On October 26th Adelaide hosted its first OHS Conference and Expo, run by the Safety Institute of Australia. I was honored to be invited to be a speaker at this inaugural event.

The event was hosted at the Adelaide Showground, whilst it didn’t come close to the size of the annual Melbourne and Sydney safety expo’s it was great to see many people come along to view new, innovative safety products and to listen to the various sessions hosted throughout the day.

I took the opportunity to speak about some of my learnings as the National Safety Manager at Harris Scarfe, during my short career so far, and mixed in some of the interesting facts, figures and results I have achieved along the way through the use of ‘safety online’.

As a GenY Generation myself I can’t live without access to the internet, I start to feel a little queasy when I can find a 3G or wi-fi signal on my iPad. With some history in web development, sales and human behavior I began to put all of this together, identifying a gap in the online marketplace for OHS.

My presentation focused on how business can use online tools to help craft and deliver their safety message whilst engaging and retaining their audience.

Entering the room on the day I wasn’t too sure what to expect, perhaps a few people in chairs with little idea why they were there, but no. The turn out was fantastic, many more people than I had expected, thirsty for knowledge about my online adventures in OHS and how they could adapt my thinking to help their own cause.

Following the session I had an array of questions posed to me, and I hope I had answered them all correctly! Question time ran a little over and we needed to get moving for the next session.

I had a wander around the expo after speaking with a few product suppliers along the way and found the outlook to be great, everyone close to the OHS industry thought it was about time there were some dedicated events in SA.

Overall, well done SIA and Craig Schopp for making the event a reality. I cant wait for next year.

 

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