My work 

INDIGENOGRAPHY, DESIGN THINKING AND ME

• 2020 June - June 2021

  • Project Lead and Strategist Village Response Plan- Department Justice and Community Safety Victoria (DJCV)

  • Indigenography and Design (I&D) 2020 – present

  • I&D is a consultancy I created in response to the emerging need for Government, Corporate and Educational organisations to include Indigenous knowledge and research as part of how they operatonalise Inclusiveness and diversity in their service offerings.

  • ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Drafted and Implemented the Village Response Plan (VRP) a grassroots response to reducing recidivism in West Melbourne

  • Led and coached four professionals from participants on the project to setting up consultancies to meet emerging demand

  • Project leading remotely from NZ using Design Thinking and Agile framework – four team leaders, 102 community members from 22 community organisations

  • Delivered 30 days of intervention report with 13 insights that have led to 4 keys areas of engagement and intervention

  • This project will map the first Pasifika led Reintegration Pathway for Pasifika and Maori youth offenders in Victoria.
     

• February 2021- Teu le Va' (nurture the space) in-between intersectionality ServDes2020 Workshop

  • A workshop focused on the ServDes. 2020 theme of ‘Plurality’ with the intention to provide innovative tools that generate experiences validating participants from diverse
    backgrounds through the lens of Intersectionality and the Samoan concept of space; called ‘Va’ or the space in-between.

  • Pacific author and academic Albert Wendt states that:

  • Va is the space between the between-ness, not empty space, not space that separates, but space that relates, that holds separate entities and things together in the Unity-that-is-All, the space that is context, giving meaning to things (Wendt,1996).

  • Teu le Va is a call to nurture the space in-between, premised on forgiveness and reconciliation (Muliaumaseali’i, 2017). Here we use its literal translation to tidy, beautify the space in-between (Muliaumaseali’i, 2017).

  • For the purposes of this workshop, Intersectionality is defined as a concept seeking to dismantle the power dynamics and cultural structures that discriminate against race, class and gender to create advocacy and remedial practices towards an egalitarian society (Crenshaw, 1989).

  • We explore Crenshaw’s (1989) notions by identifying where individual identities intersect (Coatson,2019) and how Va might bridge these intersections towards an even playing field. These themes influence a tactile, audio and visual experience aimed to present interventions that might Teu le Va (nurture the space) in-between Intersectionality.

• 2017- 2020

  • Manager Experience Design and Project Management.

    • Design Research - strategy and tactics

    • Monthly CX metrics report - collating and co-designing metrics to measure human experience

    • CX team culture - strategy, design and implementation.

  • 2018 -Senior Service Designer solving for Adult Postgraduate Learners ​

    • Service Blueprint​

    • Student Journey Map

  • 2017 -Project Lead Indigenous Student Journey 

    • Indigenous Student Journey Map​

    • Indigenous Word Cards ( my design intervention)

  • Design Approach and Methodologies: Lean, Agile 

• 2013-2017 PhD Ethnographic Research

  • Drawing upon ethnographic research on everyday communicative ecologies in village Samoa, my research is designed to enter debates around the mobile’s place in the larger cultural settings. It seeks to understand how, where and when different people communicate and flows and channels of information amongst both users and non-users of mobile phones. How is the mobile phone impacting Samoan tradition and culture? What is the economic and social impact upon the everyday Samoan? Themes of gender inequality, bridging the digital divide, religion and family are explored.

  • 2013-Present 

• Digital Ethnography Research Centre Alumni

• 2012-2013 

  • The PACMAS State of the Media and Communication Report 2013 was undertaken through a partnership between RMIT University (Australia), the University of Goroka (UoG, Papua New Guinea) and UNITEC (New Zealand). The study was commissioned as a baseline study to inform PACMAS activities across 14 countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Republic of Nauru, Niue, Republic of Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu. The study was undertaken between June 2012 and April 2013, and included visits to each country to conduct a total of 212 individual interviews, and the establishment of a Panel of Expertise for verification.

    • The PACMAS State of Media and Communication Report provides information across four components in each of the countries:

    • • Media Policy and Legislation;
      • Media and Communication Systems;
      • Media Capacity Building;
      • Media Content.

    • The report explores these four components through PACMAS’s six strategic activities:

    • • Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVETs);
      • Pacific Emergency Broadcasting Systems (PEBS);
      • Pacific Communication Technicians;
      • National Media and Communication Associations;
      • Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs);
      • Climate Change.

    • This study was supported by the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme and ABC International Development, and funded by Australian Aid.

• 2019 

o   Indigenous Word Cards used at all levels in the organisation (executive meetings, workshops, gifts and staff meetings/workshops

o   Operations Portfolio Ngulu (voice) Representative - Committee Reconciliation ​​

o   Consultancy services offered

§  Diversity and Inclusion​ (facilitation and coaching)

§  Reconciliation and You (facilitation and coaching)

• Milestones 2018

o   Winner RMIT Operations Portfolio Diversity Champion 2018 

o   Indigenous Word Cards (IWC) created and sold online.​

o   Product Owner - Indigenous Engagement squad. Developed and tested framework for using IWC for engaging with Indigeneity.

• November 2017

o   Project lead/advisor RMIT Indigenous Student Journey Project : Design Thinking approach to building better experiences for Australian Indigenous students​

RECIPROCITY IN PRACTICE

• 2018- August to current

  • Provide communication strategies to 10 Pacific small businesses (home based)​

  • Communicating with Confidence workshops

  • Facilitation and Panel Moderation

    • Unconscious bias- public event​ (Melbourne)

    • Master of Ceremonies inaugural Pacific Business Networking Australia (Melbourne)

    • Panel Moderator - Pacific Influencers' Dinner (Sydney)

      • Panel guests - Tiana Epati; President of the NZ Law Society, Hobart Va'ai: CEO Chamber of Commerce Samoa, Dusk Devi: Director and founder of of ​Dusk Devi Vison Media and PR, Bridget Foliaki-Davis: Celebrity Chef and author. 

  • I AM A.W.O.K.E 

    • online campaign (1 month)​ created a safe space for people to share their experiences of unconscious bias.

    • A.W.O.K.E Seminar emerged from the online campaign to meet the need for human engagement and camaraderie towards finding solutions to dealing with marginalised and stereotypical unconscious bias in the work place.