Speaking

I am a pro­fes­sional speaker and present reg­u­larly at con­fer­ences in Aus­tralia, New Zealand and the USA. I am also avail­able to speak to pri­vate groups at your organ­i­sa­tion. I tend to use the space avail­able to me, pre­sent­ing in a friendly, approach­able style rather than lec­ture format.

To get some ideas about my pre­sen­ta­tion style, you can see video of sev­eral talks and inter­views on my YouTube chan­nel.

Cur­rently, most of my talks are on the issues of a hyper­con­nected soci­ety, espe­cially as it relates to busi­ness and knowl­edge management.

My terms are flex­i­ble based on your event. Fully-​​commercial events usu­ally attract a mod­est fee (that is used to fund loans to busi­ness own­ers in the devel­op­ing world through Kiva). Please con­tact me directly if you’d like me to speak at your event.

If you are a cor­po­rate entity, please con­tact my agent, Zoë Vaughan at Clax­ton Speak­ers. Plan­ners and con­fer­ence organ­is­ers can also read about logis­ti­cal require­ments such as my bio and AV needs.

Past talks

The mate­r­ial at the past speak­ing page will give you full pic­ture of my past pub­lic speak­ing activ­i­ties. You can always access recent pre­sen­ta­tions on Slideshare​.net.

What peo­ple are saying

“Stephen pro­vided the inspi­ra­tional open­ing keynote at my con­fer­ence, HR Futures, in Feb­ru­ary 2009. Some of the feed­back from atten­dees included: “Engag­ing and & inspi­ra­tional” “Excel­lent, pas­sion­ate and knowl­edge­able” “Insight­ful and moti­vat­ing” “A great open­ing for the day” I would highly rec­om­mend him for other con­fer­ences.”
- Michael Specht, inSpecht

“Cap​i​talJobs​.com​.au engaged Stephen to speak at the inau­gural Aus­tralian Recruit­ment and Tech­nol­ogy Con­fer­ence, Recruit­TECH, in Can­berra on 18 Sep­tem­ber 2009. I had ear­lier seen Stephen speak at the HR Futures Con­fer­ence in Mel­bourne and I was very impressed with the con­tent of his pre­sen­ta­tion and the man­ner in which he deliv­ered it. I asked him to deliver a sim­i­lar pre­sen­ta­tion about the neces­sity for organ­i­sa­tions to embrace change, par­tic­u­larly in rela­tion to tal­ent acqui­si­tion and man­age­ment. Stephen’s pre­sen­ta­tion on the day was top­i­cal, chal­leng­ing (even con­tro­ver­sial) and keenly received by the audi­ence. His con­tent was edgy, non-​​conformist and thought-​​provoking. The pre­sen­ta­tion was well pre­pared and sup­ported by excel­lent graph­i­cal imagery. I would rec­om­mend hir­ing Stephen as a speaker at your event.”
- Clay­ton Wehner, RecruitTECH

“Stephen is an excel­lent speaker and really knows his topic. He presents it in an easy to digest man­ner with lots of real world exam­ples, includ­ing many real Aus­tralian case stud­ies. I would highly rec­om­mend any­one goes along to one of Stephen’s speak­ing events, or even have Stephen speak to the deci­sion mak­ers within your organ­i­sa­tion.“
- Jodie Min­ers, Consultant

“Stephen is a rare com­bi­na­tion of bril­liant com­mu­ni­ca­tor, cre­ative genius, and top-​​drawer com­mu­nity builder. Stephen’s pre­sen­ta­tions on social media and col­lab­o­ra­tion are some of the very best I’ve seen in the 2.0 space. He has a solid grasp of the busi­ness ben­e­fits of col­lab­o­ra­tion and social net­work­ing and occu­pies a well-​​deserved thought lead­er­ship posi­tion in the com­mu­nity.”
- Susan Scrup­ski, nGenera

“Stephen spoke recently at the Aus­tralian Grad­u­ate School of Entre­pre­neurs (AGSE) Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion Novem­ber event, inform­ing us all on ways of using Web 2.0 and Social Net­work­ing effec­tively. This was explained within a range of busi­ness sec­tors, specif­i­cally look­ing at the value to entre­pre­neur­ial and inno­v­a­tive com­pany cul­tures, start up com­pa­nies and a range of gen­er­a­tions — with real $ out­comes. Steve also was demon­strat­ing the fact, we beamed him in via Skype from Can­berra and pre­sented him in vir­tual per­sona. Even when our tech­ni­cal experts were unex­pect­edly absent, two baby boomers at the Mel­bourne end were still able to get the show on the road with min­i­mal delay. His man­ner, com­mit­ment, thor­ough­ness and intel­lect were absolutely won­der­ful. I can only offer my high­est rec­om­men­da­tion.“
- Karen Demp­ster, Aus­tralian Grad­u­ate School of Entrepreneurship

“The Aus­tralian Web Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion invited Stephen to speak at the inau­gural Edge of the Web con­fer­ence in Perth, West­ern Aus­tralia, on the topic of “Enter­prise 2.0″. His pre­sen­ta­tion — a broad explo­ration of a con­cep­tu­ally chal­leng­ing but very rel­e­vant topic — was well-​​attended and well-​​received.”
- Kay Smol­jak, Edge of the Web

“Stephen is an engag­ing speaker who is an expert in his field. His in depth knowl­edge makes his pre­sen­ta­tions infor­ma­tive, edu­ca­tional and prac­ti­cal. Stephen’s pre­sen­ta­tion style is fun, dif­fer­ent and pro­vides the audi­ence with a mem­o­rable pre­sen­ta­tion. I look for­ward to work­ing with Stephen again.”
- Josh Anstey, Elcom

“Stephen’s gig at the Web 2.0 Media Day Pub­Camp in Mel­bourne last June was the best. Pas­sion­ate, knowl­edge­able, enter­tain­ing… Authen­tic!“
- Paul Roberts, Aus­tralian Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Media Authority