The quick, infor­mal version…

Thinker, doer, icon­o­clast, pro­fes­sional loudmouth

I help organ­i­sa­tions under­stand and imple­ment bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tions, change, design think­ing, ser­vice design, hyper­con­nect­ed­ness, social inno­va­tion and collaboration.

I’m the Founder here at acid­labs.

I’m an open gov­ern­ment advocate.

I’m a TEDi­zen and the Cre­ative Cat­a­lyst behind TEDx­Can­berra.

I write occa­sion­ally for ABC Unleashed and other out­lets and do some pub­lic speak­ing.

I’m a hus­band and Dad.

I’m a CrossFitter.

I’m a rugby tragic.

I play some World of War­craft.

INTP.

I’m known to most as “trib”. Long story. Feel free to use it.

I can be found all over the web at:

about​.me
tum­blr
Twit­ter
Google+
Face­book
LinkedIn
Flickr

And the long version

Stephen Collins, often known as @trib, is an expe­ri­enced com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gist who under­stands peo­ple and busi­ness. He helps put the two together.

Whether it’s design­ing user expe­ri­ences, help­ing to under­stand change, work­ing on design­ing the deliv­ery of ser­vices or help­ing to under­stand col­lab­o­ra­tion and knowl­edge shar­ing in the con­text of 21st Cen­tury busi­ness, Stephen has proven exper­tise and expe­ri­ence hav­ing worked with some of Australia’s largest cor­po­rate and gov­ern­ment organ­i­sa­tions on solv­ing these problems.

Stephen has been think­ing about and work­ing on prob­lems in his areas of exper­tise long enough that he knows there is no sim­ple answer. He knows it’s not about social media, or cam­paigns, strate­gies or tac­tics, but about under­stand­ing busi­ness goals and prob­lems, and under­stand­ing peo­ple inside and out­side the busi­ness and how they man­age change.

More impor­tantly, he knows tech­nol­ogy is only a small part of any solu­tion. Tech­nol­ogy doesn’t help organ­i­sa­tions and indi­vid­u­als spread and retain knowl­edge, engage employ­ees, and con­nect with stake­hold­ers, cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties. Peo­ple do.

Peo­ple are at the core of Stephen’s work in change, ser­vice design and user expe­ri­ence. He helps design and build great expe­ri­ences by con­nect­ing to peo­ple in and around your busi­ness. Their needs and goals are con­sid­ered, dis­tilled and included.

Since he founded acid­labs in 2006, Steve has con­cen­trated on work­ing with organ­i­sa­tions in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to help them change their cor­po­rate cul­ture into one where peo­ple are at the heart of every­thing they do.

Stephen has worked in the Aus­tralian pub­lic sec­tor and con­sult­ing indus­tries. He has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in gov­ern­ment and pri­vate busi­ness with exper­tise in cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, ser­vice design, organ­i­sa­tional change, knowl­edge man­age­ment, web strat­egy, user expe­ri­ence design and busi­ness analysis.

Stephen is recog­nised inter­na­tion­ally as an inno­va­tor, com­mu­nity builder and engag­ing pub­lic speaker. His views are reg­u­larly sought in the media and at con­fer­ences and he has received exten­sive cov­er­age in many forums.

Other things

Stephen is the Cre­ative Cat­a­lyst behind TEDx­Can­berra. He is also an active (un)organiser and con­trib­u­tor to the Bar­Camp move­ment as a part of the team at Bar­Camp Can­berra.

Recently, he was selected as one of the inter­na­tional panel of organ­i­sa­tional col­lab­o­ra­tion experts, The Thinkers, for the project The Future of the Col­lab­o­ra­tive Enter­prise.

His work on pub­lic sec­tor reform and open gov­ern­ment has been pub­lished by the Cen­tre for Pol­icy Devel­op­ment and in the book State of the eUnion: Gov­ern­ment 2.0 and Onwards, released in Novem­ber 2009. Stephen was also a key author and researcher for the Aus­tralian Government’s Gov­ern­ment 2.0 Primer.

He is a con­trib­u­tor to ABC Unleashed, the ABC’s opin­ion blog and has also been pub­lished in Mar­ket­ing Mag­a­zine, Social Com­put­ing Mag­a­zine and has been inter­viewed sev­eral times for arti­cles on ZDNet Aus­tralia. In 2008 and 2009 Stephen con­tributed to The Age of Con­ver­sa­tion and also pro­vided a piece for the anti-​​depression project The Per­fect Gift for a Man in 2009.