Week One: 7-11 June

It is week one of the first Brunswick Internship programme for 2010. The interns talk us through what they got up to day by day, including a bunch of introductory training sessions, a trip to Save The Children, and their first presentation assignment.

This is the second blog entry from the 2010 Brunswick Six,
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Monday 7 June (Nahidur)

I woke up really early in the morning, having not slept much in the first place, full of nerves and excitement. Travelling via the Central Line to get to the Unicorn Jobs office in Shoreditch was an experience in itself. I saw London in a totally different light; a train packed full of people, all looking very smart but mostly miserable. This didn’t help my nerves. Regardless, I made it to the office to be greeted by Sandy Sah from Unicorn Jobs, and a few of the other interns. It was really nice seeing friendly faces that I had encountered on the assessment day; the nerves finally vanished.

In the morning, we had an introductory session with Sarah Stimson from Unicorn Jobs, where we found out loads of interesting stuff about each other. Everyone came from a different academic discipline, yet had a hunger to learn more about the communications world. Sarah is a really interesting person herself; she seemed to have done everything, and had a lot of fun along the way. Her story was really inspirational.

The afternoon session was with Chris Cooke from Unicorn Jobs and UnLimited Media, again, a man who does so much all at the same time. He gave us an introduction to the world of communications, breaking it down so we could understand how and why communications is so important to the business world. This one ‘break down session’ taught me more about communications than the two lectures I had on the subject in university.

So this was day one, full of fun and a lot of learning. I now feel ever more so excited as to what is to come in the remainder of the internship.

Tuesday 8 June (Ataur)

On our second day of the internship, we all came in prepared for a very long day. As we had a free session in the morning, we began the assignments that we had been given on Monday.

First, each of us had to write a brief autobiography that would be distributed to all the employees at Brunswick. We also had to attach a picture of ourselves, which proved just as challenging! We spent some time playing with the Apple Mac’s PhotoBooth sofware to find the perfect pose. Our second assignment was to write a brief piece about why we wanted to work in PR. This was for the benefit of Patrick Healy, a lecturer from UEL who would be coming in to give us a grammar lesson later.

After a great lunch at Subways, Chris continued with the second part of his ‘Introduction To PR’ session. Today, we discussed the channels available to PR people and companies when they wish to communicate to different stakeholders, with the options ranging from team briefings to press releases to social media and the internet.

We went on to discuss the importance of messages in a PR campaign, what needs to be said, and how to ‘package’ the messages. We used real-life examples, like British Airways and its response to the ash cloud earlier this year. We discussed how the message might be different depending on the stakeholder or audience being targeted. In this example, major stakeholders included shareholders, government, customers and employees. It was an interactive and useful session, and by the end I felt we all had a good understanding of the basics of PR, and a good foundation to build on over the next ten weeks.

At 5.30pm Patrick from UEL arrived to give us a one hour grammar lesson. To be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to another hour session at the end of a long day but, to my surprise, the session was really enjoyable and fun. It was kept informal and interactive and we had a few laughs as well. We all participated actively, because we knew that good written English was essential in PR and this session was for our long-term benefit.

And so the day draws to a close. I am getting an understanding of the standards that will be required from us, and realise that we will be in for some tough assignments and long days. I also realise what a great opportunity this is for us and that we really have to make the most of it. This will be a good challenge that I am looking forward to.

Meanwhile, I am really enjoying the office environment here at Unicorn Jobs; everyone is friendly and easy to work with, and I look forward to the next few weeks.

Wednesday 9 June (Akila)

It was day three of our internship and the reality of the working world was starting to daunt all of us. We had already been set deadlines that had to be met. Wednesday morning started off with a free session, which allowed us all to catch up on the work that had been given previously. Though, as the morning session progressed, more and more work started pilling up; we were bombarded with emails adding further deadlines!

In the afternoon we were treated to a visit to the Taylor Bennett offices. After getting lost on several occasions on our way, we eventually managed to find TB HQ. We were all amazed by the beauty of the place, a grand staircase lined with cream carpet took us up to the meeting room where we were greeted by Faye Flexer, a consultant at Taylor Bennett.

We watched in awe as she explained how the world of PR operated, and gave us information on how a company like Taylor Bennett worked. She also amused us with stories about her own career, and about her boss – our internship’s founder – Heather McGregor. Next we met Sarah Crawshaw who talked to us about improving our CVs, which we all found very helpful.

As the minutes ticked by and our session grew to a close we all knew that we were leaving Taylor Bennett with more knowledge than we had walked in with. Another day over but exciting times lay ahead of us, as we progress further on this internship.

Thursday 10 June (Brenda)

On Thursday morning we all arrived at Liverpool Street Station at 9.30am for a 10.00am start. We took a short ride on the tube to Farringdon Station to visit the offices of Save The Children, where we were set to meet the comms team. From the outside, it was a multicoloured glass fronted building; the sort of building you’d probably expect to house a a contemporary architectural firm rather than a charity!

Once inside, we were met by Rose Shannon – the organisation’s Head of Public Relations – and taken to a conference room. There she spoke about the organisation’s history, and told us a fascinating story about how one of the founders was arrested while campaigning about the plight of children suffering during the 1921 Russian famine, and how the charity’s first ever donation subsequently came from her arresting officer. I’m sure that founder would be brimming with pride if she knew her efforts in the 1920s had developed into a worldwide operation today.

Rose told us about some of the charity’s current campaigns and projects, including their work during the drought in Niger and initiatives closer to home tackling child poverty in the UK. One of their campaigns – which I was aware of, but had never linked to Save The Children – is the TV programme ‘How The Other Half Live’. It has been extremely successful in informing the wider public about the gulf in wealth between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ and, most specifically, how this difference can deeply impact on the way in which children progress in later life.

This introduction was followed by a tour of the Save The Children offices, where we were able to see how different strands of the organisation (finance, fund-raising, press communications etc) operate collectively to deliver their mission statement to “create lasting, positive change in the lives of children in need”.

As visitors, we were all impressed by the role Save The Children plays in the global community. Plus we all agreed that the visit had altered our perceptions of how organisations in the so called ‘third sector’ operate, there being more similarities between running a charity and running a commercial business than we had expected.

After the visit we stopped at a small café, and had some coffee and a bite. Some of us bought some lasagne to take back to the office. After eating, we returned to our computers in Unicorn House to complete any outstanding work we had (namely the presentation for Sarah the following day).

Friday 11 June am (Keosha)

Friday morning was intense. This week’s task was to re-present the same presentation we gave back at the internship’s assessment day, but in front of our fellow inters, as well as Sarah from Unicorn and Laura Barkaway from the UEL employability team. It was a nice surprise to find Laura in attendance to see us present, because I’d not seen her since the assessment day earlier in the year.

With just two hours left to rehearse at the start of the day, I was anxious and extremely nervous, as were all my fellow interns. The six of us filed into the training room and took our seats around the table waiting to present.

Sarah delightfully informed us that we would have to score each other out of four on a variety of marking criteria, such as delivery, research and content. We all looked terrified at this prospect, because we had never assessed a presentation in our lives, not to mention the work of people we’d now become friends with.

In turn we presented, asked questions and wrote down our feedback. It was nice to see the variety of companies we had chosen to speak about, from British Airways to Nestle. When my turn came, I was fourth, I stood up, took a deep breath and began. As I started reading my nerves disappeared, and I gave it my best.

Once it was over I felt I had done much better than when I first presented at the assessment day, though I knew there were still areas where I could and should improve. Fortunately the feedback from Sarah, Laura and my fellow interns helped me identify what those areas are.

Friday 11 June pm (Thandi)

As we arrived, for the the first time, at Brunswick’s London offices, we all stared up at the grand white building before us, with its grand arched windows, and stood in awe; the fact we got to go inside was a great privilege. Once in doors we were shown to a room called Northumberland where there was tea, coffee, cookies and refreshments all available to us. A few of us jumped at the opportunity to top up on caffeine.

Then we sat and waited for our first Brunswick session to begin. The experience was both exciting and nerve wracking, this was a big deal – we were about to meet some very important people for the first time and, as I’m sure we all know, first impressions definitely count.

We heard footsteps coming from the hallway. The door opened, and in walked Charlotte, Gernard and Claude, three of last year’s interns who now had jobs within the Brunswick group. Following them were other Brunswick employees, including Roberta Governale, and Kate Miller, and Sheila Robinson, who is a managing partner of Brunswick’s sister company Trinity. We all shook hands and took care of introductions.

Sheila was the first to speak; she told us all about what she does at Trinity, about how Trinity and Brunswick work together, and about how she gets involved in helping Brunswick’s clients manage their reputations internally and externally. It was a great starting point, and Shelia promised we’d see her again before the internship was over.

Next, last year’s interns took us on a tour of the building. There was a great ambience as we walked from one open plan office to another, with the air of professionalism obvious throughout. The previous interns explained how, with various confidential projects being managed around the building, we were very lucky to get such a comprehensive tour.

Next we returned to the meeting room to meet Tim Burt, a partner at Brunswick. As he walked into the room you could feel his presence, his wealth of knowledge and experience filled the room, and it was clear that he was a man who knew what he was talking about. Tim spent most of his session talking us through recent changes in the media, how it is becoming more fragmented, and the impact of digital and social media on the wider business world. These changes meant companies needed to connect with the media in different ways.

Finally, we met Eilis Murphy and Sheila Robinson, who led us through a session on the City. We learned about the London and New York stock exchanges, NASDAQ, and the different listings, such as the FTSE 100 and 250. Halfway through the session James Olly stopped by and contributed to the discussion, in particular by offering some practical case studies of projects he has recently worked on.

I’m sure I can speak for all of the interns when I say that the session was an extremely useful introduction to much of the financial jargon that we will have to get used to using as we work our way through the internship. In fact the whole afternoon added so much to our knowledge of the worlds of media and finance, and was a great end to our first week.