Time flies by and after one week of holiday I am back on the job noticing that my placement at Shell Malaysia Exploration and Production (SMEP) is almost half over. Hence, it is time for an update on my activities of the past week.
I was still kept busy with internal communications, helping to promote the ‘Our Business, Our Future’ (OBOF) staff engagement project to introduce organisational change among Shell employees. The second wave workshop where mid-level managers and staff influencers meet with the senior management in small groups will be held on Wednesday (7/9/11) at a local resort.
I spent most of the weeks designing posters for the internal promotion of working culture changes. The concept we came up with was to use roads and traffic as a metaphor for Shell Malaysia Exploration & Production (SMEP) operations. I spent one whole day drawing up scenes of traffic congestions, traffic sign forests and confusing roundabouts around the caption “Which direction are you heading?” to potray the challenges faced by the organisation . Once I was done, I discussed my designs with Adriana and Vincent who are responsible for internal communications, and we choose four of them to be printed and exhibited around the office.
The next two days I spent drawing one poster featuring a giant roundabout with too many exits in Adobe Illustrator, putting my graphic design hobby to use. It was a real challenge to conform to all the visual identity guidelines prescribed by Shell for consistent communications. After finishing just one poster in two days, I realized that we will have to hand over the remaining concepts to the graphic design department in order for them to be ready on time. Designing pretty posters takes a lot more time that one would think.
On Tuesday (25/8/11), I attended a progress meeting to discuss details of the upcoming second wave session. I was asked to take minutes to record the decisions made and all things that needed to be done urgently. I learned that taking notes requires paying full attention at all times, as the participants discuss the tasks at hand and the actual final decision is not always clearly formulated. So far, note taking has been my least favourite activity, especially since the meeting room was freezing cold. I noticed that the meeting was well organized with a huge event plan spreadsheet projected to the wall from which every task was gone through one by one.
This week, I felt more like a graphic designer, which I enjoyed. It showed that it can be very useful to have skills in various fields of communication in order to get your message across in many different ways. Yet, on the other side, one also has to know when to hand it over to professionals as deadlines draw closer and other tasks need seeing to.
05/09/11
Martin Tengeler
14196744
Sarawak Campus
No comments:
Post a Comment