Lessons learnt

Lesson 1:

I could have timed it better. The week when my pre-event press release went out was the election week and therefore there was zero percent probability that my press release would be published. The fact the Behind the Spin magazine accepted my press release was more due to luck than strategic thinking.

Lesson 2:

I should have definitely chosen a week in April and definitely no later than the first Monday of May (it had to be a Monday as we have classes every other day of the week at the university) and Friday is no good for such events.

Lesson 3:

I should have prepared a contingency plan in case one or more of the agencies/candidates has not shown up. As it happened at the event, I had one student stranded in Barcelona due to ash cloud flight cancellations, one student refusing to attend the contest due to the pressure from the exam and one student just did not turn up. If I was to conduct the same event again, I would prepare a waiting list of the students who haven’t been chosen for the contest but could be called in for the competition in case of a cancellation. The same applies to the agencies.

Lesson 4:

Refreshments should arrive not at the break but half an hour before the event itself.

Lesson 5:

None of the logistics arrangements (i.e. printing and goodie bags) should be left until the day of the competition but at least two or three days beforehand.

Lesson 6:

I should have asked a friend of mine or someone, I could rely on, to be on call and be able to be a distant assistant in case of an emergency. In this particular instance I did not need it but I am sure this would be of great help especially considering that as a chair you hardly ever have any time to sort things out. You have to carry on facilitating the event.

Lesson 7:

I know this was only an internship contest but about a week before the event I realized that I should invite a music band to perform at the reception as it would create a special atmosphere at the reception. As a matter of fact, my Facebook search has generated some interest: I have been approached by Erika at Just Groove Live who offered their services for free but it was too late. Next time I should start looking for a band from the moment I have the event idea.

THE BIG DAY

Ok, I had never woken up before my alarm clock in my life. This was the first time ever. A whole hour before I was due to get up – I just can’t believe it! The Monday 17 May 2010 arrived. I knew I had half a day off in the afternoon and help from my friend Maria who was acting both as an event assistant and an assistant photographer but even though I thought I had done most of the printing, apparently there was a lot more to do than I expected. All signage, labels and name badges aside (which I prepared on Friday 14 May) I still had to print the final agenda, the CVs of the confirmed students and put together the goodies for the goodie bags. I just don’t know what I would have been doing without Maria. This was the moment I realized that I should never underestimate any offer of help and make use of all offers. No matter how big or small. 

I must admit that in preparation for this event I made use of all the contacts I had made through LMU Corporate Events Officer Ann Willis.

Director of Student Recruitment and International Development Mark Bickerton connected me with the university photographer Steve Blunt who attended the official part of my event. Mark also organised free refreshments and goodie bags for the contest.

Director of Corporate and Community Synergy Pat Wood arranged the publicity for the event at the university itself.

The event was to start at 3PM. I arrived at the auditorium at 2PM and still did not have enough time to prepare. Ann Willis brought lovely purple university logo labeled tablecloths for the judges, so the room looked really nice and very official. All the guests arrived in time except for Antony Poppleton from Phoenix who had contacted me in the morning to inform me about an emergency he had and therefore he could not make it in time for his group presentation but would try and do his best. Hoping that he would arrive soon I made a decision to start the competition without him.

In my opening remarks I welcomed all the guests and announced the agenda. Students briefly introduced themselves followed by the PROs who spoke about their companies, internship terms and presented their briefs. Then the students split into two groups and started working over briefs jointly. As Antony Poppleton had not turned up yet, the students who had prepared his brief for the competition (briefs were emailed to the students at 9AM on Sunday 16 May) had to choose between the two present agencies. One minute into the presentations Antony arrived ever so apologetic. I comforted him saying that emergencies do happen and the fact that I had to deal with one of them at my event only prepared me better for the future. The students' presentations exceeded all expectations: the judges seemed to be totally thrilled by the caliber and level of preparation of the participants. Anna Schirmer of Lansons admitted later at the champagne reception that she found it hard not to be able to jump in the brainstorming session. When the presentations finished, we moved to the reception venue – the Wall Bar. Each of the event participants received a goodie bag containing a copy of the Communicate magazine and London Metropolitan Business School Times, a corporate logo pen from CIPR and LMU, an oyster holder with the LMU logo and flyers with offers from CIPR, LMU and the Wall Bar.

The function room at the Wall Bar was a nice surprise to all the guests. It was spacious enough to accommodate twice as many, had its own terrace, bar and bathrooms. After a group photograph was taken the judges announced their decisions. Lansons offered their internship to Lukasz Gwozdz of London Metropolitan University and offered interviews to all the other three members of the group: Melina Ex and Hubert Miernik of LMU and Menglu Wang of Westminster University. PHA Media chose Oana Jinga of Birmingham City University to be their super intern and offered an interview to Maja Vuckovska. Felicity Stewart of Communicate magazine made a dramatic change to their initial plan and offered a free admission to their next five conferences to all the three of the winners of the contest which was worth over £7,500 in total.

Antony Poppleton then suggested that he was going to invite all the students interested in his company to a brainstorming session in their offices in Leatherhead and a lunch on the house on Thursday 3 June.

As an addition to all the scheduled benefits Felicity invited the students to join their editorial team at the Communicate magazine and I made an announcement about internships available at NACUE (National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs) who had approached me that same morning.

Despite of all the pressure and shortcomings I had to face that day I must admit that I was pleased with the overall event development and happy with the outcome of the contest, which meant that more that three students were the winners.

More photographs can be found on the event Facebook fan page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wanted-Super-Intern/119855904702170?ref=ts.

Event agenda for the contest and entry requirements, 17 May 2010

I thought it would be good to publish the agenda for the day and entry requirements as I seem to be receiving more and more enquiries:
Competition, Moorgate campus of LMU

15.00 - 15.15 Registration
15.15 - 15.30 Opening remarks by event chair Ekaterina Aleksandrova

Agency overview, internship proposal and brief

15.30 - 15.45 Sophie Lilley, Director, and Anna Schirmer, Account Director, at Lansons
15.45 - 16.00 Mark Gregory, Managing Director, and Stuart Skinner, Senior Manager at PHA Media
16.00 - 16.15 Antony Poppleton, PR Director at Phoenix
16.15 - 16.30 Coffee break: students splitting into groups
16.30 - 17.15 Group work
17.15 - 17.30 Coffee break
17.30 - 17.15 Presentation: Lansons group
17.15 - 17.30 Presentation: PHA Media group
17.30 - 17.45 Presentation: Phoenix group
17.45 - 18.00 Coffee break/Judgement
18.00 - 18.15 All participants are going to the Wall Bar

Champagne reception, The Wall Bar (5-7 minute walk)

18.15 - 18.30 Awards ceremony
18.30 - 21.00 Networking

Students will be able to work both individually (agencies will provide their briefs one day before the event) and in groups (on the day). After introductions students will split into three groups and the agencies will score them on their creativity, ability to work in a team, communicate effectively etc). After 45 minutes of group work students will delegate a 10 minute presentation of their ideas to one candidate from their group. As a result three students will represent three groups. It can also be done by more group members than just one but will depend on the decision of the group.

University affiliation is not relevant in the contest.

I am still in the process of finalising the list of students for this contest and am accepting new enquiries until 10.00 on Friday 14 May 2010. To submit your enquiry please send me your CV and I will let you know by 17.00 on Friday 14 May if you have been selected for the next stage.

Unexpected surprise

One of the first benefits of having a pre-event press release published is that you can enrich the event potential being approached by third parties seeking to benefit from the event's publicity.

On the next day after my press release had been published in Behind the Spin, I was contacted by Andrew Thomas, the publisher of The Communicate Magazine who offered a free subscription for the magazine (worth £90) as a prize to the three winners and a free entry to five of their annual conferences on corporate and financial communications as the main prize for the one selected winner which was worth over £2,500.

My first press release

On Wednesday 5 May I sent out the press releases to major industry publications and was pleased to have my piece published in Behind the Spin Magazine the next day - http://www.behindthespin.com/news/wanted-super-intern-with-x-factor.

I suppose what helped me was that I knew Richard Bailey who was the editor of the magazine and we had a mutual friend - Oana Jinga, a CIPR student rep for the University of Birmingham City University who is also PR Coordinator at Behind the Spin.

You don't realise how much the world of PR is built on personal relationships!

Graphic Designer

Although I created an amazing 30th birthday card for my best friend a couple of months ago I must admit that I spent almost 8 hours designing the front cover and I had to be realistic and find a professional graphic designer who would be able to work full time on this project as I needed the logo, text and images for the event and had less than 2 weeks left until the contest.

Both students and young professionals have been contacted to submit their ideas for the logo design and Nick Foster has been chosen. Nick is a freelance graphic designer who lives and works in London.

Photographer

To select a photographer I announced a competition inviting students from leading photography institutes, schools and departments outlining the main benefits for the starting young professionals: exposure to promising PR students in need of good contacts in the photographic world for their future careers and the chance to add CIPR to their client database. Having received a number enquiries from the photography students I chose Gao Chen, a freelance from Zibo, China, with a BA in choreography.

Contest venue

I always knew I'd have my university to back me up so did not quite expect any problems with booking a meeting room for the competition, but you never know what you can face in the event management... So it happened to me. Although I had approached the university at least 2 months before the event it took me ages to connect with the right person. My point of contact was Ann Willis, Corporate Events Officer. Just at the time I expected to discuss final arrangements she was called for two weeks of jury service so facing a competition with no venue I really thought my PR career was over. Ann Willis did prove me wrong. She was in touch with me after her jury service hours and assured me that the room would be booked and my event terms would be met. Finally I met her on Thursday 6 May when she showed me the auditorium and we finalised the logistics.

Ann accepted my invitation to the event and I was looking forward to welcoming her on the day!

The venue for the cocktail reception

Here comes the most exciting part:) Bar selection! Well, I must admit I had considered quite a few places nearby . My key requirement was proximity to the Moorgate campus where the contest was going to take place. British pub "The Globe", Indian restaurant "Mehek", popular chain "Pizza Express", another traditional pub "O'Neills" and  The Wall bar which was about 6-7 minutes walk from the campus.

Most of the venues I had approached seemed willing to accept my limited budget terms but only waiter Pavel from The Wall Bar seemed to be taking me seriously as he kindly agreed to find a quiet function room at 7PM on a Thursday night to sit down and go through my event budget requirements and terms. Restaurant manager Katherine Atkins contacted me next morning to finalise the details. More over, she generously accepted my limited budget of £140 and gave me a 25% discount on my order which included 6 platters of nibbles (Mediterranean and veggie options), 4 bottles of white wine, 2 bottles of red wine, a bucket of beer and they also allowed me to bring in 5 of my own bottles of champagne. The hired area itself was much more than I expected - it was a lovely airy function room for at least 40 people with a private bar, bathrooms, terrace and projector facilities.

Liaising with Katherine and her team has been a pleasure from start to finish.

PR agencies for the event

Well, I must admit, it has been the most challenging and exciting thing I have done so far.

Firstly, I created a dedicated email address superinternwanted@gmail.com as I knew I'd have to look professional, then I came up with the text for my invitation which I kept as brief as possible pointing out the main benefits for the agencies.

I did not not even know where to start as I had never organised a professional event before, so I just turned to the CIPR member's directory to find contact details of top PROs. I was really excited about the event, so my expectations were way high. I had to send out about 50 emails to receive the first positive answer which was from Stuart Skinner, Senior Account Manager at PHA Media. The second enquiry came from Helen Proud, Director of HR at Lansons, and, since I only had 4 weeks left before the event and had to interview the agencies before I sent out my press release, I had to make use of personal contacts and emailed my fellow student from LondonMet Jonny Stark, Digital PR and Media Consultant at Three Monkeys, and Antony Poppleton, PR Director at Phoenix, who used to provide PR support to my current employer PRP Architects who both showed great interest in my event.


Now that I had four agencies interested in the competition I was the happiest event manager in the world! My first interview has been scheduled for 13.20 on Monday 26 April with Stuart Skinner from PHA Media. The main purpose for my visit was to see the environment in which the winner would be working and to meet the PRO in person. Stuart has been more than accommodating. As I work full time I am only available at lunch time or before or after working hours so I appreciated that Stuart made an effort to meet me at lunch time. Their offices are located just on Wardour Street in Soho, so easy to find and a lovely area to be in. The offices were very spacious and light and people were not madly busy which gave me a good feeling. Although I expected only a 5-10 minutes chat the meeting went on for a good half an hour. We sat down in a nice cozy meeting room and went through the details. When I left their offices I had a great feeling that the world of PR is not that impossible to get to as I thought - I had the first agency confirmed!

My next interview was lined up for 17.15 on the same day with Lansons whose office is literally just one-minute walk from my own offices. After waiting in reception for less than 5 minutes I was ushered into a nicely set-out meeting room and was joined by Helen herself, her colleague Lauren and Sophie Lilley, Director, who would represent the agency at the event. Although I had a clear idea of the content and the format of my event in my head I did not expect so much interest and so many questions at the same time:) For the first time, I felt that that my initial idea had a lot of potential and the increasing interest gave me more confidence and power. As we discussed the agenda and technicalities of the judging process I felt that my initial vision of the event concept was developing as we went along. Initially, I did not account for any breaks or for people to take longer time than allocated by the agenda, so it was extremely important that Sophie had pointed it out. Initially, I thought that the so-called awards ceremony would take place in the contest room but Helen and Sophie made a comment that it would make more sense to have the winners announced at the after-party which would kill two birds with one stone: it will give the judges more time to make a decision and those who are not going to be chosen won't get too upset holding a glass of champagne in their hands. When I left the building, I knew I had two fantastic agencies on board and could not wish for better.

The meeting at 08.45 on Tuesday 27 April with Antony Poppleton at Phoenix in Leatherhead, Surrey, was agreed literally at 4 o'clock on Monday afternoon, so I must admit I did appreciate his readiness to accommodate my diary. When I boarded a train at Clapham Junction I sent him a text that I was arriving at 08.05 and was sure I had enough time to walk to their offices which according to Google map were 15 minutes away from the train station. He rang me back straight away offering a lift which I was very happy to accept. He was waiting for me at the station when I arrived and we drove to their offices in no time at all starting our meeting more than half an hour before it was scheduled. Now then, one of the main surprises was waiting for me when I saw their office which happened to be a converted chapel combining the best of the terrific character of the past and modern technology. The main board room was set right at the altar!!! And the ceilings were of course covered in frescoes. Wow! What a view! Antony made me a cup of coffee and we had a friendly chat about the terms and expectations. Another great news was that he was looking for Spanish speakers and I knew that I had at least three registered for this event, so could not wait to break the news to them.

The interview with Jonny Stark at Three Monkeys was scheduled for 1PM on Friday 30 April. He was also going to introduce me to Ben Sewell, Senior Account Manager. He showed me their swanky new offices designed in the format of the main theme - jungle. The black sparkling floor at reception did indeed look impressive. It was the busiest office I had seen so far. My host was stopped by his colleagues at least three times as he was giving me a tour and people were having lunches right in front of their computers. Very briefly he introduced me to Ben and I was out in less than 15 minutes.

I have reiterated to both Phoenix and Three Monkeys that I was going to send their details to the student participants and it would be their choice to select the third agency for the event. As a result, the students had to choose between Lansons offering corporate, financial, international, consumer and public affairs PR, PHA Media focusing on sport and leisure, fashion and beauty, culture and innovation and celebrity PR, Phoenix who were keen to find Spanish speakers for their Barcelona-based client in construction and Three Monkeys who wanted to take on an intern for the Microsoft account team. In the end no matter how much I hated to say no to my fellow student Jonny Stark and despite their high ratings I had to inform Three Monkeys that they were out.

It is a difficult thing to do - to say no to someone who has put in so much effort in already but it had to be done.

Thank you everyone who has taken part in this event so far. I really appreciate your time and effort!

First thoughts

One of the main duties of a CIPR student rep is to organise an event which promotes the image of CIPR and is beneficial to students. To be honest, I have had all sorts of ideas but none of them quite fitted the description. The budget offered by CIPR was £50, which kind of ruled out my initial idea of taking my group on a PR trip to Ibiza. What else could be interesting to my fellow students and is still within the CIPR domain? The next thought I had was a job fair called "How to land your dream job" offering CV writing and interview tips and featuring key PR agencies on the lookout for graduate employees. Unfortunately thematically it clashed with one of the events held by CIPR at roughly the same time and called "Getting started in PR", so I had to come up with an alternative.

The main concern for students is how they are going to secure employment when they graduate, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of organising an event offering students internship opportunities. Life is all about competition, especially in PR, so why not prepare students for their future career by exposing them to this rule from the very beginning? I came up with the idea of conducting an internship competition offering the winners a placement in one of the key PR agencies and started my search for the PR practices that might be interested in my proposal. I used all possible avenues to approach consultancies: through the CIPR membership directory; via personal contacts; by responding to articles in PR Week publishing practitioners’ contact details etc. As it happened, the internship market is rather problematic and agencies are not prepared to commit without knowing the level and experience of the candidates, so I was able to find only four agencies willing to participate: Lansons, PHA Media, Phoenix and Three Monkeys. I visited their offices and met with the practitioners scheduled to present the company at the competition and they all provided me with their company profile overview, internship terms and any other information they considered to be important for attracting most of the students' attention.

The student candidates for the event have also been carefully selected. I targeted BA and MA PR students both in London and outside the capital by way of contacting CIPR student reps asking them to share my proposal with their groups. My PR tutor, Jeremy Baker at the London Metropolitan University, kindly supplied me with contact details for the tutor teaching second year students BA in Communications Technology - Gareth Thompson - and we agreed to have a Skype conference call for me to introduce the students to CIPR and invite them to take part in the competition. This unfortunately never happened due to technical problems. Nevertheless, Gareth has distributed the printouts which I had previously posted to him just in case and as a result a few students from his course have since been in touch.

To document the event a photographer was required, but to make sure that I have the best professional available, I held another competition amongst young student photographers. I informed them that although there was no budget for their fee and their main benefit would be a high profile project and a great client on their CV, plus the opportunity to extend their portfolio further by making use of the amazing venue, meeting high-flying PROs and gaining coverage in local and national media. I sent my proposal to the key London-based photography institutes, courses and departments as well as a few of my own contacts and also posted a note on Facebook. Having reviewed the portfolios and CVs submitted by the interested parties, I identified the perfect photographer - Chen Gao, a freelance from Zibo, China, who also had a BA in Choreography.

The same procedure was followed to find the best event logo design. A competition was held and the best option was chosen. Freelance graphic designer Nick Foster also supplied images for the posters.

The event was held at the Moorgate campus of the London Metropolitan University with the Awards ceremony to follow at the nearby restaurant. I considered a few bar and restaurant options for the after-party, trying to combine proximity to the university, appropriate layout and flexibility in meeting my tiny budget. Having spoken to the management of the nearby venues such as The Globe, Pizza Express, Indian Mehek, O'Neills and The Wall - I have chosen the latter.

Their individual approach from the very first moment did the trick. I walked in without any appointment on a Thursday night at around 7pm and barman Pavel kindly invited me to the quieter upper floor private function room to go through the details of my proposal. I informed him about my major budget restrictions and my event requirements and he assured me that they would contact me the next day to make a booking taking into account our special circumstances. I left with a happy feeling. It had been a long time since someone had treated me in such a dignified manner considering students never have any money.

Next morning, Manager Katherine Atkins contacted me to confirm our booking and finalise the menu. I must admit, I was desperate to get that bar as my heart was already there, so I told her that we were prepared to allow them to use our photographer for their own professional portfolio. I also mentioned that the event would get local and national coverage in the media and I would be happy to mention their name in the feature. And the deal was done. The next day I went to see the allocated function room and I was speechless! We were given a lovely spacious private room on the top second floor with our private bar, bathroom and terrace. The room had a massive screen and computer equipment so we could run the entire event in the same place. Katherine offered a great combination of drinks and food, giving us a 25% discount plus corkage on champagne.

I sent out a confirmation email to the successful students asking them to choose the three agencies for the event.

On Tuesday I got back in touch with the agencies to confirm who was selected for the next stage.

I was really exciting about this event! It was an unbelievable joy to see all these little puzzles fall into place.