Our last post of the summer is a guest post! Marek Townley is a Communications Advisor Intern at Auckland Council, but back in 2014 he spent some time doing work experience at Intelligent Ink, with PR & People Person Marieke as his mentor. He sheds a little light on what he worked on during that time.

I have to confess that I blanched when my friend Marieke, one of the Intelligent Inkers, first suggested a guest blog to me. As much as I do love talking about myself (to which my friends can attest), a blog post sounded scarily public, and I’m more used to writing them on behalf of others, or other causes, than for myself. I figured the best story to tell would be that of the reason for our working together.

I first encountered Intelligent Ink in mid-2014, as a member of the Auckland Council’s Youth Advisory Panel. We had just finished developing a strategy for children and youth that was co-governed by the council and young people – a first for Australasia.

To be clear on how big a deal that was (and still is), this is a document setting out targets and goals for the council and sector organisations to prioritise youth, and ensure their needs are met and prospects increased. The kicker is that the Youth Advisory Panel – comprising 21 young people under 24 – has the same oversight and governance of the plan as the elected councillors, meaning young people can determine the plan’s priorities and actions.

I was part of the project team tasked with launching the Children and Young People’s Strategic Action Plan, which we called I Am Auckland, at a launch event and awards dinner. The corresponding I Am Auckland Awards recognised young people doing extraordinary things, and the people supporting them to do so. From the outset, it was clear that promoting the action plan and the awards to attract nominations would be a huge undertaking – which was where my name buddy Marieke came in.

With the I Am Auckland campaign being entirely youth-led, and my responsibility being PR and comms, Marieke came on board as my mentor though we quickly fell into a comfortable working partnership where we worked as equals and divided what we had to do between us based on our capabilities.

Our relative closeness in age and similarity in wit made it easy to develop a quick rapport. I’ve loved writing for as long as I can remember and have always wanted to work in a role that involves wordsmithing in some way, so having Marieke’s skill set and industry experience to draw on was a fantastic opportunity.

As the I Am Auckland Plan was co-governed by Auckland Council, every PR move we made had to involve the machinery of council communications (a department I’d later become intimately familiar with). I’d worked with them intermittently before on various youth panel-related projects but never in as much depth.

As we developed our plan of attack and had various meetings with publicists, social media managers and others, our project team also began seeking people to represent our campaign and be the faces of I Am Auckland: iconic young Aucklanders who achieved success on their own terms.

Naturally we aimed for the top but thought our expectations unrealistic, so you can imagine our surprise to find ourselves dealing with the likes of Lorde and choreographer Parris Goebel, who both subscribed to the plan’s values and decided they wanted to help us. At that point – for some bizarre, unknown reason – it felt like everyone wanted a part of the action, and to attach their name to I Am Auckland. Suddenly, our team was attending briefings with senior council managers, drafting media releases, and setting up a secret time for Lorde and Parris to film promo videos for the campaign and meet youth panel members afterwards.

It all felt very big, important and surreal for high school-aged me to be learning the ropes of comms from industry professionals, and to actually be entrusted with meaningful responsibilities.

At times it was admittedly challenging to reconcile corporate-scale comms planning and approval requirements with a fairly flexible, ad hoc way of doing things. That was a new approach for me, too – as someone quite used to extensive and rigid planning, the more responsive approach of Intelligent Ink was refreshingly different. It taught me that adapting to changing landscapes could be more worthwhile than strictly following plans.

And for a happy ending, the awards evening itself went off without a hitch and was well attended by all sectors of the community including luminaries like Mayor Len Brown and Hon Nikki Kaye MP. Youth performances by groups like PHAB were a crowning feature of the night. Working with Intelligent Ink throughout the I Am Auckland campaign helped me develop key skills that would become crucial to later internships and summer work in communications. (I got a few friendships out of it as well!) Their outside-the-box approach certainly made my first experience of PR a memorable one.