GRAEME SIMSION
Graeme
Simsion enjoys a reputation as an outstanding and entertaining communicator
– Often controversial, and always prepared to question not only
the conventional wisdom but his own ideas as well, he is identified with
some of the most important ideas and trends in data administration and
data modeling over the past decade. He has been an outspoken critic of
conventional approaches to data administration and advocated a tactical,
project-based approach, which has been widely adopted. In data modeling
he supports the need for specialist data modelers, regards data modeling
as a creative design activity, and was one of the first to highlight the
importance of using patterns.
He brings a perspective to his seminar from the broader worlds of business, human development and technology. In recent months he has spoken on data management, business process management, consultancy skills, communication skills, career planning, and relationships between academe and industry, at conferences in the US, Europe and Australia. His book, Data Modeling Essentials, written with Graham Witt, is now in its third edition, and is widely regarded as the clearest work on the topic.
Graeme’s interests
extend well beyond the data management field: after spending his early
career as a DBA, he built and managed a successful consultancy which grew
to some 70 staff covering IS planning, process re-design and systems specification
as well as data management and data modeling. During this period, he continued
to take on consulting assignments himself, primarily facilitating business
and technology planning at the senior management level. In recent years
he has mixed his conference presentations, workshop facilitation, consulting
engagements and original research at the University of Melbourne. Graeme’s
presentations are noteworthy for their occasional “theatrical”
elements. In the past, he has notoriously dressed as a duck, preached
from a ladder, and on one occasion he engaged a group of chartered accountants
in community singing to get his message across.