Melanie has worked on a wide range of projects. Melanie has a track record of high achievement whether managing a multi-million dollar budget for a large project like the 2001 Census or an almost nonexistent budget, as was the situation at the Australian Red Cross Organ Donation Service, and is often the case with small businesses.
Melanie continues to provide consultancy services and media training services to selected clients - in recent years clients have include Australian Bureau of Statistics, Department of Environment, leading national industry bodies, not for profit organisations, Wine Country Tourism, small businesses and more.
She held the position of Marketing Communications Manager for Newcastle Permanent Building Society (2003 - 2005).
As Communications Director for the government's Australian Greenhouse Office (2002-3), Melanie worked with Better Homes and Gardens Magazine.
Melanie worked to have a CD-ROM product, Your Home, which was developed by a consortium of commercial and government interests to promote energy efficient living, being attached to the front cover of the magazine across Australia. She wrote articles on household energy efficiency for several issues and the initiative resulted in the TV program taking an interest in energy efficiency.
Melanie was involved in the Federal Government's most significant announcement on climate change for several years - this included organising major press conference events, preparing all resources (background information, file footage, high quality images and graphs) for journalists, developing the Minister's presentation package and working side by side with the senior executives of the Australian Greenhouse Office and the Minister's office.
She travelled with the Australian delegation attending the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in New Delhi, India, in recognition of her issues management skills in providing high-level advice. She achieved good results in handling media domestically and successfully handled international liaison.
Melanie developed communications and marketing strategies to showcase Australian industry achievements and drive industry investment related to energy efficiency both domestically and internationally.
At the Australian Greenhouse Office, Melanie contributed to the development of the national science experiment project, The National Kilowatt Count. She developed the communications strategy for The National Kilowatt Count, which was held in National Science Week August 2002. The project explored ways in which households use energy and highlighted that individuals can make a difference to Australia's greenhouse 'picture'. The main aim was to increase climate change awareness, while at the same time conveying to people that simple lifestyle changes could make a difference to Australia's greenhouse emissions. The campaign successfully delivered wide media coverage and many thousands of people participated.
Melanie drafted speeches and press releases on energy and climate change issues for the Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Industry and executive departmental staff.
She coordinated industry-government-community forums on a range of issues including household energy efficiency and school based educational programs on energy efficiency.
For the 2001 Australian Census Melanie worked as national communications director (1999-2002) at the Australian Bureau of Statistics and achieved award-winning results in media management with saturation campaign coverage across Australia. Over 92% of media mentions were supportive of the ABS. According to Peter Maher of Rehame, Melanie set new benchmarks for working with rural and regional media.
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These strategies were proven effective in changing attitudes - data (ACNeilson) showed significant decreases in numbers of people who thought that census invaded their privacy and of people "against" the census.
During the 2001 Census project Melanie oversaw a huge number of projects that ranged from national advertising, general media relations, specialist media coordination (including ethnic and indigenous media), household and business information material, website production, schools education material, community liaison, parliamentary information preparation and crisis management preparation. All projects were delivered successfully, on time and within budget. Melanie even wrote the "Census Song".
Professional banners were designed by Melanie James and were used throughout Australia to create professional backdrops for regional media interviews, staging props and to raise awareness in public spaces.
As state public relations manager (1998-99), she orchestrated getting ABC TV's Australian Story, the Sydney City Weekly and the Good Weekend Magazine to do high profile stories on organ donation issues. She managed sensitive stakeholder relations and community relations to a successful outcome on many occasions.
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As the author of feature and news articles for major Australian newspapers and community publications, Melanie is widely published. She has also written articles for corporate newsletters and for the AGO's and ABC's websites, scripted television interviews/segments for the ABC's Stateline Program, been a script editing consultant on organ donation issues for the Seven network's Home and Away, and written articles for mainstream magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens on household energy issues.
At SHE Magazine (ACP) Melanie's work included research, subediting and writing. She wrote articles on wide range of areas.
Sydney University - Roles included marketing publications and research services, desktop publishing, academic research assistance.
Alpha Private Health Care - Melanie was commissioned to write patient information services publications.
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Netball Australia - Roles included communications project work, recording proceedings of high level national conferences and meetings and editing publications.
Her professional expertise is widely acknowledged and she has been an invited presenter at several national conferences including the Australian Public Relations Summit and the Australian Marketing Institute's National Conference on government marketing. Since 2007, Melanie has presented her research at several academic conferences.
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