A game of two halves

By Martin Cahillane

For most students the events of the last six weeks have come as no surprise and nothing new has really been learnt about the way of the world: A Brit promises much at Wimbledon but is ultimately outclassed; Spain effortlessly dominate the Football whilst England reach their customary Quarter-Final; Bankers have proved just how trustworthy they are; and the British Summer seems to be slipping away from us by the day as it so often seems to do. However, my internship thus far has allowed me escapism from the disappointments of the above and taught me a lot about the way of the Fire and Marketing worlds.

Week one and two at the FIA involved Monica and Becky bringing me up to speed with the operations of the Marketing department in particular the interaction between the FIA and its members through the use of Social Media. Two great people to learn from! They have both pioneered the use of Social Media and gave excellent presentations at a recent Social Media Workshop, showing members the proverbial ropes of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Blogs. The fact that the FIA has over 1,200 followers suggests they are doing something right! My role within the team involves posting the news from the website on to Twitter daily, interacting with followers by doing things such as Follow Fridays, writing the odd blog or two and uploading members’ news to the FIA website.

During the first couple of weeks it was good to attend breakfast briefings with the FIA’s web designers and PR Agency and discuss future technologies and external factors that are having an impact on organisations.

An ever present feature of my Internship so far has involved preparing for Events. Whether it be constructing invitations or promotional emails, writing press releases, posting flyers or preparing event packs, it seems a day doesn’t go by without a member of the FIA team working hard to make their events a success. It was good to finally attend the Fire Safety Seminar at the London Fire Brigade Training Centre, Southwark to see what the FIA does best. I was involved in collecting the feedback from the event and the response forms indicated that the FIA provided an outstanding and effective event for the vast majority of attendees. It was brilliant to see that the exhibitors held the FIA’s effort in such high esteem and the presentation that I managed to catch helped me understand a lot of the Fire Detection & Alarm lingo and technical jargon.

Looking onwards and upwards I look forward to continuing my day to day responsibilities and taking on a project that aims to get Graham Ellicott speaking opportunities for events in 2013. With the Olympics on the horizon and better weather forecast for next week I hope the brilliant sporting summer we were promised comes to fruition coinciding with another enjoyable and eventful four weeks at the FIA.