The Home Stretch

The Final Week - #8:
The end is near for my internship. Only two days left now... I had assumed that things would start winding down and I wouldn't be given as much work or projects since my time here is almost up. In reality, I couldn't have been more wrong. During my final week, I have been extremely busy working on additional prezis for the Corporate Communication team, which they will use for a client pitch later this week. I also met with our Partner and Chief Business Officer to finalize and approve the Greater China Market prezi while simultaneously talking about transferring our company's credentials into the new format as well. [I am still hoping to get a freelance position with them to continue helping while I finish up my last year in grad school.]

In addition to my multiple prezi projects, I also hosted a media tour at Disneyland during the beginning of the week. The press group consisted of a total of 8 people - producers, journalists, and a host, all from the Philippines. The purpose of the trip was to gain exposure, awareness and drive visitation to Grizzly Gulch by producing a special on the newest Disney themed area. Unfortunately, with the typhoon on Monday, the planned schedule had to be scrapped and all activites moved to Tuesday and Wednesday since I needed to get home before I was stranded on Lantau Island (My first typhoon experience and it was a 10; worst typhoon in 13 years -- Nice send off for my last week, I must say!). Fortunately, I was able to make it back to Disneyland on Wednesday to assist a colleague. I was still lucky enough to experience the magical land in HK, as well as see what goes into conducting media tours. It was definitely different then how I expected, i.e. our contact from the Philippines didn't want to participate in the activities we had planned, etc. However, Disney is a great client and, of course, a fun place to visit, especially for my last week (I had no idea it was identical to Anaheim, just on a smaller scale).

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This entire summer has been one big learning experience. Even though the first few weeks were slow and my work load was extremely light, it has certainly turned around and I feel like a real member of this team. I absolutely love everyone that I've had the pleasure of working with these past 8 weeks and I honestly couldn't have asked for nicer, more helpful colleagues.

Even though I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked with my boss, I will definitely remain in contact with her to possibly serve as a mentor throughout my career. I also met the founder of our company and didn't realize she started this PR firm 30 years ago. Pretty embarrassing, but she thought it was funny and told me to stay in touch. Great networking at least!

Overall, I am happy with my internship and Hong Kong experience. I will definitely be taking some of the skills I have learned and honed while here back to the states and hopefully into future careers as well. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a job offer from this company back in California. Now wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake :-)

Before I say goodbye to my last Hong Kong internship blog posting for this summer, I would like to share a few things I have learned while working in HK:

• PR is PR, no matter where you live/work
• I am the Prezi master - Whodda thunk?
• Media alerts - What are they, how they differ from press releases, and how to write one
• Meetings/brainstorming sessions - I thoroughly enjoy brainstorming as it forces me to think outside the box, use the other side of my brain, and allows me to come back to my original project refreshed and eager to proceed
• Product launches - These are stressful, but fun! The client needs to always be right on the day of the event so just make them happy, take notes, and address successes/failures to improve upon for next time at the follow-up meeting
• Market research and current trends - Helpful for the client and for a PR firm to be up-to-date on all of the trends so as to keep their products and marketing fresh to attract consumers
• Social media presentations - As you can tell from my previous posts, I have learned more about Chinese social media than I ever thought possible. However, it has definitely proven helpful and interesting!
• The work culture is extremely different, but normal to them - The normal working hours in Hong Kong are 10am - 9pm. I have to admit, I prefer our westernized schedules instead...
• Work hard, play hard - Hong Kongers work long hours, but they sure do know how to have a good time (even on a work night)!
• Save face - I have never seen anyone in my office ever lose their cool even when I know they are frustrated with a client or colleague. They always stay in control of their emotions, which I find very impressive. Americans should take some lessons from the Chinese on this matter.
• Very professional - They all dress professional, act professional, and are professional.
• Same as the states, not many men in PR - We have only a handful of males in our office and only two local men are in upper management. The other VPs and executives are foreigners (either from the U.S. or England).
• Language barrier is difficult -  I have a great deal of respect for Asians working in the states now (and those I have class with). Talking to someone who doesn't speak your native language, and trying to understand what they are saying can be frustrating at times and extremely difficult. Miscommunications are inevitable, but patience is a virtue.
• Contacting vendors and media for clients - This can be very troublesome as well due to the language; no one wants to talk to a foreigner. I had to pass on tasks to local co-workers and wasn't given a great deal of assignments because I can't speak or write in Chinese.
• Media monitoring - A daily tedious and monotonous task, but someone's gotta do it. Paying dues...
• The list goes on and on...

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I thought it only appropriate to end where I began 8 weeks ago. Today I came into work with a new company bulletin and another interesting article that I found noteworthy. Two months ago the highlighted article I shared focused on the importance of communication and leaders in China. This issue's featured article addresses the issue of change. I'm conscious that the article is examining changes in businesses, leaders, and the market. But for me, these past 8 weeks have been about a more personal change. A maturity, an independence, and a confidence that I naively assumed I already possessed by living in New York and Australia. However, living and working in Hong Kong, in Asia, in a foreign country on the other side of the world where they don't speak my language or eat my food or understand why I look the way I do, has been the biggest culture shock and one I have since had to overcome, accept, and grow to enjoy. It is this change that I know will make me a stronger person and a better, harder worker for my future company, where ever that may be. Who knows? I may even find myself back here in Hong Kong after graduation. The road is unpaved and I am ready for anything...

Researching.

Back in the saddle again! On to week 7 and raring to go. This week I continued working hard on the prezi about the Greater China market. Considering I just spent the week prior researching social media, it seemed apropos that that would be my VP's topic of choice to include in the prezi -- social media and it's prominent role in Chinese culture. There's no doubt it is a small world, but the differences between countries' (and companies') online behavior still make it feel incredibly vast at times; i.e. a large number of companies don't see the ROI in social media. Seriously? Come on now!
I'll just outline a brief history of what I've learned these past few days researching the rise of social media; including protests, grassroots campaigns affect on businesses and government practices, as well as stakeholders. Researching these has been very interesting and rewarding to say the least. Of course, given my tight deadline, I was only able to skim the surface of this subject matter, but it is eye-opening and encourages me to continue to learn more about social media and the differences it makes in companies around the globe, not just between the U.S. and China. Especially considering we're not even the top users! Shocking is right.

Top ten most engaged countries for social networking	Average Hours Per Month
Israel	11.1
Argentina	10.7
Russia	10.4
Turkey	10.2
Chile	9.8
The Philippines	8.7
Colombia	8.5
Peru	8.3
Venezuela	7.9
Canada	7.7
United States	7.6

As you may be aware, facebook is banned in China. However, they do have their facebook equivalent, RenRen.com, which reached 31 million active users in 2011, and is now up to 120 million (source: www.chinasocialgames.com/). Facebook had 500 million at that same time, but now that number has reached 900 million (source: finance.yahoo.com/). Not even in the same ballpark, but still impressive considering RenRen is only in China.

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Throughout my experience working in the PR industry in China, I am very curious to learn more about Sina Weibo, the twitter equivalent. It is by far the most popular microblogging service in China, claiming nearly 60 percent of the microblogging market and reeling in 250 million registered users as of October 2011. Each day, 25 million messages are sent on the platform. By comparison, in 2011 Twitter had more than 200 million users and 50 million messages sent per day. (Twitter now has 500 million active, with 340 million tweets daily, (http://en.wikipedia.org/) while Sina Weibo has 300 million users with 100 million messages posted per day (http://en.wikipedia.org/)).

My company is well aware that consumers' behaviors need to shift as the population moves online and we advise our clients to do the same. Since social media has become a regular and popular platform for consumers to exchange opinions, share advice, and discuss brands, ignoring the Internet would be devastating to corporations. It may have been considered merely a lost opportunity in the past, but in China today, ignoring social media is a serious business risk.

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One of the areas I need to improve upon is my Twitter usage and activity. I personally don't tweet as much as I should, but have promised myself I would do better now. It's apparent how crucial it is for a PR professional to understand all aspects of media and to be up-to-date on the latest happenings locally and globally as well. By continuing to follow prominent people and companies on Twitter, as well as more aggressively retweeting and posting original content, I am confident that I will begin to see an increase in my followers, along with greater knowledge about the industry I am interested in. Next lesson: Twitter kred and klout. What are they? And how do you get it? But that will have to wait for a future post :-)

Now it's time for meetings, more Prezi, media monitoring and writing media alerts. 7 weeks down, 1 to go...

Social.

The beginning of the work week was slow so I took it as an opportunity to research social media and it's impact on companies. Where did this thought come from you might ask? Monday we had a guest speaker give a presentation about social media which sparked my interest and got me thinking about the future of our favorite media platforms. The guest currently oversees the marketing for Harbour City mall - the largest mall in Hong Kong. Her business card alone contained links to Facebook, Twitter, Twylah, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Mobile Apps, Sina Weibo, Sina Blog, Tencent Weibo, Q Zone, Youku, and Google+. 13 in total. Wow! She shared interesting information regarding Hong Kong and social media, which spurred my interest in the future of social media... Will it keep growing and continue to run and dictate our lives? Or will it reach a plateau and eventually fizzle out? Personally, I think it will continue to grow, but become more condensed. Currently, the average person is on 2.7 social media platforms every day.

1.9 in Europe

2.1 in the US

3.1 in Brazil

3.9 in India

http://www.quora.com/How-many-online-social-networks-does-the-average-person-actively-participate-in-at-the-same-time

But with all good things, there is always an extreme. Whether you're a social media guru/junkie or if your career is the execution and management of social media for a company you could be on as many as 13 sites daily, like our guest speaker. However, updating those every day, and sometimes multiple times a day, i.e. Twitter, can be very cumbersome and time consuming. I believe in order to make our lives more efficient, a program needs to be developed that will update all of the sites concurrently so as not to waste time doing each individually. I know there are apps out now such as HootSuite that have started doing just that. There is even a setting that will make timely planned posts. This is good for when you're on vacation or don't have internet access, but have planned ahead what you want to say. I see this becoming a common theme in the coming years. In fact, here's a interesting article that I just read today regarding the future of social media. Do you agree?

Another thing companies need to keep in mind when marketing to consumers are their habits/trends. Just because one country has success marketing through social media, isn't a shoe in for another culture. For example, in an article on cnngo.com it stated that Hong Kong social media use is higher than the U.S. This, to me, would have been shocking to hear only 6 brief weeks ago. However, living here, working here, and witnessing the constant smart phone usage is a sight that can't be ignored. The majority of people I pass on the sidewalk don't even look up from their phones as they walk, or transfer lines on the MTR. And the strangest thing that I've become aware of when it comes to comparing the US and Hong Kong are the size of smartphones. In the US, we still like to have something that fits in our pocket, something compact enough, yet with enough 'sex appeal' that we have to have it. In Hong Kong, the noticeable trend is "the bigger the better". Some of the phones I see people talking on and playing games on are huge -- they don't even fit in a pocket! As efficient as the Chinese are, I am a bit surprised by this fad. The special smartphone purse seems to be the only logical solution they have created in order to carry on with their savvy ways.

In addition to the consumer usage of smartphones and social media, the executives' use can't be ignored either. Our generation is very lucky having grown up with the birth of social media, yet it's seemed difficult for others to catch on. Unfortunately, companies that don't adopt this trend will have an imminent death in the future -- only 30% of the Fortune 500 CEO's are connected to a social network, which will be the beginning of an epic fail -- Fortune 500 CEOs absence in social media effects company's future

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Even though the week got off to a slow start, the tides have turned and I'm in the heat of it now. Wednesday I compiled a prezi with a short turn around time to send my boss running off to WOW the client. Thursday, I got into work early to present another prezi to yet another potential client - this one a luxury textiles company. I constantly attempt to make the prezi's represent the company we're presenting to, with their theme, tone or color scheme incorporated. It is definitely fun to be this creative, but it is also a challenge when the creative juices aren't flowing. After I wrapped up those two, I was immediately pulled into a meeting with two other VPs who briefed me on an additional prezi that needs to be completed by next week. This one will be very time consuming as a great deal of research needs to be conducted regarding the current Hong Kong and Greater China markets combined with our company's credentials. Thank goodness they are providing me with enough time to produce a quality product. (They even mentioned hiring me as a freelancer so I can continue to work from the states -- Looks like I'm becoming indispensable afterall!)

Two weeks left...

Prezi, Beijing, and Independence Day

From our GM:

"All,

Ahead of tomorrow’s management call I thought I’d share with you a deck we’ve just pitched to [a client] this afternoon... [W]e wanted a more creative way of presenting than the usual ppt or flash boards. Attached is the end result using a software program called Prezi. We’ve been trying to mix things up a bit this year with our pitch presentations and we’re going to be using this format a lot more. We got a lot of compliments during and after the presentation for the way we’d put it together so it definitely creates impact.

Our next step is to turn our master credentials into this format... We did a “how  to” workshop with the whole team on Prezi last week – it’s very simple. I’ll share the Prezi creds deck with you all when it’s complete."

On top of that, I have now been put to the task of creating a Chinese version as well. Looks like I'm making a lasting impression on my company afterall.

Now that I'm finally getting into the swing of things and finding my place in the company, I feel more confident asking for bigger (more challenging) projects and producing better results. I still have 17 working days left and believe it will only improve from here.

I have to admit, in the beginning, I was slightly discouraged about my role and how my internship was going to play out by keeping me busy and continually learning for 8 weeks. Now I am content and happy to be a part of this team. Everyone around me works extremely hard, and they usually stay hours after I complete my tasks and leave for the night. Different cultures, I'm aware.

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Considering since my last post I have only been at work for two days (one I was in Beijing, the other a local holiday), I've decided to take this time to describe my experience in mainland China. "One country, two systems" is not only a common saying, but it is extremely accurate. I didn't realize how much so until this past weekend in Beijing -- A Communist land. As sufficient as Hong Kongers are, Beijingers are not. The queues are not orderly, the street vendors hassle more aggressively, and I must admit, the smog is even worse. That being said, the food was delictable! I tried everything from frog's legs to pigeon to chicken's blood to Peking Duck. It's definitely a new world out there apart from the rice and noodles. In addition to the cuisine, I continued to learn a great deal about Chinese culture in general; even more so than living in Hong Kong. My fellow international interns taught me a few sayings in Mandarin, I learned extensive Chinese history and about Mao's legacy in the national museum, Tiananmen Square is huge and touching, and the Forbidden City is even bigger. Being surrounded by all of this culture and history, I couldn't help but stop and think about my homeland. The United States is so young. We don't have these artifacts and history dating back centuries upon centuries. And what a perfect time to reflect considering it is July 4th afterall. God Bless America!

Working on my independence day is definitely a new phenomenon. It puts everything into perspective that I'm "not in Kansas" anymore. I'm in a foregin country where no one cares about fireworks, BBQs, hot dogs, or Budweisers on a random Wednesday in July. But of course I do.

On the bright side, I'm working hard this week, creating presentations for client pitches, impressing my bosses, and proving myself time and again that I am capable and willing to take on even the hardest of tasks. If I can conquer living in Mong Kok, overcome the smelly tofu stench, and train my body not to sweat too much in the 90% humidity, then I can do anything and live anywhere.

To paraphrase a wise man: "It's not about the destination, it's about the journey".

All I know, is that this has been one hell of a journey. And it ain't over yet...

And for those of you interested in learning more about Communism in Beijing, here's an interesting article with tips on how to take full advantage of experiencing the party's history when you visit China: 8 Ways to Experience Communism in Beijing