Week Four: 28 June - 2 July

It is week four of the first Brunswick Internship programme for 2010. The interns talk us through what they got up to day by day, with sessions on the regional press, magazines, crisis communications and career planning, plus a trip to the offices of Thomson Reuters.

This is the fifth blog entry from the 2010 Brunswick Six,
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By Brunswick Interns

Monday 28 June (Brenda)

We all seem to start each week fresh faced and eager, and this Monday was no different. We got in, sat down at our computers and discussed the weekend’s events. Most of my fellow interns’ weekends sounded much more eventful than mine, but such is life. Although we start at 9.30am we don’t see Sarah till 11.30am, so Monday mornings are always good for sorting through everything and getting yourself organised for the week ahead. And that’s exactly what we did this morning.

11.30am, Sarah arrives and we have a session with her – it changes each week. This week we were looking at CVs, and the importance of having a good factual CV that, over one or two pages, clearly states what you’ve done, where and when. We were given some sample CVs to look at and discussed where people had gone wrong – eg being too vague about their experiences, providing too much information etc.

We were then given a copy of Heather’s CV which provided information about her work and education history, and I was truly shocked she had managed to fit her many life experiences into one page of A4. My CV was six pages long! We were given the task of rewriting our CVs using the guidelines that Sarah had set out. Once I’d given my CV the ‘Heather treatment’ it came to just a third of one page of A4! I’ve since added put some more information back, but it goes to show you can communicate the basics very concisely if you have to.

In the afternoon we had another insightful session with Chris, this time a second session on press releases. Chris’s sessions are always fantastic- we’re always shocked by the level of his knowledge about the media. Any question we ask, he’s always seems to be able to answer it! On the occasions he doesn’t know, he’s able to openly admit so and normally follows up with an answer by email after the session.

Tuesday 29 June (Keosha)

This morning we had some highly valuable free hours to work on our presentations for this week and everything else. This week’s presentation was different to the last two, because this time our task was to brief Heather on a specific CEO, as if she was going to dinner with them and needed the key information that would help her to have an informed conversation. My team had Sam Laidlaw; who was both an interesting and difficult man to research.

In the afternoon we had a session with Chris to discuss the regional press. This session was an eye opener for me, as I never knew so many regions had their own newspapers. In Scotland in particular the regional press is highly valued; they have three main regional papers: The Scotsman, The Herald and the Daily Record. Chris spoke about who The Herald has a Glasgow bias and The Scotsman and Edinburgh bias, which might make it difficult to merge the titles, even though arguably Scotland can no longer sustain two broadsheet papers.

We discussed why PR people might talk to regional papers, if they have a story that is relevant to a specific area, or if they have a product which is touring the country (eg a music tour), or simply because it gives PR people another list of journalists to target in addition to those working on the nationals.

Wednesday 30 June (Thandi)

This morning we had a much-needed free session, where we all caught up on our work. Some of the interns went to lunch with their ‘Brunswick Buddies’, but my buddy was busy working with an important client; so I stayed at the Unicorn Jobs office to work on my presentation for Friday.

At 2pm we headed over to Taylor Bennett for our weekly session, where we met with Matthew Wall, who gave us a lesson in career management, starting with short-term appraisals. He asked us to describe our own ambitions for the internship, what skills we hoped to acquire during the programme, and what aspects of our personal development we needed to address.

We each identified areas where we wanted to improve. Both Brenda and I said we needed to work on our presentation skills, on our ability to meet tight deadlines, and the quality of our writing. Others made commitments to ‘skim and scan’ newspapers and to write a weekly summary of everything they read. Ataur and Akila said they would read press releases written by financial PR companies in order to gain a better understanding of how these are done. Matthew said we should monitor each others progress and provide each other with appraisals.

After the appraisal exercise Matthew asked us what our ideal jobs would be. Many mentioned that they would love to work for Brunswick, others, such as Brenda – who has a background in sports development – said she would really like to work for the London Olympics. I admitted my life-long ambition to work for the BBC. Matthew then shows us the CVs of some people who work for these companies, to illustrate the steps we need to make ourselves attractive to those employers.

At the end of the work day we headed over to the London School Of Economics for a lecture by Andrew Ross Sorkin, the author of the book that we are all currently reading, ‘Too Big To Fail’.

The lecture was titled ‘Too Big To Fail: The Aftermath And What Next?’ and Sorkin spoke about many of the topics addressed in the book surrounding the crises on Wall Street that led to the world’s economic downfall.
The lecture was extremely interesting; he discussed the ways in which he acquired all of the information that was in the book, revealed the difficulties he encountered whilst trying to obtain interviews with one-third of the people mentioned in it, and explained how he had to jump hurdles to get the information he needed.

Sorkin also gave us his opinion on the future of the financial industry, and said that shareholders needed to better hold companies and top executives to account. He added that he felt that while some companies may be too big to fail, others are too big to manage.

At the end of the lecture Akila, Ataur and I lined up to get our copies of ‘Too Big To Fail’ signed by Sorkin. We asked him what he thought about the role of financial PR with regards his book. He told us that was a very “insightful and interesting” question, but with a queue of others waiting to have their books signed it wasn’t something he had time to address there and then. But we’re hoping we might be able to meet with Andrew again and get the answer then!

Thursday 1 July (Nahidur)

Today we went to Thomson Reuters. All six of us and Sandy from Unicorn met at 9am in front of Canary Wharf Station ready for another opportunity to see the practical side of business.

Thomson Reuters is an interesting company as their business operates in different fields, from media to finance. We met Victoria who is their head of communications. She spoke to us about what her role involves and how she got to where she is today. We then met the media team who let us watch one of their in-house documentaries, on the Israel and Gaza situation. The film was really upsetting yet intriguing at the same time, because we got to see the hardwork that goes into the reporting of such events.

The Thomson Reuters visit was really enjoyable, because we got to see inside an important media organisation, and learn how they themselves communicate.

In the afternoon we had a session with Chris on magazines, and discussed different kinds of magazines, who owns them all, and how PR people might use them as communication channels.

Friday 2 July am (Ataur)

After leaving late the previous evening, we began Friday morning by putting the finishing touches to our presentations for the week. We heard that someone from Taylor Bennett would be coming to watch us present this week, but I didn’t get too nervous, because I felt that my team were sufficiently prepared. However, we went through a few more rehearsals just to make sure we were fully fluent.

I always enjoy the presentations on Friday mornings; during the week, the teams prepare with a certain level of secrecy and don’t share information with their fellow interns, but all is revealed on Friday mornings. I am also genuinely fascinated by the information I hear, which goes to show the research, effort and time we all put in to the weekly project.

This week we researched chief executives: Charles Dunstone, current chairman of Carphone Warehouse and Talk Talk; Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone Group; and Sam Laidlaw, CEO of Centrica. It was very interesting to hear about their personal and business lives, and I learnt things about all of them that I didn’t previously know. One coincidental observation I made was that all three individuals had a link to BP; Charles Dunstone’s father was a former executive there while the other two are good friends of BP’s current CEO Tony Hayward!

Sarah (from Unicorn Jobs) was joined this week by Sarah from Taylor Bennett. They listened intently to our presentations as usual, before asking us questions and adding their own views and comments. I felt that all six of us really improved in our presentations this week and managed to control the nerves better.

Friday 2 July pm (Akila)

It was Friday afternoon and it was time for our regular trip to Brunswick. We arrived there early and were greeted by James Olly, who spoke to us about how we were all doing on the internship so far.

Then we had a session on crisis management from Charlotte and Tim. They explained to us how, in the event of a crisis within a company, you have a short period during which you need to try and tackle the problem. They then gave us a task to do in pairs which was to try and solve a fictional crisis that may happen in everyday life. This really gave us a chance to get creative and everybody managed to come up with some really good ideas.

In the latter part of the session we were going to watch a film about Wall Street, but due to technical problems all round, the movie was postponed for a later date! So, something to look forward to.