The introductory lecture for Public communication and PR issues

The 2nd semester began in earnest on the 16th of January and almost all my classmates were present for the first lecture. It was nice to see them back from the Christmas holidays, looking fit, healthy and quite refreshed. They seemed to be in high spirit and well prepared for the semester ahead. Today's class was used to welcome us back to the university and also to introduce us to this semester's core courses, which are Public Communication and Public Relations issues and our individual dissertations.

I learnt about the timetable for the dissertation classes and what is expected of me through out the rest of the course. Hopefully, it should be a busy and challenging semester, but I look forward to giving it my best shot.

We also looked briefly at last semester's assignments on consumer PR campaign pitch documents and the critical reports through an interactive discussion led by the course leader, Pam Williams.

Personally, I found the discussion very useful and informative because it has broaden my knowledge of how to critically assess a PR campaign pitch document and any document for that matter. I learnt that professional presentation of a pitch document is very important. In addition setting SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable Realistic and Timely objectives were very important in determining how successful or not a PR campaign will be. The objectives will be used in the evaluation of the campaign.

I have also realised that the qualitative and quantitative research inputs I put into planning a PR campaign will be crucial to success of the campaign. This is so because it will me in the problem identification and the specific target audience I need to address. I now understand how best to write a campaign pitch document and a critical report which will be very helpful when I begin my career in PR.