First Week at the Department of Mines and Petroleum

Hi,

I have successfully completed my first week at the Department of Mines and Petroleum in the Communications and Marketing branch. This week was extremely educational giving me considerable insight into the management of Government Departments. My perceptions on government agencies were very different to the experiences I gained through working within a government environment this week.

What I found really prominent was the importance of planning and communicating both internally and externally. The department is constantly trying to meet deadlines and address issues from arrange of different industries and internal divisions. Each day I am often asked to compile together articles for Newsflash, which is the department’s main method of communication. Newsflash is a series of articles addressing issues or events within the department which are posted over the intranet system.

During my time I have been fortunate to contribute significantly to the management of Newsflash articles both in the initial implementation and editing process. What I found most challenging is sourcing relevant information for the articles. Getting in contact with the relevant staffs was sometimes very difficult due to employee schedules. The agency does use a contact system in which displays key appointments and meetings for employees; however this information was sometimes incorrect which made the process even more challenging.

As well as contributing to Newsflash I was involved in writing articles for the Staff E-Newsletter. This I found particularly interesting due to the differing tasks I was often confronted with. Once again managing time and running to deadlines was fundamental to ensuring Staff E-News was ready for printing at the end of the working week.

Another interesting task which I had the benefit of working on involved doing a Focus group addressing recruitment within the department. This task involved me compiling together a brief Public Relations Plan addressing target publics, key issues/ challenges and strategies/tactics. This particular task I found very rewarding as I could see the real life process of my thoughts addressing a Department issue. The positive comments I gained from Management was also very satisfying in the completion of this task.


Regards,

Vaughan Graham