Month: February 2022

My script is divided into five sections, and each of them has particular questions. Some of the questions have an intro to the question, but not all of them because some are additional questions. Most of the further questions are marked with ‘-‘.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to MCP. My name is Beatrice, and today I’m joined by Laura Mason-Byers, a People Communication manager at Gymshark. 

Hello Laura, I’m glad to see you! Thank you for taking the time to meet me today. Could you introduce yourself more to our audience? 

Time at university 

I believe/ see that you went through many experiences, and time at Coventry university taught you something. What were your studies about?

Why did you choose these studies? 

Why at Coventry University?

In one of the interviews for Coventry University, you mentioned that general university experience prepared you for not just the career but for life. Could you tell us more about that?

-time management – it sounds like it was pretty challenging. How did you manage to do everything?

-inspiration – Who inspired you? 

-motivation – Some students sometimes lack the motivation to study. How did you have the motivation?

Career path 

Alright. Since you finished university, you’ve been working in PR and Communications for 16 years now. 

That’s a long time, so you probably have a lot of experience. Could you share more about your career path as you started working in Halfords as a PR Coordinator, later the communications manager in two different places, and now you work in Gymshark as people communication manager? 

In the middle of a pandemic, you started to work in GymShark in 2021, even though the fitness industry is showing a declining tendency. How did that happen?

-Through all these years, how PR industry has been changing? 

Job at the moment 

Moving forwards, I would like to talk more about the job you have at this moment. Working as a People Communications manager in this big company, could you describe what your workday looks like?

-Do you have a team? How big is it? 

– What is your experience of being a team leader? What is necessary to understand being a team leader? 

1.      What is the most important thing to do in your work? 

2.      What do you enjoy the most about your job?

3.      What brings the most significant challenges?

4.      What skills are needed in your profession? 

I believe that sometimes it might be challenging mentally while facing the challenges, especially working taking care of other employees. How do you deal with that? Maybe you have some secrets or rituals that you could share with us? 

All jobs overall 

Looking back at your all career path, what do you think has been your biggest success factor?

-What is the best decision you made in your career? 

Is there something you would do differently now? 

Future

Where do you see the industry going in the future? What will or will not change? 

For the end of this wonderful meeting, what advice would you give to a person/student starting their career in PR and Communications? 

Whit this incredible advice, we will finish our podcast. Thank you, Laura, for meeting with me today, and it was a pleasure. For the audience, I want to say thank you for listening. Dream big and have fun! 

While Eirini and Emilija were having their podcasts, some of us improved and compared our scripts. Zainab and I talked about what questions we were going to ask and what we needed to ask. We spoke that our questions must be related to professions, skills and responsibilities. 

At the end of the class, our group gathered together to talk about the podcasts. Eirini and Emilija shared their experience with podcasts. They said that they were pretty nervous, and that made an impact on their podcasts. So, they highlighted that it is essential to try to relax and be ourselves. 

From my research based on podcasts I listened to and some articles I read, I noted that it is essential:

• To do good background research;
• Now the audience;
• Prepare advance questions ;
• Try out the interview with someone; 
• Do not interrupt;
• Relax; 
• Make your guest comfortable. 

In this session, a person who researched Laura Mason- Byers and I shared information about her. Even though I have had some information before, the additional information will help me more. So now I have to write the script, and it seems to be very challenging as the podcast will be 30 min long.

Later on, when a few groups met together, we found out that we were not fully ready for the podcast. We faced issues such as confirmation from quests (when and how they will be interviewed) or introduction recordings. At one moment, the classes looked like colossal chaos. However, when we came up with solutions, things started getting into place.

Also, in this session, we found out the dates when our guests are coming, so it set up the deadlines for when we have to get ready. This felt like the podcast was coming, and I started feeling stressed. So, to calm my stress down, I decided to listen to my favourite podcasts more carefully and pay more attention to how they talk and behave during podcasts.

Recently we found out who our guests are so we have to do some research about the. I will interview Laura Mason, a people communication manager at Gymshark. Her main responsibility is to make sure that from an internal perspective everyone who works for the company knows what is going on and would be heard.

First to start with is that she was a student at Coventry University. She has a Bachelor of Arts – Communication, Culture and Media.

‘ I think my general university experience prepared me for not just my career but for life. Meeting new people, living on my own and working part-time were all important blocks in making me the person I am today.’ – answers Laura to the questions about how her course defined her career.

She also advises students that are coming to Coventry University to be open-minded and ready for opportunities before everything gets too grown up and serious.

In this podcasts project, my role is to be a presenter. So, what I will have to do it so interview the guest including scriptwriting, research on the guest, and all the preparation. 

In the third week’s session, we were able to try ourselves out. Presenters and production teams together made a demo 3 minutes podcast. It was my first time doing that so, even though it was just a test with my classmates, I was very nervous. However, these short demos seem to be very useful. For myself I notice a few things that I have to work on: 

• move as less as possible because all sounds are audible; 
• don’t rush while talking;
• relax my mind;
• know what I want to say, always have a point. 

So since we don’t know our guest yet, I have time to work on all of this. I will listen to various podcasts for practice, talk loud with myself about any topic, watch videos on how to create a good podcast.