Simon Pockley - Resume
Profile:
Experienced leader in the community, environmental, cultural and education sectors. Strong governance and strategic planning coupled with an inclusive but decisive management style. Thrives in complex environments by developing practical, innovative solutions and measuring the results.
Key Competencies:
- Strategic planner, prescient thinker and policy/procedure maker;
- Extensive experience with Community empowerment in the areas of sustainability and climate change;
- Successful, relentless innovator combined with a pragmatic temperament;
- Strong leader in transitional environments with well developed change management skills and a fearlessly proactive approach to problem solving;
- Experienced staff and volunteer manager, motivator and mentor;
- Accomplished speaker, writer and presenter;
- Deep understanding of the impact of technical trends in the production and consumption of renewable energy;
- Trained librarian/geneticist with highly developed organisational skills and a keen interest in the effective use of data visualisation and geo-spatial convergence;
- Experienced team leader with profile as an international expert in standards development;
- Extensive experience in all aspects of digital content management including web and repository development, interface design, multi-channel delivery, adaptability, usability testing, accessibility, rights management, privacy legislation;
- High-level mark-up languages (HTML5, CSS, XML,) as well as in the usual office applications (WORD, EXCEL etc);
- International and national networks within the environmental, cultural and tertiary education sectors.
Educational Qualifications:
- Doctor of Philosophy (Information Design), RMIT University
- Renewable Energy (BCSE qualified), Swinburne University
- Certificate IV Business (Governance)
- Certificate IV Training and Assessment
- Teaching Certificate, N.S.W. Department of Education
- Diploma of Education/Library, University of N.S.W.
- Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Majors in Drama and Genetics.
Employment background:
- 2011 - 2013: Senior Business Analyst, Australian National Data Service (ANDS)
The Australian National Data Service (ANDS) makes Australia's research data assets more valuable for researchers, research institutions and the nation.
ANDS is a partnership led by Monash University, along with the Australian National University (ANU) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). It is funded by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) program.
Reporting to the Directors, key responsibilities included:
Carriage of the Metadata Stores Program as a key component of research infrastructure. Responsible for the development of institution-wide solutions for the discovery and reuse of research data collections. Funding the development of a number of software solutions for creating rich metadata records about collections of data, ensuring that this metadata is properly managed so that it can be harvested and exposed to search engines as well as to researchers and research administrators. Metadata Stores provides connectors to institutional sources of truth, coverage over the entire institution, and feeds provided to
Research Data Australia.
- 2007 - 2011: President, Southern Otway Landcare Network (SOLN)
SOLN is a voluntary, not-for-profit organisation representing 5 Landcare Groups with around 400 members. The Committee of Management provides more than $100,000 worth of volunteer hours per annum to deliver more than $1.5 million worth of environmental services to the community. That's in addition to the less easily quantifiable values of having a healthy environment (clean air, clean water, carbon mitigation, natural habitat)
As Chair, responsible for leading the organisation and overseeing:
- Development of a 5 year strategic plan for the Network;
- Effective partnerships with Corangamite Catchment Management Authority, Barwon Water, Colac Otway Shire, the Victorian Farm Tree and Landcare Association, Parks Victoria, as well as a range of local Community Groups;
- Employment of one full time Co-ordinator and 3 part time Co-ordinators;
- Restoration, rehabilitation, and protection of the environment of the Southern Otways (as well as habitat biodiversity, and aesthetic improvement);
- Roadside weed control;
- Management of a seed-bank of indigenous species with accurate provenance;
- Management of a nursery of indigenous plants with correct provenance for riparian restoration planting;
- Management of vegetation offsets for Colac Otway Shire and landholders;
- Development and management of a Community Access Library of scientific, reference and educational resources;
- Provision of educational services to Government Officers, Otway schools, as well as a range of capacity building activities such as the Waterwatch Programs, Barham River Festival etc;
- Monitoring and evaluation of the success (or failure) of environmental projects in the Otways including erosion control on steep slopes, gullies and waterways;
- Management of the many and various problems that emerge during any project that involves a mix of steep topography, neighbours, volunteers, contractors, difficult weather;
- Chairing and participating in Reference Groups with Shire and Government Agencies;
- Competition for scarce funding.
- 2008 - 2010: Founding Chair, Otway Ranges Climate Action (ORCA)
Founding Chair and convenor of ORCA in late 2008. The organisation was created as a channel for Community Action in response to a growing awareness of the impact of Climate Change. As founding Chair, I was responsible for securing seed funding and establishing adequate and appropriate governance so that the organisation could accept more funding and be clear about its aims.
ORCA has now been successfully handed over to others, the measure of this success being that the organisation has a life of its own and sufficient funds to operate and develop.
- 2007 - 2010: Principal of Duck Digital Consulting:
- Consultant Analyst - RMIT - School of Creative Media;
- Avoca Project: Art, Place and Climate Change. Co-ordinating, research and the implementation of Community Water Fund Grant project (RMIT);
- Senior Research Consultant - Queensland University of Technology (QUT);
- Sessional teacher - RMIT - Digital Asset Management (DAM);
- Consultant Analyst - Tolhurst Noal - stockbrokers.
- 2004 - 2006: Deakin University - Digital Object Management System (DOMS) Support Manager
Reporting to the acting head of Knowledge Media, key responsibilities included:
- Managing the Digital Repository Implementation Team and all project activities including benchmarking initiatives across Australian universities, strategies, policy, assessment criteria and nurturing the development of a (digital repository) community of interest across Australian universities.
- 2000-2004: Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Collections Manager,
Reporting to the CEO and then to the recently appointed Director of Public Programs, key responsibilities included:
- Successfully managed ACMI's collections of digital and analogue content (90,000 titles valued at $48 million)
- Successfully managed the work loads of ACMI Collections Managers including registration cataloguing, conservation, despatch and acquisitions
- Successfully managed the contractual responsibilities and budgets associated with the providing access to the moving image collections of the National Library of Australia, through the National Film and Video Lending Service (NFVLS)
- Successfully lead the development as well as the deployment of International Standards for moving image and digital media, including on-demand encoding, transcoding and digitisation
- Developed a National Collection management integration strategy with particular emphasis on the future management and access needs of digital media
- Developed and maintaining a Strategic Business and Operational Plan as well as Collection Management Policies appropriate to the future needs of the collections in a networked digital environment
- Successfully managed the development of an integrated cataloguing system for digital and analogue media
- Successfully coordinated ACMI's participation with the tertiary education sector in digital research projects including ARC project Copyright and Digitisation, ARC proposal Significance Assessment and ACMI's participation in the CRC for Interactive Design (University Queensland)
- Successfully managed the restructure of ACMI's Collections Unit to meet the emerging needs of ACMI at Federation Square
- Developed and nurtured partnerships with government, industry, cultural organizations and universities
- Represented ACMI at International and National forums, union negotiations and cross agency initiatives
Selected publications:
- Pockley, S. (2008) The Authentic Dissertation - Alternative Ways of Knowing. Part 7.4. The Flight of Ducks. Routledge;
- Pockley, S. (2006) (preprint) Lost in Translation - Poetics of information loss, a cautionary tale. Chapter, Content Management Systems. Scarecrow;
- Pockley, S. (2004) Metadata and the Arts - the art of metadata. Chapter 4 in International Yearbook of Library and Information Management;. Facet;
- Pockley, S. (2002) Contributor: UNESCO Guide to Preservation and Digital Heritage
- Pockley, S. (2001) Contributor: UNESCO Guide to Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Selected presentations/conference papers:
- Guest Speaker: The Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation. Melbourne University July 2010, 2012, 2013
- Guest Speaker: Queensland University of Technology. Brisbane. August 2006
- Guest Speaker: ETD2005. Sydney. September 2005
- Guest Speaker: Vital Signs - creative practice and new media now. Melbourne. September 2005
- Type Working Group Chair: DC2003, Seattle, October 2003
- Guest Speaker: UNESCO, Preservation and Digital Heritage for Asia Pacific,
NLA, Canberra, November 2002
- Guest Speaker: DC2002, Florence, October 2002
- Guest Speaker: Sights and Sounds in Scholarly Communication, Canberra,
October 2002
- Guest Speaker: FIAT/IFLA Conference - London (September 2001)
- Guest Speaker: OZeCulture (Melbourne June 2001)
- Plenary Speaker: ETD 2001, The Fourth International Symposium on
Electronic Theses and Dissertations March 2001 at the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena. (April 2001)
- Plenary Speaker at the 2nd Annual XML Summit in Sydney (March 2001)
Committees and industry memberships
- President, Otway Barham Catchment Landcare Group 2011-
- Chair, Southern Otway Landcare Network 2007-2011
- Founding Chair, Otway Climate Action 2008-2010
- Chair, Otway Barham Catchment Reference Group 2007-2010
- Treasurer, DC-ANZ 1998 -
- Member, Alternative Technology Association 2008 -
- Advisor, National Library of Australia 1995 - 2000
Other interests
- 2008-2011: Merri Solars - Longitudinal research study of solar performance
- PhD student mentor, supervisor and examiner.
- Learning the Bach cello suites.