Nearing the end

It feels weird to think that this is my second-last day at OPR, and that on Monday I'll be back at Curtin (which now seems so much more laid-back than previously thought ...)

Reflection seems like the most obvious thing to be doing right, but in fact I'm still running like the Roadrunner, but I only wish I could move as fast as him! The manager for our PR team is going away on Friday, so today is really the last day that I have to get approvals etc from her. So much to do, so little time.

One of the biggest lessons I've probably learned during my time here would be just how essential planning everything is. A lovely collegue explained to me that when your in a flow, the small things get glossed over because you're so used to doing them, but with planning everything, even the smallest detail needs to written down and dated. A great piece of advice I received was "plan backwards". Have you planned deadline, and work backwards from there -then you can see when you need things like drafts finished, when you need approvals from the executives etc.

It takes a while to get into the swing of things with this planning method, and made my brain slow down a little, but I really hope to implement this when I start writing my report during the semester. Fingers crossed it all goes well.

Short post, but I need to go! Good luck to everyone else who's completing their internships, and to those just starting up.

Where's my time going?

So now that I'm in my second last week here at OPR, getting tasks done and the like, I'm looking at my calendar wondering where all my time is going! Starting out here at the beginning of February and studying my diary, it felt like I would be here forever, but now that deadlines are looming in front of me, I'm feeling slightly perturbed.



So, working away on all my tasks, and one of my major lessons is how important planning is in this environment! Everything should have deadlines, be it semi-drafts, emails to people, approvals by other team members - everything has to be written down and followed. Such a learning curve for me, I don't know about the rest of you but at uni I'm generally just a cruisy person who does things when they crop up, and certainly not planning things so judiciously. It certainly does make me appreciate uni and the easy lifestyle I have going for me right now.



The scale of the Oakajee project can be difficult for some to comprehend, considering the size of Australia to begin with. I've popped in a picture outline just how big the rail line is going to be, and what it's going to connect to.







The rail line itself is going to 570km long, going through a lot of semi-desert, and will be getting a lot of trucks off the mid-west roads. This is a major safety point, as a substantially large number of trucks are on unsealed roads at the moment, and can lead to unsafe circumstances. This incident happened only recently, and with the rail being implemented in the near future, we hope to eliminate this sad affair from happening in the midwest.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/perth-truckie-dies-after-desert-trek-in-west-australian-outback/story-e6frg6nf-1225993915150



Anyway, I'm writing this just before we have our weekly PR Comm Team Meeting, so I guess this is the point where I sign off and say "Adios Amigos"!

Lovin' it

Hello to all currently at the beginning, in the middle or sadly coming to the end of their PR 393 placements!

I have been at my organization, Oakajee Port and Rail (OPR) for about 2 weeks now, and I get the feeling I never want to leave!
I guess most of you reading this first questioned what OPR was, and if you didn’t then yay!
Oakajee Port and Rail was established in September 2007 as a joint venture between Murchison Metals Ltd, Mitsubishi Development Pty Ltd and Crosslands Resources Ltd. OPR is the developer of the Oakajee deepwater port and rail infrastructure project (Oakajee is located 25 kms north of Geraldton), and the project will be linked to regional mines by approximately 570km of heavy haulage rail. This bulk commodity supply chain will transport iron ore from Western Australia’s mid-west to customers in the Asia Pacific region.

The project will:

• Deliver iron ore from mines across the mid-west region to international markets via a modern rail system and new deepwater port at Oakajee
• Underpin the broader development port at Oakajee
• Overcome constraints at Geraldton port on export capacity and ability to accommodate larger Cape Class vessels

The Oakajee project represents a unique investment partnership between an independent infrastructure provider, the private sector, international partners and government.

The main reason I’m with OPR is because my parents are land-holders in the Murchison shire, which is part of the Mid-West, and for the past couple of years have had dealings with OPR and the rail that they will be building. OPR has a keen sense for community involvement, and they have supported many projects that the Murchison Shire has done in the past. Also, a very helpful person at Curtin Bentley campus helped me gain a contact into OPR, and some of Semester 2 in 2010 was spent liaising with the Government and Community Relations manager in regards to me doing my PR 393 with them.

And now, here I am!

I really wanted to do my placement during the summer holidays before uni started up again, mainly because I think that if you want to get the most out of your placement, doing one day a week isn’t going to get you very far. If you do it all in one hit, you’re continuously working on projects and tasks that are delegated to you, and not intermittently during the semester.
I have been delegated many PR-related tasks for the duration of my placement with OPR which I’m very pleased about, and it’s interesting to note how different it feels working in this kind of environment. I’ve never before worked in an office setting, and it’s a really great learning experience in more ways than one. Having a good sense of time management is key in this kind of setting, and I’ve printed off a blank calendar page that I have pinned in my line of sight at all times, to keep an eye on deadlines and when I want drafts completed etc.

It feels strange knowing that what I’m doing is going to be used in “real life”, so to speak, and that it’s not a hypothetical situation like uni usually is. Having that safety net for uni work is usually not even contemplated until it’s removed, and I’m much more aware of my work habits now more than ever!

Well, that’s my musings for the current moment, I guess I’ll keep you updated as time goes by!