The quick, informal version…
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:
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.










Liberate Your Control Freaks - The Slide Show « ITSinsider
Jun 28, 2007 @ 21:56:47
[…] by Susan Scrupski on June 28th, 2007 Another winner by Stephen Collins. This comes to us courtesy of IBM’s Ian Hughes who picked it up from IBM’s internal […]
Office 2.0 Enterprise 2.0 Track Zeros in on Adoption Issues « ITSinsider
Aug 13, 2007 @ 12:17:00
[…] can relate to in Adam’s presentation. Then, coming from half-way around the world will be Stephen Collins who has done some of the best slideshare presentations I’ve seen on Enterprise 2.0 this year. […]
E L S U A ~ A KM Blog by Luis Suarez » Blog Archive » I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for - not the U2 Song
Aug 17, 2007 @ 04:42:14
[…] I created a weblog post sharing over here some further details on a superb piece of work done by Stephen Collins, from Acidlabs, on Enterprise 2.0 under the heading Liberate Your Control Freaks. Well, it looks […]
E L S U A ~ A KM Blog by Luis Suarez » Blog Archive » Knowledge Worker 2.0 by Stephen Collins
Aug 17, 2007 @ 05:41:27
[…] with that particular presentation, that I have just referenced in the previous weblog post, which Stephen Collins (From Acidlabs) put together a little while ago, here we go with another one he has just shared […]
E L S U A ~ A KM Blog by Luis Suarez » Blog Archive » And You Thought That Knowledge Management Was Invented a Few Decades Ago?
Sep 08, 2007 @ 04:33:21
[…] (Oh, and I am writing this particular weblog post while attending remotely the speaker session from Stephen Collins at the Office 2.0 event on “Knowledge Worker 2.0″! Can it get better than […]
Tyler Reed » Blog Archive » I Am Knowledge Worker 2.0
Sep 12, 2007 @ 03:21:53
[…] An awesome presentation on what a knowledge worker is by Stephen Collins. […]
Bicycling backwards at All the Rest…
Sep 13, 2007 @ 23:04:26
[…] also reminds me of the concept of “bursty workers,” a phrase I recently discovered via Stephen Collins‘ enjoyable recent presentation I am Knowledge Worker 2.0 — Hear me roar at the Office […]
acidlabs » Transitions
Feb 11, 2008 @ 16:16:46
[…] Meet Stephen Collins […]
On real work « Brad Hinton - plain speaking
Feb 18, 2008 @ 19:56:30
[…] not of value for real work. And this negative opinion hasn’t gone unnoticed, as Stephen Collins rightly fulminates over in a post last year in response to more negative press about social […]
The “Just Do It” (with users) methodology! « Matt’s Musings
Mar 15, 2008 @ 10:03:54
[…] “Just Do It” (with users) methodology! Stephen Collins has written an interesting commentary on iterative IT project methodologies with an interesting and […]
Getting people onboard « A Man With A Ph.D.
Apr 22, 2008 @ 05:43:20
[…] Paving the Way for Adoption: [Via Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media] This slide show from Stephen Collins make me think about teaching Internet Skills Workshops for Nonprofits that I used […]
MAPping Company Success
May 05, 2008 @ 17:15:30
[…] whether/how to use them — but I keep getting asked. So when I accidentally fell into a dialog with Stephen Collins, Founder and Chief Troublemaker at acidlabs, during a thread on LinkedInBloggers (a yahoo e group) […]
A great presentation | GeekGirl
Jul 01, 2008 @ 15:13:17
[…] thumbs up to Stephen Collins for this […]
Generation Y: Not Slackers, Just Sprinters. You Know, “Bursty.” : Brazen Careerist - A Career Center for Generation Y
Jul 03, 2008 @ 21:18:29
[…] the thing: Stephen Collins (the presenter) talks about “bursty” versus “busy” workers. Bursty workers are what we […]
Show Support for the Company-Customer Pact | Gauravonomics Blog
Aug 19, 2008 @ 02:45:23
[…] Stephen Collins of acidlabs […]
Intranet Manager « Anthony Milner
Oct 24, 2008 @ 17:32:22
[…] If you’re interested why not come along and hear from industry experts Derek Jardine and Stephen Collins as well as a case study from Orica Consumer Products which will give you a closer look at the […]
A word from my friend - the Chief Brand Officer… « The Institute of Effective Communication
Nov 25, 2008 @ 16:31:51
[…] http://www.acidlabs.org/meet-stephen-collins/ […]
Thank you 2008, you finally gave New Media a name » By Elias Bizannes » article » Liako.Biz
Dec 28, 2008 @ 09:24:27
[…] this year Stephen Collins and Chris Saad had flown to Sydney for at the Future of Media summit, and in front of me were […]
Thinking about ownership « Enlightened tradition
Jan 08, 2009 @ 09:38:05
[…] today, Stephen Collins tackles ownership from a quite unexpected angle. In a long and thoughtful post on employee […]