alicia jones
presentation
presentation alicia jones
venue
sLIDE ONE
Over the last three years of being on this course and completing modules in a variety of different areas of Fashion Marketing and Communication, it has become apparent that I work in a more business-communicative way than what I do a creativecommunicative way. With this in mind, when it came around to choosing which team to be a part of for the Contemporary Fashion Business module, it was obvious to me right from the beginning which team myself and my skills would be most suited towards. I had an understanding that I would succeed more within the Project Management team and that being a part of this team would give me a real opportunity to develop and refine specific skills which are desired for the industry that I would like to progress into after graduating from University. For the last few months, I have been working alongside the rest of the Project Management team to thoroughly complete the logistics of the Class of 2020’s launch night exhibition to ensure the successful execution of the celebratory event.
sLIDE two
There are six of us in total on the Project Management team, and between all of us, we negotiated and delegated individual job roles based on each person’s skills and future career prospects.The job role which I had amongst the team was to secure a venue, in Chester, where the launch night exhibition would be held. I was given this role because I was able to put forward a number of skills which I already attain, such as; communication, email copywriting, pitching and decision-making skills, along with other hard and soft skills too, which are all vital skills for me to be able to include in my CV for my future career progression. As well as these skills, I also have a very good understanding of our course branding; For my final major project I have been the assistant creator on the new Branding and Marketing campaign for the course, which will also be launching at this exhibition. Because of this, I was able to gage whether different venues would be suitable for us or not, based around the message that we are trying to send about the Fashion Marketing and Communication course.
sLIDE three The process of securing the venue involved me having to do research into what venue spaces there are in Chester, marketing our course and pitching our plans for the event to the suitable venues, negotiating dates that we wanted to host the event and costs which were within our budget, and also a lot of team- work and communication to ensure that everyone was happy with decision which were being confirmed. Admittedly, the entire process was a lot more difficult than I originally anticipated, however, reflecting back on it now, I can see that it has encouraged me to push my skills even further and really helped to develop myself and what I can offer in terms of professional business organisation. Problems which I ran into throughout the process of securing the venue were mainly based around the particular days which venues were able to host and at the cost which they come at. In addition to this, with Chester being a small City in comparison to most others, it meant that opinions were already limited from the offset as well. From an initial meeting which I held with both the project management team and the creative management team, I had a general guideline that most people wanted the exhibition to be on Friday 19th June 2020, in a professional setting within Chester, with a venue capacity of over 100 people and all for the cost of less than ÂŁ500 total. Once I had this information, I sent out an email to all of the suitable venues I had found marketing the course and pitching our event proposal. Upon starting to get responses, I discovered that a number of venues were happy to host our event and would have liked to have been associated with the course and help us in celebrating our final pieces of work, however, they were all either fully booked for the Friday night or they were not within the ÂŁ500 budget which I was given. Most venues did offer me alternative nights in the week which they would have been able to accommodate for us. I was in a position between what we could afford to pay for and who was able to attend if we had to change the date, as I was informed that many family members or industry workers would be less likely to attend on a week night. During this time, I had to use my problem-solving skills and make decisions on what was going to offer us the best outcome over all. Ultimately, I had to always have a focus on what our budget was to ensure I was not over-spending and putting added pressure onto anyone else to raise more money to help aid the funding. Yes, I could have opted for a more expensive venue, but that would have meant relying solely on sponsorships to make up for the extra cost, and I was very cautious about confirming a space and then not being able to afford the full cost later down the line if we did not match the amount we needed through sponsors or fundraisers.
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In the end, I managed to secure a venue which is in a beautiful location in the heart of Chester, which suits our professional branding and holds the required capacity of what we need for peers, press and industry, with canapes and a complimentary drink included for each guest, all within the given budget of ÂŁ500. Although I had to make the tough decision to change the day which we originally wanted to host the launch night exhibition, I believe that this was a venue opportunity that we could not refuse. It was a unanimous decision to confirm The Walls to host our launch night on Wednesday 17th June 2020, meaning I am confident that everyone from Fashion Marketing and Communication is happy with the venue option and I feel as though I have successfully managed my role and responsibilities of the securing the venue.
sLIDE four At each stage of this process, I have had the opportunity to utilise a large number of skills and really develop on them further. Each of the skills that I have developed on during my role are ones which are transferable to many different job roles within such a competitive industry, and so I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to refine them. The skills which I have acquired are a combination of both hard and soft skills, so not only have I grown in technical abilities such as Marketing and Copywriting Communications, but I have also advanced in interpersonal skills like Team-work, organisation, problem solving and decision-making. With the future career path that I am wanting to pursue after finishing University, all of these skills are highly desired by employers, and I feel it is hugely advantageous for me to be able to put them on my CV and let businesses know what I am capable of offering within my work ethic and my drive to succeed. Even though I have had the chance to adopt a large variety of skills, I do believe the key ones that I have developed on are Team-Work, Communication and Problem-Solving. At every part of the process I have had to stay in constant communication with not only the Project Management Team that I was working with, but also with the Creative Management Team as well. I had to ensure that everyone was clear on what I was doing and what choices were available to us. I had to feedback at every point with updates information and really listen and take on board what other people in the two teams wanted, to know that everyone agreed on any final decisions that I was making. I have had to overcome a number of problems and make decisions on what I believed was going to give us the best results for hosting a successful launch night exhibition, whilst still considering the thoughts and opinions of all others as well. Although these are predominately soft skills, they are ones which I feel will make me stand out to employers when I am applying for job roles in the future.
sLIDE five
As mentioned previously, I work in a way which is very business-communicative orientated. Moving forward into my career within the fashion industry, I would love to pursue a role within the realms of marketing, communications or project management; Specifically within a digital space. These are three areas which I have always enjoyed and ones which I believe I could really succeed in. I have previously undertaken work experience within a digital marketing and communication role where I was assistant to the project manager of Social Media, and during this time it solidified to me the route which I see myself going in after graduating from University. This module has given me the opportunity to build on my skills that I learnt at this internship even further and has helped me to develop different skills which are classified as essential for these types of job roles. It will be hugely advantageous for me to be able to put forward such a vast array of skills on my CV when applying for these graduate job roles and will help me advance into my desired career path. New aspects that I am now able to offer from undertaking this project include; Meeting etiquette, Business acumen, Email Marketing, Negotiating and Pitching, as well as more too. Moving forward, I will be able to utilise each of these within my desired career. Over the course of this project it has reinforced my belief that a career based around Marketing is the type of job role that I want to pursue and has made me realise that it is something which I am capable of being successful with if I keep working towards it and continue on building up my experience and skillset.
sLIDE six
Reflecting back, I know one hundred percent that this was the right team for me to be a part of. Not only have we managed to all work incredibly well as a team to deliver results, but we have all been able to advance individually as well. Each of us have worked hard to ensure that our responsibilities have been completed in time, and we have all communicated effectively throughout the entire process. I believe we have collaborated well and successfully managed the logistic-side of the event to aid towards running an unforgettable final exhibition. Specifically in recent weeks, whilst we have found ourselves in unprecedented times, it has really solidified to all of us how we can work as team and problem solve together in order to achieve the same outcomes, just in a different way. Throughout the course of being in lockdown and being unable to see each other face-to-face on the run up to the Contemporary Fashion Business deadline, the Project Management Team have been holding regular video meetings online via different software’s such as zoom and messenger as way of keeping in contact and updating each other on where we are up to with our roles and responsibilities. This has been a really good way for us to stay up to date as a team and continue to communicate with one another even when we are not in University. As well as this, we have also created a group presentation by filming our sections at home and editing them together. This has been our way of solving the problem that we were unable to do a physical presentation which was originally required for this module, due to current circumstances; we used our initiative and worked as a team to still produce the required work. Even through difficult times, we all took a positive approach and made team decisions about how we could move forward with the module.
sLIDE seven
Being a part of the Project Management team and creating an agency together, it was decided that we wanted to create ourselves an online platform, as a digital space where we could share our work with others. Website curation and design is something which I have been passionate about since I set my own up in 2014, and so I put myself forward for taking on the responsibility of producing a team website for our Project-Comms agency. On the website there is an introduction to the Project Management team, a group page where I introduce each of us and our job roles and then I have also created individual pages for all of us, where our reports and any other work can be uploaded onto and viewed by our audience. The website is completely branded within the new Fashion Marketing and Communication course colours; black, white and green, whilst still being within our branding of Project-Comms. I will continue to update the website between now and the launch night exhibition with all of the work which we continue to produce, along with our group presentation videos, agency booklets and also the video of launch night which is being created by Deena Walker. The reason behind the website was to enable us to have a professional platform to share our work digitally in times when it cannot be looked at physically.We believe that it is imperative for any brand or agency to have a digital presence in current times and we wanted to showcase that we realise the importance of that and that we have adapted to it ourselves. I have thoroughly enjoyed building the website for Project-Comms. Not only has it been a great opportunity for me to expand my skill base in web design, but it has also been a really successful way for us to have display our work collectively as an agency for a wider audience.
alicia jones