Mining Communications: Aboriginal Australians

From the beginning of my internship, the vitality of the relationship between the Aboriginal Australian’s and the company was made an apparent priority. Ingrained in my everyday work and interactions were teams of staff genuinely dedicated to the preservation of Traditional Land Owner countries, artefacts, sacred sites, lawyers supporting the equality and rights of Traditional Land Owners legal representation for agreements and the consequent implementation and those that focused on Aboriginal business development, employment and training. It did not take more than an hour to realise I was immersed in an office filled with genuine beings who cared about Aboriginal Australians and wanted a sustainable future for all affected by the mining footprint.

 Perhaps I seem a little naïve. I have worked previously for not-for-profit, education and government institutions, all of which had missions and visions to delivery services for a group in need, yet none of these compared to the corporate culture I stumbled across interning.  My first day began with NAIDOC week celebrations. Whilst numerous incredible and inspiring West Australians, some of Aboriginal decent spoke with incredible apt of inspiring tales that truly made me think, none made quite the same impression as the company Head of Department. The opening speech was real, the senior management member not only talked of the strengths and inspiring stories, but also openly acknowledged the companies negative past history with Aboriginal Australian’s as having ‘not always been good’. It was refreshingly real and honest and made feel that there was opportunity for working towards a future that has changed this, as although the past was not right, it was also not hidden.

The organisation is now a leader in private industry for Indigenous employment. As a team member I encountered the social license that has been created through Aboriginal Australians support of the business. Working alongside other teams I encountered Insights into the scholarship, employment, business development and support programmes as well as land rights and cultural heritage departments, all backing up the words with actions of a genuine intention at improving the relationships with Aboriginal Australians. 

There were still very real challenges. Tailoring communication and training processes and services is critical, there were many cross-cultural challenges and lessons to be learnt and faced on a daily basis by our teams. On a personal level I felt these challenges sometimes there were cross-cultural challenges. I had to ensure I worked through issues slowly – enabling patience, respect and being mindful of challenges from others cultural perspective. I faced cultural differences with workload expectations and different senses of time. However these challenges were minor when compared to the value of the input of cross-cultural perspectives and skills, such as local understanding and a commitment to the area that most FIFO workers lacked. More importantly, as an individual I had pride in participating in a diverse workplace.

For more information on this issue and other insights, utilise the following resources:

-        http://epress.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/whole10.pdf

-        http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/features/mining-the-middle-class

-        http://www.sbs.com.au/dirtybusiness/

-        http://www.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/409459/Guide-for-Working-with-Indigenous-Australian-Staff_-WEB.pdf

-        http://www.firstaustraliansmedia.org.au/vision/

Community Relations: FIFO perspective

As a part of my time interning I’ve encountered community relations from the both the city and regional perspectives. In the Perth city office, strategic planning, projects and goals for the organisation and the community are developed for the future. The other component of my time working in community relations has been on the ground within the regional communities of influence. I have the privilege of working with Community Relations Officers on the ground in Tom Price and Paraburdoo. Working out in the communities provided insight into in the ground realties and the lifestyle of FIFO workers, most importantly I gained insight into the lifestyle of a Community Relations Officer and the pressures and responsibilities associated with representing the company in a small community.

Upon arriving in either town, you know you’re there for business. The combination of the small population, isolation from other communities and role of the mine gave a distinct impression that you arrive to work, with the mine shaping the community. I quickly became immersed in the towns, and found my own working rhythm, of twelve-hour working days, exercising, eating then sleeping falling in sync with the town and its mining heartbeat. Understanding the lifestyle and culture that surrounds these mining camps through experiencing the way of life furthered my belief in the crucial role of Community Relations.

Community Relations Officers within the towns are the link between community and the mine. The role as a company representative within the town was acutely aware due to the small size of the town. In a community where most people know each other the personal and professional behaviour of the company staff was frequently criticised. Venturing into the communities provided me with the insights and pressures of small towns and communities on Community Relations Officers.

Relevant videos are attached for greater indight into my experiences in community relations in a remote mining community.

Beauty and the 3geeks – Episode 3; A frosty week

Beauty and the 3geeks

 

Episode 3 - A Frosty Week...

In episode 2 I discussed what it was like to pitch to a “real” client but left whether they had signed the dotted line until this episode. Today I am proud to say that we did and that they chose to go with the Mercedes campaign (a step-down from the Rolls Royce campaign we originally proposed). After almost a month working on this campaign they are ready to step it up to that Rolls Royce campaign. So a double bonus for both companies and a good indicator that the work we are doing is beneficial for business.

In the three weeks I have been working with this client I have enjoyed the freedom I have been given to implement their social media strategy. Both the client and my boss have given me sufficient space to manage the account and update them on its progress. This company works in the mining industry which is not something I was traditionally familiar with. It has meant that I have needed research the topic, their industry and its target market far more in depth than I first predicted. I have also been in the process of speaking to people working within the industry and taken mental notes of how they speak, what they say and how they react to different aspects on the mining industry. This is massively important with regards to running advertisements and posting relevant information.

This has given me the opportunity to further develop my Facebook advertising knowledge. I have been using Facebook advertising for over a year now and consider myself very knowledgeable in running a marketing or PR campaign using this tactic. However, managing the same topic for a few months has meant that I have had to really develop my industry researching skills. For example simply searching mining does not give me information that can be used to target people working in Australian mining between the ages of 20-40. Therefore I have had to delve much deeper into getting to know my target market in order to ensure that my clients advertising spend is achieving the highest return.

On another note; I had the awesome opportunity to produce case studies for a client. This required me conducting interviews with both the client (my client) and also a representative from the company they were chasing a testimonial from. In this process I was having some serious flash blacks to PR Media and got a little excited at the thought of interviewing people from an angle that would deliver some solid results that highlighted my client very positively. The interviews did make me feel a little like a David Frost wannabe it was a ball. The interviews were recorded on an iPad not a Dictaphone to achieve a real Gen Y effect J. They have since been converted into a 2-pager highlighting the issue the clients services solved and can now be added to their sales portfolio or used to showcase their work on blogs, social media channels or within their office. Conducting the interviews was good fun and I realised that a career in presenting is not entirely off the cards yet.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mQyKq5fvQg)

Final thought: stop researching what people in mining are earning, I chose to be white-collar and I am starting to rethink that ;)

Speak soon,

Ashlee Harrison

Starting My Placement

Hi my name is Jordan, I am from the Curtin Bentley Campus in Perth WA.

I started my work placement at BHP Billiton over the break and am now up to day 6. Essentially I am working beneath the Nickel West Communications Advisor for Government Relations and Communications, but she is really so much more than that. It is amazing to see actual public relations practitioners in the workplace; my immediate superior, Alison is amazing at what she does and spends more time in the office than many of the other staff members.
One of the first things that I noticed when coming into this environment that BHP Billiton unlike many companies (or so we are told in the PR units at Curtin) has a communications advisor on the board of directors. Ford is Alison’s manager and he has an office alongside all of the presidents and vice presidents who are located in the Perth office. It is obvious that BHP Billiton take their public relations seriously.

As soon as I arrived I was, as they say, thrown in the deep end. Before I even received safety training about the Central Park Building (compulsory for all visitors and staff) I was delegated my major task that I would be taking on in my time here. For the next twenty days I will be working on a booklet designed to be given to associates from other countries that are coming to Perth for the first time. This document is very important and was allocated to me by the President of Stainless Steel Materials Jimmy Wilson’s assistant, Julie. The main reason that this document is being created is so that any BHP Billiton staff or associates coming to Perth for a meeting, conference etc. will have information about Perth that will aid them with anything outside of BHP Billiton jurisdiction. It is especially useful to those people who would like to see more of Perth and therefore extend their stay a few days but don’t know what to do and where to find that information.

I will be writing all of the copy for this document and accompanied by the BHP Billiton Branding Guidelines (A massive folder with the entire Do’s” and “Do nots” of branding for BHP Billiton authorised documents) I will also be designing the layout.
First off I had to have a briefing with Julie and Alison, as I was walked through the process of extracting information from a client, I realised that there are so many choices when designing a document that you need to have a very clear idea in your head of what the client wants. Things like binding, colour, whether the document will need to be printed or just emailed and more had not even popped into my head when thinking about the important questions to ask a client, luckily Alison was there to teach me.

After the briefing Alison explained to me that a ‘thankyou’ email must be sent to the client, detailing all of the things you had said that you would do and all of the things that they had said that they will do to aid you in the process, this way you and they have a detailed checklist of what needs to be done in the time period you have been allocated.

I am about halfway through writing the copy for this document at the moment, but with other things cropping up every day my progress is staggered and sometimes I only have a few minutes between jobs to write something down as I think of it.

I have been to several meetings with Julie and Alison – and even Ford has joined us when he is not too busy – to talk to event organisers at venues about different functions that will be held later in the year. Again I was surprised at the number of questions I would never have though to ask and the number of things that need to be taken into consideration when planning an event. Though we discussed it in other PR units I found that different situations definitely require different attention to details. The first time we went out was for a speech that was to be made and stand up cocktail drinks following. Though it will still be winter when this is done, Alison and Julie were both interested in out door areas where the drinks could be held, but it was important that they were weather proof so that the staff will be able to make use of this area. They also had to take into consideration the speech and speaker. Depending on the type of speech different rooms can be used, if questions will need to be asked it is better to have a wider, shorter room, but in some cases it is appropriate to have a longer, narrower room with plasmas, or some kind of screen set up midway so that people towards the back can see what is being presented.

Also, as BHP Billiton is a well known and large company they needed to make sure that when drinks are served people have access to water and food so that they do not get drunk and make a fool of themselves and represent the company badly. They decide to combat this by placing water stations with fizzy drink and (obviously) water that people could serve themselves in prime locations around the room. Venue staff were told to bring out large amounts of food at the beginning of the function which will ensure people have food in their stomachs when they begin drinking and will prevent people juggling food, drinks and conversation throughout the night.

My most recent task was to write and edit articles and produce a newsletter called the Grad Gazette, run by a HR manager that is sent out to the graduates participating in the Graduate programs available at BHP Billiton. I just today finished putting together the layout with all of the copy in place.
The client for this particular project, a HR manager, is a particularly busy lady who has little time to spend meeting and discussing briefs though she also has a clear picture of what she wants the document to look like. As she is an internal client I was able to contact her quite easily but I learnt that some clients need to be coached through the briefing process to extract all of the possible information from them.
I clearly didn’t ask enough questions though because the articles that I wrote had to be cut down by a minimum of 200 words.
It was a very interesting experience working with this lady and Alison told me that this was a very common issue faced by PR practitioners in “the real world”. I overcame all of the boundaries, and even though I spent most of the day trying to compress my articles I managed to produce a document that we were all pleased with.

I have learnt so much in so little time and I am really enjoying my time working with Alison at BHP Billiton. Later on this month I will be flown to the Mount Keith Operation in central WA to research and write a profile on the Community and Aboriginal Affairs Coordinator who works there.

Thanks for reading, Jordan.