My Residency Experience – Grayling UK

As a journalism student at Northwestern University in Qatar, I was required to go on a student residency abroad. This was one of the best experiences of my life, because I was able to gain work experience from a top-notch PR firm, as well as immerse in four different fun departments - Internal Marketing, Corporate and Finance, Digital Media, Consumerism. Moreover, this experience helped me realize the importance of globalization to global firms and how the various tools of communication have helped make that happen.

First off, I was working with the internal marketing team. Our job was to make sure the firm, GRAYLING, was on track with its clients, and maintained a good image on the global and local scale. Grayling employs more than 1000 people around the globe. As an intern, I had to research the top players in Public Relations, and create an in-depth presentation comparing Grayling’s standard against theirs. In doing so, I had to study the social networks, web design, number of offices, client names and much more. My findings proved that each of the competing firms was trying to grow a larger global empire and gain top clients. In CAPITALISM, success comes from making more profit every year than the one before, and to do so the firms need to win more clients. Another interesting fact was that Grayling had several different versions of its website in different languages to reach the maximum number of people. This is a form of GLOCALIZATION, whereby a company is making itself more accessible and easy to use so that it can grow and reach more people. Although the headquarters are in the UK, the firm had established offices in many different regions including the USA, Australia, Ireland, Spain, Dubai and their latest addition, Doha. I got to sit in on meetings with BRITISH AIRWAYS members, brainstorm ideas with other departments, make phone calls to local agencies and had to present my findings to the department I worked at. The most interesting part of my stay was when I moved to their Soho office and worked with the digital team. They were working on a top-secret proposal on a project for HRH Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser. This was a dream for any intern. I was the perfect asset because, a) I was the only Arabic speakers, b) I grew up in QATAR and am a student at QATAR FOUNDATION. They extended my stay at the office an extra week to make sure I was there the entire time they worked on that project. There were several procedures we had to do including, monitor the Internet for any news, publicity or negative feedback of her. We had to translate some articles from Arabic to English. We measured her reach globally and compared it in different regions. We also found out how many times people search her name. Having an experienced Arabic-speaking team member made the process much faster, and allowed me to share general knowledge that is not usually available online. Our main goal was to make her a GLOBAL FIGURE, and increase her outreach as much as possible.

I witnessed the power of the internet and globalization at its fullest, because here I was in an office full of people who had never been to Qatar, working on a project that requires familiarity with the culture, history and current situation in Qatar. It was very exciting for me to see how quickly information could be gathered and understood. Also, it was scary that so much information was available with the click of a button! I don’t know if Grayling ended up working on this project, however when I returned to Qatar I was offered a summer internship with their local office here. By WORD OF MOUTH, the local team heard positive feedback about my internship and thought I would make a good addition to the team. PUBLIC RELATIONS is all about spreading the message, maintaining a positive image and monitoring feedback. Whether for the company itself, a client, or even an individual, communication methods play an important role in providing us with information. We need to be aware of where this information came from and who we share it with. Knowing that I was able to survive a three-month-internship with a high standard, demanding firm, I am now much more confident with myself and feel proud of my accomplishments!

Observing the Invisible

Qatar is a rapidly developing country; where day by day we notice a change in our surroundings. By the year 2011, 1,271,000 foreigners have been recruited in Qatar and 75%of these foreigners are unskilled labor workers. Due to this high percentage of workers, as a global society, we tend to neglect these workers and walk by them as if they are invisible. It has became a usual scene, to drive by a group of workers standing in line for the bus under the sun’s heat, to drink from a cold bottle of water when they drink out of an overused 7up bottle and no longer safe to drink from, to look out of our bedroom window while laying down and watching them sleep behind the wall. Because of the social conflict, we never stopped to think about their feelings, their families, or their problems.


During my junior year at VCUQ, one of our projects for print class relates to creating a “survival kit” for workers, we were put in teams to develop a product that would facilitate the workers. To accomplish this project, we went to tailors, gardeners, and waiters, we asked them a few questions to learn about their concerns and problems and to find a solution that would help them feel more comfortable in Qatar. The results from our interview led us to find out about the average salary and the places they spend their time on their weekends, which is for most of them, the corniche and the souq.

As a group of three, we cannot change the society’s perspective but we can open up opportunities for the workers to explore Qatar, we can teach them how to deal with the society. We looked at the workers as individuals who are willing to blend in with the society but the perception they have of locals pushes them backwards. Therefore, as a design solution, we used the visual language of the Indian culture which include the colors and illustrations. This would help them accept and trust the context because they would relate to it.

Our final package “fun weekend” is a wallet which consists of a Karwa map (which we further developed) to help them explore new areas in Qatar. The map also includes different packages as a guide on how to spend a small amount of money during a day out, as well as having fun at the same time.







This project was completed in a short period of time; therefore our research was not deep enough. This semester, we decided to complete and develop our research as an independent study group, which we are currently working on.

Our recent research has opened our eyes to how serious the worker’s problems are relating to their social status. We learned that because of the division of labor, the workers are assigned tasks which they do not know how to preform, this is a result of their language barrier and the lack of experience.



The video link at the bottom shows the living conditions of migrant workers in the Gulf where we see a pattern of problems, mostly because the workers lack education, they do not know their rights. The video also includes a story of an individual who faced financial problems and was in debt and eventually led to a horrifying ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMxbpsw_UTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOF97JrUej4&feature=relmfu