepreneurs.
Feel free to challenge my perspective on PR.
3 Comments
You are welcome! It was a pleasure to meet you & the team earlier this week. Now I am looking forward to your next post…
No need to apologise for being a historian. I’ve just returned from the First International History of PR Conference in Bournemouth and it was interesting to see public relations academics realising the need to become historians.
PS: I have two history degrees; I’ve worked in journalism and PR and now teach public relations.
Thank you for the comments and I will address each on separately.
Karyn, I am working on the next blog, it should be more insightful – hopefully you will enjoy it.
Richard I certainly will not be appologising for my history degree any more. Through the internship I have realised that it is not the degree but one’s ability to see the wider context which matters. I found your PR studies blog very stimulating, so I am going to continue reading – hopefully my progression in PR will allow others to realise the value of history.