Flags and Formatting: A Busy Week for Protocol

By Marielle Petranoff, Office of Protocol Intern



Well, hello everyone.

Let’s talk about flags.

Okay, not really, but sort of yes.  I’m the intern for the Office of Protocol, and among the many things that we do at The International Center is manage the IUPUI United Nations Flag Collection.  This entails taking flag requests made by people and organizations in the central Indiana community and making them turn into flag displays.  What it has meant for me is that I now possess uncanny knowledge of the world flags, flag protocol, and random flag facts.

For example, there are only two internationally recognized flags that aren’t rectangular.  Care to hazard a guess?  (The answer: Nepal and Switzerland)  While this information may not be directly applicable to the business world, the fact that I am basically in charge of the collection is great experience.  This week, I even got to put all of this knowledge in action in the set up for Catholic Charities’ Refugee Day dinner. Now we have a competition running through the office to see who can name all 196 country flags (as recognized by the United States) the fastest.  I’ve got some competition.

As fascinating as vexillology is (that's the study of flags, by the way), it’s not all that I do here.  I’ve had the opportunity to work on another one of the Office of Protocol’s main functions, training in global protocol.  The most recent behemoth of a project was the pre-departure briefing book for the Mayor of Indianapolis’ delegation to the United Kingdom and Germany.  The finished products are now making their way across the Atlantic in the hands of Mayor Ballard and his team.

For those who don’t know, a briefing book is a compilation of a lot of information: basically, anything a business or organization would need to know before interacting with their international counterparts, whether at home or abroad.  This includes a country overview, brief history, explanation of government and business, as well as business culture, protocol and etiquette.  This particular book also included biographies of all the people and companies that the delegation was meeting, as well as city profiles, compiled by intern Kalyn. Between interns Kalyn, Ellie and I, we made a great book.  Accordingly, we did a lot of research into the U.K. and Germany, and I’ve got a better-than-average understanding of the Monarchy now.  The biggest issue was the formatting, but after fighting with Microsoft Word for eight hours, my supervisor Peter and I won, and the briefing books were printed without a hitch.

While all of this has been going on, we’ve also been working on upcoming projects with the Sister Cities committees, a project with the IEDC, and even more flags!  There’s always something to do at the Office of Protocol, and as its intern, I’m never bored.

After a hectic week that included more cupcakes for people celebrating birthdays, I’m glad to see the weekend, but even more excited to start the next big project.