Reflections of AOG 2019 from a global ocean engineer

My reflections from the #AOG2019 conference & exhibition from the 13-15th March. After several years working in Europe, the first notable difference was the moving of the conference proceedings behind closed (paywall) room doors to an open forum (or three: collaboration, subsea & knowledge) style setting within the exhibition. There may be some issues that still need to be resolved though from murmurings around the floor I believe it has been largely improved from 2018. I attended some interesting information sharing sessions, from day one's conference keynote and introduction session, structural integrity and management of structures with interesting discussion afterwards, a drilling rig anchor system & the deployment and retrieval of a CAN-ductor on an exploration drilling project (first one used) in Australia. Did this ever bring back memories of generating reasonably limited operational feasible rig criteria based on some 'standard' wellhead & conductor-casting systems last year!?!

I gave some time as a recent active WISE taskforce member at the Subsea Energy Australia stand promoting WISE and advertising what they are done & trying to do, and can do for you, your employees and/or industry colleagues. I also meet up with old and new industry colleagues, discovered some engineering news that is now, should be, & is not happening in Australia yet, as well as learnt that my engineering connection and knowledge with and about Europe is strong. For those that I didn't catch up with, I hope to over the wild west of OZ again shortly. There are some interesting facts & points made in the Conference's white paper about Future Investments, Renewables, Eastern Australia & that 42% of AOG survey participates said that 'Collaboration' is important in business. Read more here: https://aogexpo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AOG19-Industry-Confidence-White-Paper.pdf

14th March Breakfast event:

Attended a packed conference room for the first time at AOG's Diversity & Inclusion breakfast on Thursday morning, I gained the following take away messages from what the speakers, panellists and table participants had to say:

''It's not all about HR''

''What gets measured, gets done''

''Give people a hand up, not a hand-out'' words from AASOA speaker Matthew Thompson from the Department of Transport.

To give some context to the three points and quotes I gave about the event;

• Observation 1: All four panellists where from HR. They had some interesting points and shared some interesting insights as to what they are doing as well as their own Aha moments into the discussion. Though, the title of a recent report I mention below with reference link says it all about who should be on a panel - I think?
• Idea Solution builders?: If we are tackling diversity or let's face it in wanting a leading and more innovative company or project - Inclusion needs to be up-front and centred. Let's take the organisational hierarchy, squash it and/or produce a spider web with the CEO and business leaders at the core.
• Idea Solution builders?: At least one panellist from the top leadership group of a company, mix with HR people, and perhaps a leading or known project manager in the mid chain level of a company?
• Observation 2: There was limited questions taken from the audience. I know for a fact that there were about 15 people in the room not from HR that could have added valuable insights and discussion points from what they have witnessed, dealt with and trying to do in the room that could add to not just talk but action.
• Idea Solution builders?: More involvement from the other breakfast participants, more opportunities for questions to be thrown in the mix - both from attendees as well as a social media feed. Some short workshops attached to the breakfast program to tease out or build on questions that can be posed to the MC and/or panel could be worthwhile too?

Measuring inclusion and diversity in business. I have read quite a few documents over the last 2-3 years published by the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK, who have undertaken some surveys and generated some very good and interesting results, findings and information reports around related topics, including a recent report from Oct 2018 that talks about 16 measures to drive change through leaders, managers and HR.

?Perhaps an Australian led action to see a follow up report on the (?)16(?) measures to drive change through Leaders, Managers & HR people of Energy & Resource Large & SME companies?

I had some very interesting conversations around some of these points I have mentioned above during the breakfast with Allison, Delia, Felix, Elizabeth, Susan, Gail to name a few. So should you be talking to any of these people in the coming days or weeks, you may very well like to open up some conversation with any or all of these people…

Interested to hear your thoughts to build on this dialogue and listen to why you were or weren't in the room?

#AOG2019 #leadership #collaboration diversity #inclusion #WISE