Climbing for a Diploma

Coming into the Diploma of Public Relations class I was optimistic.

• I looked forward to learning more about the things that I enjoyed beginning to learn in the Cert IV class.
• I was excited about beginning some work experience
• I hoped to make new connections

Now that it's the end of my studies at Central Institute of Technology I have to look back and hope that I've come out of it all having learned something. 

There were a few hurdles along the way which was a given since the class was smaller than the school had expected or wanted and to keep it alive we were reduced to one class a week. To accommodate this as a class we organised to meet at least once a week outside class time. As time went on and everyone had other commitments with work and their work experience the meetings started to dwindle and it was up to my own motivation to keep me on track with the course. This resulted in some ups and downs with my school work and caused some questioning of my overall commitment to the course. I think that this has taught me how to be self motivated and just how important it is to have a healthy balance in life.

The most difficult thing for me throughout this course was trying to balance keeping my work happy and keeping my friends happy and keeping my lecturer happy and trying to remember that I also have to be satisfied in there somewhere as well. From now on I will try to keep an eye on the bigger picture and keep myself happy. 

At the end of this class I am happy to have finished but will miss everyone and all the great times that I had studying both the Diploma and Cert IV.

Gone in a Puff of Smoke

More than 60, 000 passengers were left grounded yesterday when majour airlines were forced to delay their flights after the Puyehue volcano erupted in Chile causing the skies to fill with smoke. Not a happy day to be one of those major airlines. Many of those passengers had jobs, wives and kids to fly back to and likely some on urgent matters. So how would major airlines such as Qantas deal with a situation such as this.

Unfortunately there is nothing that Qantas can do to control volcanic eruptions yet they still receive backlash from events such as this. It would be important for everyone at the airline to remain calm and refer to whatever crisis procedure that they have in place. The safest thing for them to do would be to have the CEO release a statement to the press. They happen to have a slight advantage as the press would be well aware of the volcano situation. Where possible everyone who was to be flying out on that day should be informed immediately if there is a chance that there will be a delay on their flight or if it will be cancelled. As long as customers are informed they are less likely to react strongly when they are told that they will in fact not get a flight for 8 more hours.

While all of the customers are being informed the staff should also be informed fully on the situation, including those that may be expecting flight arrivals from the affected airports. As long as the staff are well informed and have been trained on how to handle situations such as this they should be able to keep the customers calm until there is a definitive response on what will be happening.

Once the airline is sure that about the flight delays and they inform the customers, the customers will be expecting some sort of compensation for their time lost and inconvenience. Often it would be acceptable for the airline to organise tickets for the next available flight and offer complimentary accommodation for the night where necessary.

Once the airline has clearance to function normally again they would need to immediately have the customers informed with a flight ticket ready for them.

They would then want to release a statement to the press confirming that the situation is now back to normal.

Hopefully they functioned well in the crisis which would mean there would be little need for reflection as they can't very well stop a volcano from erupting.

Thats all folks

So my term at Lease Equity has come to an end, seems like a very brief time if you ask me.

So what have I learned while I was there?

Well apart from the previously mentioned lesson about politics I have been able to soak up a great deal of knowledge during my at work experience.

I have learnt what is is like to put together a tender document to go out in search of a new advertising company, just as I have learned that the 5 hours that went into producing that tender document may result in the company changing their mind and chose to keep things as they are.

I have learnt that it is safer to never delete anything because one day you may have a work experience student who is attempting to put together a marketing plan based on previous marketing strategies used which was made much easier by having them all there to print out.

I have found that sometimes finding sponsorship is just as simple as flicking off an email to the right person (it's not what you know it's who you know) and then it's done. Sometimes it's just about making a phone call and asking if they can still get you all the free stuff you got last year.

I have found that marketing, like fashion, can be recycled as long as you present it to people in the right way.

Mostly I have learned that just because it looks like you have spent the entire day hanging up a phone doesn't mean that you haven't done any work and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have accomplished nothing.

Oh and also that you should be nice to everyone no matter how horrible they are to you because you never know when it could bite you in the butt.

Eat Australian Beef before Indonesia get it

The Australian beef industry hit a bit of a scare when an ABC program showed how Australian cattle are treated on the abattoirs. Of course these abattoirs were located in Indonesia not here in Australia, so the beef that you eat here is just fine... no really.

The government has to tread carefully in these waters. A wopping 60% of our cattle trade is done with Indonesia. Of course the government can't possibly stand for letting inhumane treatment of our exports happen. So what's to be done of it. Well so far we have suspended our live cattle exports to Indonesia. Which is all very well and good but what is to be the next step. Australia can't possibly subsidise that $410+ million dollars of live cattle imports to Indonesia with boxed meat. This should be a short term situation as the ban was proposed to be for only 6 months in hope that Indonesia will in fact change their standards in their abattoirs within that time. However, Indonesia may be seeking a cheaper (mind you more dangerous) cattle supply.

Currently Indonesia have a ban on importing cattle from countries such as India as their cattle is at a high risk of foot-and-mouth-disease. However, with Indonesia's current beef supply falling short by at least 25% as a result of Australians suspended trade, the Indonesian government are forced to reconsider their embargo from countries such as India. If this were to happen when the Australian Government withdraws their ban from exporting to Indonesia they may find that they no longer have a market for their cattle exports.

What is the Australian Government to do. It would clearly be wrong to want to withdraw the ban just out of fear of a loss of trade, it would also be a very unpopular thought to the public.


My solution... Australian, eat more beef before it goes back to Indonesia.

I wanna be a mini America

"On January 1st, 1901, without war or revolution, the self-governing colonies of Great Britain became the federated states within the Commonwealth of Australia."
One hundred and ten years later and we are still looking at the queen as our head of state despite the major changes in the structure of our government and country over this time.



It's only a matter of time before Australia separates itself from it's Monarchy big sister Great Britain and becomes a republic. As we approach the later years of Her Majesty the Queen's life we realise that she won't be our head of state forever and brings about perfect opportunity to restructure our government. There are a few ways that have been suggested to make this happen, and brings forward great debate over what the best path is. Should there be a new head of state elected (i.e. a President) should they be elected by the citizens of Australia or by the Prime Minister and if there was not to be a new head of state what would happen to the current structure of the government. Well I suppose I don't have an answer for all of that but it seems to me the general public would feel as though you are stripping them of their contribution to the country if it's not at least in part a public vote. 


Personally I'm not particularly displease that we still have the Queen as our head of state but I do think that we don't have as much need for her as we use to. Perhaps becoming a Republic Nation will instil some greater sense of patriotism within Australian (because we know there is need for more patriotism in Australia) Plus think about all of the extra public holidays that we could be gaining.