PDFAssociates
Our Associates contribute their distinctive expertise to Austhink Consulting projects on an occasional basis. Associates include:
John Burns
John Burns joined Austhink as an Associate Consultant in 2009. His main expertise lies in the frontier between thought and writing; clarifying understanding and communicating it effectively and efficiently. After several years reserve military service and working in human resources in Britain, John joined the Hong Kong Police (HKP) in 1984, working mainly as a detective, in the Commercial Crime Bureau, the Narcotics Bureau (money laundering) and the Criminal Intelligence Bureau investigating complex crimes, usually with an international dimension. John obtaining his first formal training qualification as a badminton coach over 30 years ago. He has qualified in, and trained, subjects as diverse as personal fitness, occupational health and safety and business writing and presentation skills. He also trained detectives in investigation skills and worked as the Psychologist to the HKP’s bomb disposal unit, helping select and train bomb disposal officers in appreciation, problem-solving and decision making. Since retiring from the HKP he has been based in Hong Kong and combined communications training with work as a (largely web-based) consultant, helping clients in the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Australia and New Zealand “say what they mean”. He sees argument and decision mapping as great tools for clarifying and sharing understanding and recently submitted a Masters thesis to the University of Melbourne exploring how argument maps can improve the evaluation of evidence in criminal cases, developing the concept of pre-structured argument maps that discourage intuitive evaluations, scaffold reasoning and collect and give easy access to the domain knowledge relevant to cases being assessed.
Dr. Martin Davies
Martin Davies is a higher education professional who integrates expertise in philosophy with a practical background as a postgraduate learning specialist. He holds doctorates in Philosophy from the University of Adelaide (2003) and Flinders University (1996) and educational qualifications from the University of Adelaide and Cambridge University. He won the H. J. Allen Prize in Philosophy from the University of Adelaide in 2002. Martin began his career as a lecturer in philosophy and shifted his attention to training students in academic literacy, especially postgraduate students from non-English speaking backgrounds. He has an interest in better ways of teaching skills in argumentation to students, and currently teaches a subject in Writing and Publishing at the University of Melbourne. Martin has published three books in philosophy, another on Interdisciplinary Higher Education, and a fifth on study skills. He has published around 20 articles in a diverse range of scholarly journals. He is currently an Associate Professor in Higher Education and Acting Director in the Teaching and Learning Unit in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Economics. Martin is a Co-Editor for the journal Higher Education Research and Development, and Guest Editor for a special issue of HERD on Critical Thinking in Higher Education.
Dr. Ricky Ohl
Ricky Ohl holds a PhD degree and degrees in Commerce with Honours and in Business Management. His PhD thesis was titled “CSAV Modelling for Consultative Democracy around Wicked Problems”. In this case study, computer supported argument visualisation was applied to the analysis and representation of the draft South East Queensland Regional Plan Consultation discourse, demonstrating how argument mapping can help deliver the transparency and accountability required in participatory democracy. Consultative democracy for regional planning falls into a category of problems known as ‘wicked problems’. Inherent in this environment is heterogeneous viewpoints, agendas and voices, built on disparate and often contradictory logic. The high volume of stakeholders and discourse heterogeneity in this environment calls for a unique approach to argument mapping. The map design model developed from this research has been titled a ‘Consultation Map’. The design incorporates the IBIS ontology within a hybrid of mapping approaches, amalgamating elements from concept, dialogue, argument, debate, thematic and tree mapping. His teaching, in both advanced masters and undergraduate courses at Griffith University and Qantm College has focused on areas including knowledge management, project management, business management, information visualisation, information systems, informatics, and IT governance and service management. In his earlier career, he was involved in the performance of several family owned businesses including, concrete piping, blocks and other products, a cinema and entertainment theatre and a sporting centre.
Jane Lewis
Jane Lewis was previously an Austhink Principal Consultant. She has a background in social and organisational psychology; her profession is corporate facilitation and training, particularly in the fields of leadership, team-building, innovation, sales process management, argument and decision mapping. She has also worked at the sharp end of major business-to-business sales in the energy industry, leading a national team. One of the original planners of Austhink Consulting business ten years ago, Jane was delighted to officially join Austhink in 2005. She delivers argument and decision mapping training and facilitation to the Department of Sustainability and Environment, to ANZ, Rio Tinto, BHP and to legal firms DLA Phillips Fox, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Deacons, and the Australian Government Solicitor. Jane’s earlier careers as an actress and musician add flair and energy to her facilitation and training sessions. She has a twenty-two-year-old daughter and an eighteen-year-old nephew living with her, and a passion for music, ballroom dancing and Argentine Tango.