Confessions of an intern: event day

After the food and booze fuelled Christmas period, it was finally time to get back to work and the everyday routine. To get everyone back into shape, out of their lazy mode and into the new H1 mindset, the Gorkana bi-annual sales kick-off is designed to develop selling skills and motivate the company’s money makers,  aka the sales teams.

During the day, I was shadowing and helping the events team prepare and put everything together at the venue where various workshops, panels and talks took place.

I had the chance to be present during the media masterclass 101 session presented by the incredibly witty Vikki Cook, where she talked all about integrated media and the evolution of broadcasting as well as tips on how PRs can pitch to the media and decrease their chances of failing miserably.

Vikki’s presentation was highly interesting for me, not only because of her humour but also because she spoke about things that were useful to me as a PR student. Apart from that, I also attended one of the breakout sessions designed around a case study for Corinthia Hotels and how they used Gorkana and PR Newswire to successfully distribute and place their really unique story.

Part of my responsibilities for the day was helping set up the brand new Canary Wharf Cision offices for the evening shenanigans which included various entertaining team building activities, like making a tin foil Canary Wharf skyline replica, writing a poem and showing your best party trick.

The drinks were flowing, the music was pumping and everyone got a bit looser and quite competitive trying to complete the tasks as quick as possible. The point of these tasks was to integrate people and put them into teams away from their work buddies in order to promote teamwork and make new friends  – and admittedly it was the best part of the day.