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Speakers | Web Directions: Government

Speakers

• Robert Hoekman Jr
• José Manuel Alonso
• Lisa Herrod
• Scott Gledhill
• Grant Young
• Cameron Adams
• Jason Ryan
• Jenny Telford
• Matthew Hodgson
• Ralph Douglas
• Patrick Lee
• Andrew Kesper

Robert Hoekman Jr

Robert Hoekman, Jr., is the founder of Miskeeto, a product development and web design consultancy focused on socially-conscious projects that improve the world.

He’s a passionate and outspoken interaction designer, writer, and user-experience evangelist who has written dozens of articles and has worked with Adobe, Automattic, United Airlines, DoTheRightThing.com, Go Daddy Software, and countless others to create superior user experiences for a wide range of audiences. He also gives in-house training sessions and speaks regularly at industry events like Adobe MAX, Flashforward, SxSW, Future of Web Design, and others.

Robert is the author of the Amazon bestseller Designing the Obvious, which focuses on seven guiding principles of great web-based software and how to leverage them in any real-world project. Learn more about Robert through his blog at rhjr.net.

Robert will be presenting The essential elements of great web applications.

José Manuel Alonso

José is the eGovernment Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium. Prior to joining the W3C, he was the Manager for the W3C Spain Office for three years and also served as the Advisory Committee Representative for CTIC (host of the Spain Office).

José has broad experience in project management, software integration, customer relationship, PR and IT consultancy. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Enterprise Application Integration, both from the University of Oviedo, where he also worked at the Research and Innovation departments as a researcher, developer and lecturer. Previously he worked as consultant and even founded his own web company back in 1997.

José will be presenting Improving Government through better use of the Web.

Lisa Herrod

Lisa Herrod is the Principal Usability Consultant at Scenario Seven. The primary focus of her work is web usability, which she believes incorporates much more than just user testing. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, Lisa takes an holistic approach to web usability incorporating user research, accessibility, interaction design and web standards development.

Having started in the web during the last century, Lisa is occasionally caught making jokes about font tags, layout tables and shims. Nobody ever laughs.

Lisa will be presenting Usability: more than skin deep.

Scott Gledhill

Scott is Web Technology Strategist at News Digital Media (NDM) in Sydney. He has lead several major redesigns of NDM websites, converting them from legacy table based layouts to standards compliant, accessible and search engine friendly websites. His current role involves strategy and education on search engine optimisation, accessibility and best practice web development across the broad network of NDM websites. Scott believes and practices a holistic approach of usability, design, development and findability, and communicates the end result across all areas of the business.

Scott also moonlights as co-founder for molt:n digital, a Sydney based web consultancy. In his spare time he finds time to blog about SEO, accessibility and all things web standards on his website, standardzilla.com.

Scott will be presenting Real world web standards.

Grant Young

Grant has worked for over a decade in web and media roles, more recently focusing on social media and networking opportunities for non-profits. Grant recently founded Zumio, a consulting business with an emphasis on online strategy development. Since starting Zumio earlier this year Grant has advised a number of organisations including WWF-Australia (Earth Hour 2008) and Amnesty International on social media and campaign development.

Previously Grant held the role of Online Communications Manager at WWF-Australia, and worked as Senior Producer at award-winning design agency Digital Eskimo. In these roles he advised on and produced projects incorporating a variety of social networking tools and approaches, including weblogs, wikis, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.

Grant has also developed web applications for the business sector in the areas of financial and carbon accounting. He presented on the topic of social media in the financial services sector at the Investor Weekly Branding conference in March 2008.

Grant will be presenting the Social Media and Government workshop on Tuesday May 20.

Cameron Adams

Cameron Adams — The Man in Blue — melds a background in Computer Science with over eight years experience in graphic design to create a unique approach to interface design. Using the latest technologies, he likes to play in the intersection between design and code to produce innovative but usable sites and applications.

In addition to the projects he’s currently tinkering with, Cameron writes about the Internet and design in general on his well respected weblog, and has written several books ranging in topics from JavaScript, to CSS, and design. His latest publication — Simply JavaScript — takes a bottom-up, quirky-down approach to the basics of JavaScript coding.

Cameron will be presenting the Frontiers of Javascript workshop on Tuesday May 20.

Jason Ryan

Jason Ryan is the Communications Manager at the State Services Commission, the New Zealand Government’s lead advisor on the public management system. He is also a public sector blogger and an advocate for the transformation of public sector communications through the use of social media. Jason wrote the Principles for Public Sector Social Media, a set of guidelines for New Zealand government agencies wanting to use Web 2.0 communication tools to better engage with their publics.

Jason will be presenting our Executive Breakfast Briefing: Government 2.0 - The public challenge.

Jenny Telford

Jenny Telford is currently the Director of Census Products and Services at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Jenny has worked in the government sector for over ten years in roles focused on the delivery of data and information through the internet and other channels. The ABS is one of the largest information providers in the country and freely provides data through the website on a range of social, economic and environmental issues.

Jenny will be presenting Opening up government data.

David Hayward

David is the national lead for spatial (location based) solutions for the consulting group Ajilon Australia. He has over 15 years experience with spatial technology working extensively within Government and the mining industry. Focussed on leveraging the web to support the integration of spatial information within mainstream IT, he has led the development of a number of high profile web mapping sites including the NSW government SIX Viewer web mapping portal.

David believes that the increasing demand and awareness of the benefits of locational information will result in spatial technology becoming ubiquitous within IT.

David will be presenting Exploiting web mapping technology to deliver integrated whole of government information.

Andrew Kesper

Andrew Kesper has been working at the ABC for the past two years. Andrew’s first project was the redevelopment of ABC News Online that launched in mid-2007. This was followed back-to-back by the development of the ABC’s Federal Election site, Australia Votes 2007, which launched in September 2007.

Andrew has also developed sites for several ABC current affairs programs including The 7.30 Report, Lateline and Insiders. Pre-ABC, Andrew worked for a web design firm in London, developing web sites for clients such as the British Film Institute and local government organisations. He graduated with a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Queensland in 2003.

Andrew will be presenting ABC’s election site: making the most of dry data.

Ralph Douglas

Ralph Douglas manages GovDex on behalf of AGIMO and previously worked as a Policy/Budget Analyst within the Budget Group at the Department of Finance and Deregulation. He has developed website content for several Australian government department websites, and has a background in the IT recruitment sector and Finance/IT publishing industry in Sydney and Canberra.

Ralph will be presenting GovDex – Collaborating online in a secure environment.

Patrick Lee

Patrick was involved with entrepreneurial web pursuits before joining News Digital Media in what now seems like the distant past. When tasked with deciding his job title he jokingly suggested JavaScript Ninja. The title stuck and that’s now what the business cards say.

Patrick spent some time being an engineer when he really wanted to be a philosopher. Somehow the little scripting language with a soul, that we all misunderstood, is a happy medium.

Patrick will be presenting One paper clip, a box of matches, and some JavaScript.

Matthew Hodgson

Matthew Hodgson is regional lead for Web and Information Management at SMS Management & Technology in Canberra. He has over 10 years experience in e-business strategy, information architecture, information management and knowledge management, working with the government and commercial sector to deliver innovative solutions to difficult web problems. Matthew has published papers in the areas of social psychology, has lectured at the University of Canberra on social computing, and is passionate about the way in which technology can positively impact on social change through facilitating interpersonal communication and knowledge sharing.

Matthew’s experience is underpinned by a comprehensive applied knowledge of government and international web and information standards, degrees in organisational psychology and knowledge management, and an intimate understanding of Web 2.0, from folksonomies to wikis and blogs.

Matthew blogs at Matt’s Musings and is a contributing author at The AppGap.

Matthew will be presenting Social computing for knowledge management.