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!

As a result of the terrifying (and yet extremely exciting) closeness of the games, it is all systems go on the UPS account at Edelman. I’ve been very fortunate to have attended three events in the past two weeks; two of these events were UPS and Olympics related.

November 1 was the first of two UPS Logistics Forums taking place this month. The Forums are important events in the UPS calendar, as they serve as a way for the official Olympics logistics company to communicate with stakeholders about the current logistical situation in the build up to the Games. The event was attended by executives from London 2012 sponsors and suppliers, all of whom are working hard to make the games run smoothly.

Hearing a UPS representative talk about the hurdles which they have already encountered in the run up to the Olympics opened my eyes to just what a challenging job they have on their hands, and just how difficult it is to get such a project right.

During a recent set of Olympic test events, the UPS team encountered a major difficulty in the form of London’s rioting inhabitants. The test events took place the week after the August riots, so UPS had to factor the potential for another spate of riots into their planning. Therefore, when lining the streets of London with heavy (and potentially lethal!) metal barriers, they purchased hundreds of metres of metal chains, as well as countless padlocks to attach to the barriers, just in case a rioting group decided it would be a good idea to try to throw a barrier at a person, a car or a shop.

Unforeseen circumstances such as riots certainly keep companies like UPS on their toes: six months ago, rioting would not have been on their list of potential risks. Now, they know exactly how to deal with that situation. Who knows what the real games may throw at UPS and the other sponsors of London 2012, but after seeing how they successfully overcame the challenges of the riots, we should be confident the UPS will deliver the Olympics perfectly, from barriers to sports socks!

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.

I have definitely discovered a passion for social media and digital marketing that I never knew existed. When I see Facebook, I now see beyond status updates and photos of my friends. I see engagement analytics and insights. I have not only become a regular Tweeter but I actually enjoy it, those 14o characters a more powerful than I ever thought, those few words could make or break a brand or campaign in an instant. My LinkedIn profile is now up-to-date and I may even venture onto FourSquare and Flickr in the near future! I am truly a digital convert and I credit this to a number of things I experienced n this department that I just don’t have space to get in to but two in particular.

1. The wonderfully friendly, fun and helpful characters who grace Spook Media, First42nd and Edelman Digital from Account Execs, to my lovely line manager all the way up to the amazing team of Directors. They were all always there to talk me though tasks, answer my questions, get a drink with and in the case of TFI Fridays engage in a pedalo race. Digital creates a unique atmosphere that makes working hard all day never really feel like work.
2. The lengthy list of clients I had the pleasure of working on.  My experiences alone are enviable let alone the entire client list! This is a brief (well I tried at least) run down of who I worked for and a taster of the sort of tasks I was lucky enough to undertake.

• Leading Tech Brand: With a social media presence of over 20 million fans, it was a great learning experience to help manage, monitor and write content for this brand’s platforms and assist with pulling data to analyse and create insights about engagement rates, fan profiles, commerce drivers and so on for reports and conducting research into new strategies and general social media insights every week.
• Best Buy: A huge social media presence in the US, the UK are hoping to follow suit and I got involved with writing content for all their platforms and the admin for their ‘Thumb’s Up Price Down’ deals tab on Facebook.
• Allen&Overy: I would never have put social media and leading law firm together but as I’m quickly discovering digital marketing applies to anything and everything. For Allen&Overy I was responsible for running and reporting on a whole Twitter campaign for the launch of their 50 Degrees East survey. I wrote some Tweets, posted them daily, monitored and reacted to responses and pulled and analysed data which I used to report on the success of the campaign.
• Anglo American: This mining giant was another very unexpected client but they are in the process of launching themselves across several social media platforms and I helped in drafting ‘About Us’ sections for them and starting to build albums for Flickr.
• Ballymore: Yet again, a corporate client in Digital surprises me. For this property development company I helped conduct a landscape analysis which in (very) short involved looking at social media activity and conversation that could relate to this client and their purpose and drawing practical insights from what I found.
• Dove: As one of my all time favourite brands it was a pleasure to work on Dove. I assisted with building sections of the Dove Development Deck including a profile of ‘The Dove Woman’ based on fan data from Facebook and ‘truths’ about how the Dove Women (from their top 5 markets) engage on Facebook, and how they respond to different content. This was a really interesting task for a truly iconic brand that’s made me love Dove even more.

So, that wasn’t as concise as I hoped it would be, but I wanted to make sure I did my time in Digital justice. All that’s left to say is a huge thank you to the whole team, I loved every second. And here’s to my next rotation in Healthcare!

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

The same day that my Papa passed away, the tragedy in Japan struck. Perhaps I should say it the other way around, but that is they way it happened for me. Fortunately I was able to take a day of compassionate leave to grieve with my family (mainly me in an utterly incoherent state on the phone) and was stunned to know that I couldn’t make it back home in time for the funeral.

I think the whole world was stunned that week and the one after – not knowing what was going on or how to respond given the scale of the events. I spent a good deal of it combing breaking stories early in the morning for news that concerned a client of ours. It was a relief to me to work on a crisis since there wasn’t much I could do about my own at the time. The crisis training that I had taken part in before really came in handy much sooner than I thought!

Besides a few early rises monitoring, there was plenty more to keep me occupied. I was conducting media sell-ins, compiling coverage and researching on a daily basis.

Some of the coverage featured Edelman work for such clients as UPS and Rolls Royce. It was great seeing campaigns being featured in the big national papers and outlets! UPS seems like such a versatile client to work for, with their love of logistics featuring in their campaigns and the fact that they are an official sponsor of the upcoming Olympics in London.

The Corporate & Finance team is one of the largest departments and I was rather surprised to have worked with so many members of the team in such a short time. Such a friendly group who really know how to get a job done, I really picked up some good practices over there. I’d love to go into more detail, but thought I’d share some of the other accounts I had the chance to work on: General Electric, Visit London, Shell, Starbucks, and Manchester FC to name but a few.

My placement there went by before I knew it and the wait to know what would happen next settled in, which was in fact a relief.

When it came to crunch time a couple of weeks ago, I was swinging in roundabouts. One day thinking ‘yes definitely x department’, the next day ‘no that department’, the following day ‘but what about this department’ – you can imagine how this continued. I’m normally a pretty decisive person, but this was ridiculous! The factors I considered were a) client accounts b) future progression and c) the people. The thing with Edelman is that each department has exciting, big name clients. The other thing with Edelman is that each department considers your future and will help you in career decisions. The third thing with Edelman is that each department has amazing people…you can see my problem here! The people I must say are talented, dedicated, intelligent and truly welcoming. As a grad you are lucky enough to learn from some of the crème de la crème in the industry.

So what were the highlights of my eight months?

• Working with some Digital pioneers in Spook. The world of communication is changing with the advancements in technology, and what better place to learn about the importance of social media than in our very own award winning Digital team. Try exciting campaigns such as Levi’s® Shape What’s To Come and Puma’s After Hours Athlete
• Meeting Boris Johnson at an event I helped organise on behalf of Douglas&Gordon whilst working in Corp&Fin. Actually hilarious! A point to note about Corp&Fin is the variety in work – a dream for any graduate. From issues and crisis management, to CSR platforms, award ceremonies  and of course the all important media liaison
• My first ever red carpet event at the Xbox Halo: Reach launch, working with some consumer PR gurus to organise a celeb-tastic event and then watching the fantastic pieces of coverage appear
• Pitching for new business whilst in the Public Affairs team. Understanding the insights which are essential in forming strategy, context and desired outcomes
• Working in a global hub at Tech was priceless. I was lucky enough to be involved in brainstorming and then implementing campaign ideas both on a central and local level
• Improving a weakness in Healthcare. I’ve never been a perfectionist and sometimes attention to detail can suffer. To work well in Healthcare you have to study the small print and this was the ideal opportunity to put my weakness to the test and sort it

Any conclusions? Yes….the graduate scheme is truly invaluable. The tools it equips you with, the friends you make and the interests you pick up can only but increase your employment prospects and that’s the whole point, right?

I was very apprehensive going into this hardworking area of the office. I have very little political background – I only studied political history until GSCE level and a bit of political philosophy during my degree. I had become interested in UK politics during recent years as I got older and changes in government/bills began to affect my day to day life. As a country girl I was one of the many to march in Hyde Park about the hunting ban, and David Cameron is my home MP for Witney, so I was looking forward to learning more about this world.

I didn’t know what to expect in terms of work when I started three weeks ago. Clare was here before me and she told me about some of it and the clients’ accounts she worked on, but nothing prepared me. In my first week (first week of January) the buzz word was new business so I was doing lots of research into new ideas. I was also shown how to do some monitoring for press mentions about one of the clients and research for clients in the news.

PA deals with so many different aspects of client work that every day is different.

In the second week everything began to get very busy as I was asked to help with work for a new and really exciting client. I also asked if it would be possible to help on one of the new pitches and was able to do some research, so at least I can feel I helped, a bit!

With the General Election coming up there is work related to Parliament, with some work for Reed in Partnership where I was liasing with MP offices and writing biographies. David (the new intern) and I have also been asked to put together biographies to help the team in their preparation for the Election period. This is helping me to learn more and more about current UK politics and also about how the team works.

The team have been fantastic, when I came in Paul (my line manager) was on holiday and Lyndsey, Peter and Mark took care of me. When Paul came back he has helped me to get to work on some great clients and asked me who I would like to work on and if there is anything I feel I haven’t done yet.

Last night Spook challenged the office to a pub quiz – It was great fun as the  PA team are competitive and we did manage to win! No hard feelings ‘eh Marcus – but we did beat you by a little bit. Plus anyone who says there were too many PA related questions – our best rounds were Literature and Food and Drink!! It was a really good opportunity to get to know more of the team who have made me feel very welcome.

I’ve got four and a half weeks left with this team during the grad scheme and then it will be on to Healthcare (my last rotation). The new grads have started now – there are three more girls to make up a pretty good group of us, together with the interns David and Olivia (who I have met). I was very pleased that Francesca joined the grad scheme after being an intern at Corporate with me, and I wish Francesca, Erin and Maggie loads of luck.

Last week the Corporate team had the Christmas lunch – I think I was possibly the only person who left their present at home and had to rush out and buy another one. It was a great afternoon as we all hid in a pub from the snow with plenty of..water, honest.

The lovely intern at Corporate also got onto the next intake of Grads for January so I want to extend my congratulations to her – she’s been great to work with and I wish her all the luck the world.

So far whilst working for Edelman I have been in two totally different departments but I have enjoyed the challenges of all of the work. We are now halfway through the Graduate Scheme and we have done two rotations. I have been at Corporate and Digital. These teams differ in clients and type of work – for example at Digital you very rarely pick up the phone to call a jounralist.

At Corporate I have now also had the chance to work on some sport clients which has been very enjoyable, and I hope to carry on working on this in the New Year.

So, off to PA next! It will be a learning experience for me who has not studied Politics before. I have been interested in it, but as David Cameron is my home MP it is from a less objective stand point.

I  hope that everything is going well and that the teams are pleased with my work, especially as I feel I have learnt so much in the past 4 months.

I’ve now been in London for 7 months and it feels like years! Having come here in June to settle in before starting work I feel like I have gotten to know the city better (although there is so much I don’t know – the East, West and North for example!) I definitely think that I have made the right move, and although I miss home and the countryside, London is a great place to be.

I feel that within the Grad Scheme we are looked after and hopefully gaining the experience we need. I am still not sure what area of PR I would like to specialise in but I think that the next two rotations should help me to decide.

So I leave the office in 2009, when I come back it will be a new decade, possibly with a broken leg (I’ve never been skiing before!!). Have a great Christmas break everyone and a merry New Year’s!

Over the past two weeks there has been quite a bit going on over ths side of the office, and time has gone past very rapidly. The Get Safe Online Summit happened last Monday (I could not sleep on Sunday night hoping everything would go ok), everything seemed to go smoothly. I had spent most of Friday making name badges and had visions of them all being wrong!

This week, I have been selling in for a another client – something a bit different for them, and me – the arts contrasting and mixing with electricals. This is a very interesting project because it is giving me great experience of media relations. I think I have managed to move past my fear of speaking to National newspaper journalists…as long as my script is good.

Speaking of arts, we have been rehearsing for the panto – I have found myself writing stage notes at the rehearsals and chuckling about the impending laughs and fabulous acting! Over in the Corporate department there is a lot of dance talk – so I have high hopes!

A couple of weeks ago the three of us Grads were asked to shoot the new video for the website, and I have to say well done to the former grads who got involed and those who helped out – it looks really great.

I have settled in with the Corporate team now and I’m finding the work easier to get my head round. I’ve been doing little bits for lots of clients, including VisitBritain and Sime Darby, and then bigger bits for Get Safe Online, Starbucks, Reed in Partnership and Mitsubishi.

Whilst I have been here I’ve helped out with the Tweetminster event and hopefully a few more before the end of the year.

We also had some Grad training last week in Crisis Management which sounding fascinating; it would be so interesting to be on the frontline of the breaking stories – some late nights and early mornings though I’m sure.

The next few weeks are going to be hectic with the panto, work and the countdown to Christmas…a month! I’ve managed to buy wrapping paper and a few cards (none of which have been written in), I just need to actually buy the presents now!

On a bit of a sad note it’s Jason Mical’s last day with us today – drinks were great on Friday, going to miss you loads Jason, take care!