From donning my best suit at 6am for a client event at Parliament to sipping on wine and nibbling canapés at our very own office, I feel like I’ve done it all since starting at Edelman. I’ve had a number of “pinch me” moments, but in between the glitz, the glam and the crazy running around, there has been a lot of hard work, a lot of lessons learned, huge amounts of fun and even a few fears conquered.

Working in PR, particularly on a grad scheme, is so exciting. You never quite know what the day is going to throw at you, and no two days are ever the same. With a diverse range of clients across the different teams, it’s hard to pin-point every single thing that I’ve learned or done since I started here. I can nonetheless assure you that it is a very long list that will continue to grow. It just remains for me to say thank you to the PA, Corporate & Financial and Tech teams for throwing me right into the deep end and making my first three months’ work so fulfilling.

Next stop…Digital!

On Monday the Edelman GSOL team attended the Get Safe Online summit event at Portcullis House in Westminster. This in itself was brilliant – setting foot in a parliamentary building and being part of the organisational team for an event there is something I’ve never done before.

During the event, several presentations were given about online safety. From police officers to bank representatives to industry officials, the Get Safe Online sponsors and supporters were out in force to raise awareness of just how important it is to practise online safety.

One presentation which struck a particular chord with me was a demonstration of just how easy it is for a criminal to hack into a smart-phone to steal the owner’s money and even identity. Malicious software can easily masquerade as a normal application, such as free additional levels to a legitimate game. Once downloaded, this malware could send premium rate messages from your phone several times a minute, rapidly building up an enormous bill and giving a very generous sum of money to a criminal. Many victims of crimes like these don’t even know they’ve been targeted until they receive their monthly bill for multiple thousands of pounds…and then it can be difficult to get that money back.

As an avid smart-phone user and a self-confessed gimmick addict, I’ve found myself really thinking about how I use my phone. Do I really need this “amazing” free new app? Can I be sure that this is a genuine app and not malware disguised as a fancy gadget? Or on another note, do I really need to check my bank balance/purchase a new dress on my phone, or can I wait until I get home and use my laptop, where I know I have a firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus software?

Having a smart-phone is incredibly advantageous for so many reasons, but I now know I should definitely think twice about using it to purchase something online (and not just because this addiction needs to be curbed!), particularly as my phone is not as well protected as my fortress of a laptop. As for free apps, I know I will be so much more careful about checking their source before clicking download from now on.

So how safe are you when you’re using your smart-phone? Do you download apps left right and centre without really looking at their origin, and what other people have said about them? Do you have anti-virus on your phone? Do you have a password?   

There are so many questions which we should all be asking ourselves, and with criminals forever thinking of new ways to trick us, it’s so important to do everything we can to protect our computers, our phones, our money and our identities.

If you think you need to brush up your online safety knowledge, you can download the Get Safe Online Rough Guide for FREE at http://www.getsafeonline.org/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=1842. The Guide was launched this week in conjunction with Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers and the Association of Chief Police Officers. It’s a great source of information and could save you from becoming a hacker’s victim.

The whole point of Get Safe Online week is not to put people off using the internet, but to make sure that all of us use it safely, so we can continue to enjoy it. So check out the Guide and make sure you’re doing what you can to protect yourself. It’s certainly worked for me.

So far my limited number of blog posts have all been quite “work” focused– but life at Edelman is so much more than that. Take last Thursday night for example. The ‘Edel-Spook X Factor Karaoke Competition’. My current department, Healthcare took on Spook, my old department in the karaoke competition to end all singing contests. Forget X-Factor, Edelman is where the talent is (well maybe/probably /absolutely not).  In a private room in a Chinese restaurant near our office, the finger food and white wine was flowing. All the classics came out from Spice Girls to Stevie Wonder to MC Hammer, and even I, who despises karaoke joined in on as many songs as I could and belted Bonnie Tyler until my voice had disappeared. Fortunately, no photographic evidence of the night has surfaced…yet, but watch this space in case it does!

It was an amazingly fun night and just another reason why I am loving life as an Edelman Grad so much; having worked with both departments I knew pretty much everyone there and had just as much fun chatting with my favourite intern as I did the MD. In and out of work the people and atmosphere at Edelman are second to none.

No one has the same opportunity us grads do to try so much and meet so many people. We’re pretty lucky I guess.

Some other quick examples:

Pedalo racing in Hyde Park with Spook:

Halloween Decorating Competition with Healthcare:

Now back to planning the next big night out working hard.

When I heard I was starting in Corporate and Financial I really didn’t know how to feel about it. Having only ever worked in Consumer and Lifestyle PR, Corporate and Financial was going to be a bit of a shock to the system. I was majorly stressed about not knowing anything about the business and finance world. I was also really worried that I wasn’t going to like this area of PR.

Not a great way to feel when you are just about to start a brand new job.

I was stressing and worrying over nothing! I was pleasantly suprised at how much I enjoyed working in Corporate. I have learned so much since starting here and gained experience on pretty much evey part of PR you learn about in college. Crisis management, issues management, employee engagement, internal communication, media relations – you name it, I’ve experienced it over the past six weeks. It’s been brilliant! I also got the chance to work on some amazing clients, international and clients based in the UK. The team were all lovely, so welcoming and helpful!

I have learned so much over the past six weeks, I could never write it all down in one blog post. One thing has stood out to me though – be open minded. The world of PR is never quite what you expect it to be and that is certainly the case for Corporate and Financial. The clients I often thought would be the most boring turned out to be the most exciting and vice versa. I really didn’t know what to expect in Corporate and it turns out that I actually really love this part of the industry.

April

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The SABRE (Superior Achievement in Branding and Reputation) Awards  are “the world’s largest awards competition for the public relations industry, the SABRE Awards celebrate PR campaigns that demonstrate the highest levels of creativity, integrity and effectiveness.”

…its kind of a big deal. And guess what? WE WON!

Edelman won Global Agency of the Year, beating Burson-Marsteller, Fleishman-Hillard, MSL Group, and Weber Shandwick for the competition‘s top honor. Not only this, we also shared the Platinum Award and Social Media Campaign SABRE with Weber Shandwick, both for Pepsi Refresh, which was named the best campaign of the year in any region. Not bad going.

So this is just a little shout out to Edelman. Big thumbs up! I’m very proud to be an integral cog just a tiny part of this amazing, multi-award winning global agency!

I love a good novelty and I love good make up. With this in mind, you can only imagine how impressed I am by the new palette from Urban Decay. The ultimate in girlie gadgetry, The Urban Decay Book of Shadows Vol IV not only includes a really lovely mix of bright and neutral shades but also brings UD well and truly into the realm of all things digital.

The limited edition palette includes a mini portable speaker to plug your smart phone into, alongside a pack of QR (quick response) codes which unlock five video tutorials using products from within the palette, all rounded off by a docking station that ensures your smart phone sits next to your mirror, so you can follow the tutorials as you go.

Despite this palette being pretty pricey (£46) I think this is a great example of how brands are beginning to think further and further outside of the box/their immediate function in order to make their products relevant and appealing to both existing and new customers. (After all, if you’re likely to spend £50 on what is essentially some well packaged eye shadow, chances are you’re already quite partial to cosmetics!)

Since beginning my placement with Edelman Tech and in my previous PR jobs and placements, I’ve quickly realised the importance of strong, additional content across many different sectors. Whether that’s ensuring that all formatting within briefing documents is 100% spot on, to researching the relevant publications to pitch content to, to researching news to create an engaging itinerary for a radio broadcast, it’s really interesting to see how exciting and resourceful content can both update a product and generate additional trust in a company, a brand and a new release.

(Just to clarify : Urban Decay aren’t a Tech/Edelman client!)

If my rambling is too much for you…why not have a quick look at their PPT instead (or as well if you can’t be bothered reading this truly are interested)! http://db.tt/DFD0tBDE

A bit of background on Buddy Media: they are a CMS (Content Management System) that help manage and monitor client presences on Facebook and Twitter predominantly; the  content that is going out on behalf of our clients and the engagement that is occurring in return from our online communities.

Important things to know:

1)      Social Media isn’t a ‘new’ phenomenon’, it is just part of the ‘natural evolution of the web’ – just like so many other things in life, the web has simply evolved in order to meet the evolving needs of our digital society, new web companies and social media platforms launch and progress to meet our needs.

2)      The very element of being ‘social’ on social media platforms has had a disruptive and altering effect on businesses and the way business is done and…

3)      …this is seen through the relationship between social media and commerce

Buddy Media used Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to demonstrate this ‘natural evolution of the web’. I loved this (as a Human Geographer Maslow is right up my street), for those of you less familiar, check out the diagram. In short, as we evolve we become more sophisticated and our needs change from being fundamental (e.g. food and shelter) to a desire to be part of a community and then to express ourselves within that community and lead a fulfilling life. This theory can be actualized to the web, take  Google for example, they came along and took care of our ‘fundamental’ web needs, providing us with access to information that was meaningful, organized and relevant. However, our needs evolved and so did the web…step in social media platforms. First we wanted to share thoughts, then photos, then links and opinions etc etc etc and so as our desires became more sophisticated so did the capacity of these platforms. Social Media platforms became so efficient at meeting the needs of our digital society that they eventually became able to anticipate our upcoming online needs and implement them before we even know we needed them. Who can honestly say that they had a burning desire to check-in somewhere online and share it with the world before FourSquare and Facebook Places came along…now people can’t pop to the shop without telling their friends! It is social media that allows us to share anything and everything with everyone at once, super efficient!

What the key lesson to really take from all this (it’s worth reading on I promise!) is how the sharing core of social media impacts on business, a.k.a. our clients! Business design and aims are based on the wants and needs of their ‘most valuable consumer’. However, how this is defined has completely changed thanks to social media, so businesses need to change too. Before social media the most valuable consumer is: the highest spender, the consumer who brings in the most revenue. After: the ‘loudest’ consumer is by far the most valuable – this is judged on how active and interactivethey are, how big of a brand advocate and how much they like the company’s product or service, but most importantly, how much influence they have (no good someone with one friend in their network liking everything you post, that will get your brand message nowhere fast). This redefinition of what makes a ‘valuable consumer’ has to become a key element when designing a business in our digital society.

So, are you starting to see social media in a whole new light?

Believe it or not…there are even more layers to this. Social media hasn’t just impacted on how businesses are designed and run, but it also has a direct impact on commerce (this is the whole point of business after all-making money!). The relationship between e-commerce and social media can now be actualized with social data, this is a super important development and very relevant to the work we do. However, I fear it might all be a bit of information over load for now so I will save this part for a rainy day. Just to give you a quick idea of the importance of this have a look at what Mark Zuckerberg had to say…

“If I had to guess, social commerce is next to blow up”.

Told you it was interesting!

My first two (and a half) weeks at Edelman have been great. Tech has been pretty hectic so far but really good fun too. From my birthday on the third day (cake, lots of singing, me showcasing my best embarrassed face), to a work night out last Thursday (ending in a taxi sing-song with one of my colleagues), I really can’t believe it has only been such a short amount of time. I know it’s such a standard thing to say in a trainee blog but I really have learnt so much already. From battling with GFS (What code? What code! I still don’t know…) to preparing for the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) gTLD (global top-level domains) event this morning, my work has been varied and honestly really interesting so far.

My main clients in Tech include CBS (Last.fm, ZD Net UK), Habbo, LinkedIn, Softonic and Orange but I’ve also done quite a bit of work for both HP’s Big Bang and Adobe’s MAX 2011 events alongside bits and pieces for Analyst Relations too. I’ve researched, edited and proofread many biographies and helped pull together schedules and briefing documents. I’ve also got to grips with Edelman’s social media influence tools TweetLevel and BlogLevel, learnt how to sweep for coverage, sourced competitions for Last.fm Presents gigs, hit Google to research many different things and had formal training on Basic Media Skills and Social Media as well as Blogging.

From the other grads and the excited for lunch emails (ahem, Polly), to my lovely buddy Renato and line manager Kirstyn, I have felt very welcomed and looked out for in my first few weeks at Edelman. Now all the newbie questions are out of the way (aka, I now know how to use the printer, how to find the post room etc) I’m really looking forward to the rest of my time in Tech before moving over to Digital.

(I should probably admit here that unfortunately I can’t take credit for the title…thanks Gerry!)

I joined the digital team as an avid Facebook user, rare Tweeter and occasional LinkedIn visitor and that was about it. Having spent 3 weeks with the team-all of whom are really friendly and always helpful, I have learnt more than I thought there was possible (cliche!) about all things Digital from social media content and engagement, to community management and monitoring, to Facebook and Twitter analytics, and not forgetting CMSs, IPs, RTs, QBRs, URLs, CTRs and CSOs (seriously, none of those are made up!) It’s been a very steep curve for me, but I’m so pleased and relieved that it hasn’t gone over my head, and that in fact it’s not only sinking in but it’s getting embedded in my psyche. Apparently I’ve loved Digital all along.

So far I’ve had the pleasure of getting involved with 3 completely different clients, doing totally varied tasks for each. From a host of content and engagement related projects for an amazing leading tech brand (so amazing I can’t even divulge that much), to building fan profiles of The Dove Woman, (Dove are one of my all-time favourite brands and are part of the Unilever account), to launching and monitoring a Twitter campaign for Allen&Overy, a top law firm. As you can tell I’m now very busy and important (I wish) so I should get back to it, but watch this space for all the ins and outs of my lessons learned and clients covered during my days in Digital.

Having good experience or a great education is a great asset but you really must be vigilant in wanting to know how to apply it and be open to opportunities. I was a scientific researcher with limited experience in media before knowing that I wanted to go into PR. After my three month internship in the Healthcare department I had the fluke opportunity to go onto the graduate rotation programme which has certainly given me skills, contacts and an extra dash confidence.

So the rotations are officially over and all the graduates on the programme – as in Charlotte, Mary and I - have succeeded in receiving placements in our department of choice! Such a relief to know that it has all worked out for each of us and to actually sink our teeth into more permanent account work.

Although I didn’t question where I wanted to be placed in the end, I did feel drawn into the idea of what it might be like to continue working in some of the other departments. Knowing how things are in Edelman though, I am fairly certain there will be opportunities to work across departments regardless. I can’t emphasize how incredibly diverse the work was and now know it’s not just any global agency I want to work for, it’s Edelman.

Now to recap some of my takeaways  from the different departments:

• Everyone needs to incorporate a dose of digital into their daily activities. Spending time with the Spook team was a sure way to experience this. Doing first-hand online campaign activites and learning how to take advantage of  information and tools that are out there is a must.
• Act as a bridge to make change happen. there is no need to be complacent about appealing to the right people for the right reasons. My stint in public relations showed me how to be both effective and courteous in my approach as well as understand how issues impact locally.
• Work within your limits. As an industry, healthcare is highly regulated and doing PR in healthcare requires being mindful of what you’d like to what as opposed to what you can do. Challenging yet very rewarding.
• Being big can be a very good thing. There is definitely variety to be had doing PR over in corporate and finance spanning from global campaigns, corporate reputations, brand management, and working with financial groups. Also, there is a good chance that your friends or relatives will recognize the names of the clients you are working with, such as Rolls Royce, General Electric, Starbucks or UPS.

I am so pleased to have made a such a career change and to feel so sure of what I am doing now. Hands down I would recommend the graduate scheme, I cannot think of a more invigorating way to get such a variety of experience in such a short amount of time.