The Ultimate Last Day!

I was really busy this morning. As soon as I got of the subway, I went to FedEx Kinkos to drop off our clip report to be printed. Thankfully yesterday I was able to email the draft press materials to the not-for-profit organization and the event producers. I got their feedback first thing in the morning and made all the edits. I created a media list and sent out the calendar listing. My boss says she will send out my press release closer to the event date in October. I sent out the distribution notice to the not-for-profit founder and the producers of the event. Then I burned a video from a DVD onto the office computer for my boss in regards to client 6.

The rest of the day I did not do anything pertaining to work, but it was fun. My boss took me and her associate out to lunch. Unfortunately my boss had to leave for a meeting before we even got the appetizer. The associate and I had lunch and chatted. She gave me a gift! I was surprised. It was a Burton Chicago tshirt and a Burton shot glass for my 21st birthday. It was so nice of her. Then in my email inbox, I noticed my boss has sent me a Lettuce Entertain You gift card. They both gave me gifts when they gave me the internship! I'm going to send them both a thank you card and something nice. Even though I didn't get a lot of experience in advertising or even public relations, they were all really nice to me and I enjoyed getting to know them. My boss said I can put her as a reference and her associate too. I hope to keep in touch with them.

I know I knocked down this internship a lot, but I guess you can't expect to get full responsibility as an intern. I was given a lot of small office jobs that help my boss and her associate do what they need to do. Though I wish I got to be more involved with the clients, and work on press material and media relations, I got to see what happens in a public relations firm. I did conclude from this internship that I don't think I want to continue with public relations, but I understand the concept and purpose of this profession.

2nd to last day

WFTV did a television spot and article on client 6, but they unfortunately spelled the product and our client's expert's name wrong. I had to call the website programmer to get the spelling errors changed and also to ask for permission to post the video on our client's website. He said we can link the video, but it has to direct the person who clicks on it to the WFTV website. Reasonable enough. Due to the new clip, I had to once more update the clip report.

I signed up the associate for econtrol enewsletter. I signed myself up for a Twitter 201 webinar. It's on August 4th. Even though my internship will be over by then, I'm so going to attend. I have an obsession with Twitter and utilizing it to get my name out to advertising/marketing companies.

I reworked my non-for-profit calendar listing and press release. Hopefully I can get it to the organization and the producers of the event by the end of today. Waiting on my boss... of course.

I created a NPR national media list for my boss and her associate. I'm not sure what it is for, but they asked me to so I did it.

Pretty Boring Wednesday

I had to fix the associate's email this morning. For some reason the server was saving all her emails, so it wasn't receiving any incoming email because she had met her quota on emails. I just went on the server and deleted all the emails and she started receiving her incoming emails.

Then I updated client 6's clip report hopefully for the last time and sent out a press release to SecurityInfoWatch.com for client 7. Then I looked up flights for my boss to go to New York City and back to Chicago. Also, I looked up a flight from Chicago to Atlanta to Orange County and back to Chicago for her. I even had to look up a flight for her daughter... is she part of the PR firm? Anywho, I was about to rant, but I won't.

I found out the advertising value and number of visitors to triblocal.com because client 9 had an article about them posted there.

For the rest of the day I just read the news. I'm still waiting on my boss to review my press materials for the non-for-profit organization. Can't wait for Friday! Last day!

Boring busy work

First thing this morning, I updated client 6's May-July clip report. I think I'm going to be printing the clip report off before the end of the week... Not positive yet. I had to cancel our PR firm's subscription to Northbrook Star newspaper since we are no longer working with client 10, who were located in Northbrook, Illinois. I did some press kit inventory on client 1 and client 3. I figured out what materials we had, what we needed to get approved and if there was anything we needed to write. Also, as I was doing that, client 1 sent us a box of company folders, brochures and letterhead. I reread my non-for-profit press release and sent another email to my boss asking her to review it. I'm not allowed to send anything out to the media until she stamps an approval on it. I looked up local access television in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Not to my surprise, there are no shows located there. We just need to contact Chicago television to get suburban coverage. My boss had me research Corrections Forum Magazine and add them to our security publications media list. Throughout the day I added and subtracted security publications to an invited list for a security convention happening out in California.

Lots of busy work today.

Last week of the Internship!

Is it sad that I am excited that this is my last week at this PR internship? This internship has shown me that public relations is not my choice of career. Sitting in a silent office all day, emailing and answer phones feels extremely unproductive and unfulfilling. I definitely prefer doing creatives or media planning for advertising. It turns out the internship I could of had at DiMeo in Chicago (an advertising firm that I had to decline because they offered it the day after I accepted my PR internship) would have given me tons of experience. A girl who took their internship last year (she is an SIUC alumni), said she got a lot of graphic design experience and has a decent sized portfolio now. I feel, here at this PR firm, that I have not got a lot of experience and have not expanded my portfolio at all, and I have been here for two months and half! Oh well... things happen for a reason... right?

I updated the publicity clip report for client 6 and the advertising value report for client 8. We had our Monday internal staff meeting via conference call due to the fact my boss is working from home. After our staff meeting, I retrieved broadcast media contact information for Orlando, Florida area for the associate in the office.

Following lunch-time, we had a conference call with client 1. We are still working on their press kit, which has been an on-going event since the end of May. They are very non-descriptive clients and we were trying to get more information out of them today in order to make a better press release and boiler plate that will make them happy. I love how their comments about our press kit material is that it is not descriptive and broad, but we pulled it all from their website... All I can say is "frustrating." I made a bulleted memo of all the information we discussed in the meeting sent it to the associate.

For the rest of the day I worked on a press release for the non-profit organization's event I'm doing pro-bono. I'm still waiting on my boss for her advisement on the calendar listing I already wrote. Hopefully she gets back to me tomorrow, so I actually have things to do.

A slooooow day

My boss was leaving as soon as I walked into work this morning. She said she will be working out of the office today.

I sent out two different press releases. One was for client 6 and the other was for client 7. That is all I've done for my PR firm today. The phone has not rang since 10:00 am and it is now 2:00 pm. No emails have come through either. To make it all more unbearable, it is a slow news day to boot. Clawing my eyes out slowly.

Can't wait for 6:30 pm! Meeting my internship coordinator and other Chicago interns at Giordano's on Belmont Ave.

Very Busy Day

I did a lot of work as soon as I got into the office today. I found Chicago sports editors' contact information, added Retail Traffic Magazine to client 1's media list, added Fred Mitchell from the Chicago Tribune to our Chicago media list, and tried to find contact information for 103.5 KISSFM. I did not get lucky finding KISSFM's contact information... very secretive.

Then we had a staff internal meeting to just get updated on all the happening this week. Right after the meeting, the associate found a listing in Crain's Chicago Business of client 9's event. Then I found an article in TribLocal for another event client 9 is doing. Very exciting day for client 9 and our PR firm.

I sent out more calendar listings for client 2, just deleted the old dates in the listing and left August and September dates. After that I took an engaging in social media webinar through Cision. It was interesting. They gave types on listening, engaging and creating in social media.

Then I sent out a new appointment release for client 6. We just found out after I sent the release to all national security magazines, Chicago business editors and Washington DC business editors, that there was an error in client 6's internal announcement about the person in the new appointment release. Now we have to wait for our boss to tell us to either resend the release, send an edit note to the editors or just send a retraction after it's published. Oops! It's not our fault though. Client 6 had the final okay on the press release before sending it and they gave it the two thumbs up. Finally, I got a media list started and finished for business and technology editors in New York.

Extremely busy day!