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Speakers - AODC 2008

The following speakers presented sessions at AODC 2008 - Gold Coast.

We were fortunate to be able to present an exciting and expert group of speakers from Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. They represent an enormous pool of talent and experience. As well as a collection of new speakers, we appreciated the return of some of our most popular speakers from previous years.

Matt Armstrong (Author-it)

Matt Armstrong is Author-it’s Sales Director for Asia Pacific. Matt works with international organisations to re-structure and manage their documentation, content management and localisation projects using the Author-it toolset. With a background in online learning, Matt has helped companies gain improvements in their internal processes that knit together with their technology investments to reduce risk, cost and redundancy. Client industries include manufacturing, banking, health, government, education, law, and technology. Matt peppers his calendar with speaking engagements and is a very approachable guy with a big bag of chocolate fish. He is based in Auckland, New Zealand.
http://www.authorit.com/

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Rhonda Bracey (CyberText Consulting Pty Ltd)

Rhonda Bracey runs her own technical communication and consultancy business from her home in rural Western Australia. Since 1992, Rhonda has worked for numerous software companies. She is pedantic about 'unfriendly' user interfaces and passionate about improving them. In the past few years, that passion has seen her take on the mantle of 'user interface expert' in the small software companies where she has been the lone writer and often the only user advocate.
http://www.cybertext.com.au/

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Rowdy Bristol (Gemcom Software Australia Pty Ltd)

Rowdy Bristol has worked in the mining industry around the world for over 20 years. He holds degrees in Engineering, Surveying, and a Masters degree in Geostatistics. He has held positions as a mining engineer, geologist, and surveyor on mine sites in North America, as well as a mining engineering consultant at many mines around the world. Rowdy has been with Gemcom (previously Surpac Minex Group) for 13 years, and has worked in technical support, software testing, and most recently, documentation. From his firsthand experience using, training, and testing mining software, Rowdy has gained a practical insight into the requirements for help systems and training documents.

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Colin Dawson (Info Action)

Colin Dawson has over 20 years experience as a technical communicator, including roles as a team member, team leader, and business owner. He won the STC 2005 "International Best in Show" award in the category of technical art, as well as local awards in all three categories of competition. He has prior experience as a technical journalist and avionics technician. In recent years he has been developing business software and help authoring processes.

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Matthew Ellison (Matthew Ellison Consulting)

Matthew Ellison has 18 years experience as a user assistance professional in the software industry. He has been a popular speaker at online documentation conferences since 1997, and now runs his own independent UK-based training and consulting company specialising in online Help design and technology. Matthew holds a B.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a Post-Graduate Certificate of Education from Bristol University in the UK. He is also a Certified RoboHelp Instructor and a MadCap Flare Certified Instructor.

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Dave Gash (HyperTrain Dot Com)

Dave Gash is the owner of HyperTrain dot Com, a California firm specialising in training and consulting for hypertext developers. A veteran software professional with over twenty years of programming, documentation, and training experience, Dave holds degrees in Business and Computer Science, and is well known in the technical publications community as an interesting and animated technical instructor. When he's not developing Web pages, scripts, and help systems for his clients, Dave is a frequent speaker at User Assistance seminars and conferences in the US and around the world.
http://www.hypertrain.com/

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Sarah Goodall (TACTICS Consulting)

Sarah Goodall joined TACTICS Consulting in April 2005 as the National Marketing Manager. Sarah manages all areas of corporate marketing and communications, including branding, strategic planning, the website, media liaison, advertising and public relations. As the TACTICS product manager for Information Mapping, she maintains a close relationship with Information Mapping Inc in the USA and affiliate global partners.

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Jonathan Halls (Talkshow Communication)

Jonathan Halls is Chairman of Talkshow Communication Ltd (London & New York) and specialist advisor to Ifra Newsplex (International association of newspapers). He specialises in leadership, innovation and media production. Formerly a BBC learning executive, Jonathan ran the corporation's TV, radio ops and new media training department. Passionate about the future, he works with organisations to help them create a more exciting tomorrow and better next week.
http://www.jonathanhalls.com/

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Frank 'Choco' Munday (Australian Federal Police)

Frank 'Choco' Munday has an adventure-filled background, having spent 20 years in the Royal Australian Navy as an Electronic Technician. Although writing was always something he excelled at, Frank didn't realise how much he would enjoy it as a career! After a short period in the computer industry, his work life evolved (too rapidly) into Technical Publishing in Defence Electronics. After a stint in management, Frank returned to Internet and intranet documentation, working for a variety of organisations including CSIRO, University of Canberra, and IP Australia. Frank is currently a permanent member of the Australian Federal Police, for whom he has developed a wide range of on line documentation and training projects. His role includes teaching Technical Writing techniques, publishing Technical Manuals, Help Systems, User Guides, brochures - in fact, anything that needs authoring and publishing. Frank's "Life After Work" is Hot Rods - and writing! He has had published three Technical Manuals on Auto Electronics, Electronic Fuel Injection and Engine Management Systems published, and has another work on the way.

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Gareth Oakes (PTC/Arbortext)

Gareth Oakes is a technical consultant who has been working in the field of enterprise publishing for 7 years for companies such as Advent3B2, Arbortext and PTC. Gareth's history in programming and multimedia has allowed his career to cover many roles from software development and systems architecture through to training and sales.
www.pdsol.com.au

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Tony Self (HyperWrite)

Tony Self is a founding partner in HyperWrite Pty Ltd, which was the first hypertext document development company in Australia. Tony has over 20 years documentation experience, including 13 years with online and hypertext documents in WinHelp and HTML formats. He has managed large online documentation projects in Australia and New Zealand. Tony has undertaken roles in technology training design and delivery, and computer-based training development, in Australia and Ireland. He has spoken at conferences in Australia, the United States, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In addition to consulting, Tony lectures in technical communication at Swinburne University. He is the co-author of Swimming With the Tide, a Business Guide to the Internet.
http://www.hyperwrite.com/

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Stewart Walker

Stewart Walker is a former technical writer who has moved on to other adventures such as usability, intranet management and information architecture in recent years. During his 15-year technical writing career, Stewart was involved in a range of online documentation projects. These included some innovative help systems that he has showcased at previous AODC and Winwriters conferences. Stewart's other claims to fame include being a member of the infamous AODC band in 2002.

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Joe Welinske (WritersUA)

Joe Welinske is the president of Seattle-based WritersUA, formerly known as WinWriters. The WritersUA/WinWriters Conference in the US draws hundreds of attendees each year from around the world to share the latest in user assistance design and implementation. Joe has been involved with software documentation development since 1984. Together with Scott Boggan and David Farkas, Joe authored two editions of the popular and pioneering book Developing Online Help for Windows. He has also taught online Help courses at the University of Washington and UC Santa Cruz.
http://www.writersua.com/

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