Brand Strategy Melbourne

End of year drinks in Melbourne

Melbourne people, please join us for an in-person get-together to celebrate another year of working in content strategy and design. We have space reserved at Mr Wilkinson, a friendly, relaxed and accessible bar in Brunswick East. Pizza and snacks are available. For those outside Melbourne, sorry you'll miss out this time (unless you book a flight). We'll see you for more great online events from February 2027.

SEEK's CTO on AI transformation: a lunchtime fireside chat with James Ross

Join us for another exciting **in-person** Product Tank event! The event is free, but seats are limited—secure yours now for a fantastic opportunity to meet the speakers and connect with the community. **Event outline** James Ross, CTO of SEEK, sits down for an informal fireside chat on AI transformation. No slides, just questions: • What building with AI on the side has changed about how he thinks about engineering at seek • What's been tried, what's worked and what hasn't • Where it's hardest: people, process or tooling • The experiments he's most excited to run next • His advice to other leaders **About James** James has spent about half of his four decades in tech as a programmer and tech lead, and the other half as a senior manager and leader across startups, scale-ups and corporates. He's had more luck than he thinks is fair, and is one of the only people you'll meet who's written a book you can buy on Amazon, music you can listen to on Spotify and software you can buy online as well. He's very excited about getting his coding mojo back thanks to AI and although he failed to get either of his daughters into tech, he's going to try again with his two grandkids! Don’t miss this opportunity to gain invaluable insights and network with industry experts! **This is an in-person only event.** Doors open 12:15pm, core session from 12:30-1:30pm. See you there, Product Tank Melbourne Team

Dinner & Board Games Fortnightly CBD (We Play Board Games Melbourne)

Hi everyone, Stella & Tarrant here 😃 It's board game and dinner time every 2nd Wednesdays! Everyone's welcome, new or experienced board gamer. Let's play board games together, meet new friends if you want, and also supporting local restaurant buying their food and drink, coz the event is free. 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐑𝐒𝐕𝐏, 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧'𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐬𝐨 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐝, 𝐜𝐨𝐳 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 Meetup will be in the separate room at the back of their venue! 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘: 6pm - 10pm (but the pub is open till later if you want to stay around) 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧: Meetup for dinner & drink while playing board games. Here's a one page PDF document explaining how it works - https://loom.ly/hTHo2cM. Basically, find some friends or make some new ones. 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚: Bring your own games or play our growing board games library, teach others or join others games. We have flag system to help you find people to play with you. Here is the list of our growing games library, categories and with short description - https://loom.ly/fOKuaM4 𝗙𝗘𝗘: Zero. Nada. It's a casual get together, we're helping facilitating the meetup. All I asked is to please order food & drink from the venue, don't bring your own food and eat there, as the venue is a pub, they are providing the venue for free So please help local business 😃 𝗢𝗥𝗚𝗔𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗘: Feel free to post in the comment if you have games you want to bring and teach others, try to organise people to play. Or if you want to join other people's game. We have a group via Aftergame (app/website) where you can organise a game as well here - https://aftergame.app/groups/we-play-board-games-melbourne-meetup-by-meeple-university-1386 𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗧𝗢 𝗚𝗘𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘: Melbourne Central, level 3. Melbourne Central station underneath. There are various public carpark Wilson 300 LaTrobe and Secure Parking in the city. Or the Wilson carpark under Melbourne Central, entry is a set price after 5pm (at the time of writing). And then plenty of public transport in the city 🙂 To connect more to fellow board gamers, you can join the Facebook group that started the event here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/WePlayBoardGames Thank you and hope to see you all then! Stella & Tarrant

Beyond the Tools: The Human Skills That Matter in an AI World

We hear plenty about the skills people need in an AI world. But what do the people using AI in industry have to say? At Victoria University’s inaugural AI Skills Hackathon, students interviewed 23 industry practitioners about AI in their work. Associate Professor Natasha Dwyer will share insights from those conversations, analysed against employability skills frameworks. The usual suspects such as strong communication skills proved crutial. The value lies in the detail: how practitioners describe those skills in the context of their own industries. The interviews also explored AI’s potential to level the playing field. Smaller organisations can often adopt faster than large organisations, and that speed is an advantage. AI can help small and medium enterprises to compete with more resourced organisations. Join us to discuss what these industry perspectives mean for human skills, organisational adaptability and where competitive advantage might emerge. \-\-\- More about Natasha (Tash): Associate Professor Dwyer coordinates the postgraduate digital media program at Victoria University. Her research explores the socio-technical elements of trust. Since 2023, she has led conversational AI projects, with both traditional and practical research outcomes. One of these projects, the Welcome Room, features in TEQSA's (Higher ed. governance body) Generative AI Emerging Practice Toolkit and is currently developing it into an interface designed for students with a wide range of functional needs. She previously served as Interactive Designer at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and was a Research Fellow at British Telecom. Her role was to facilitate public access to ACMI’s collection

Short talks: end of year

We're doing Short talks for the final session of the year. Let us know if you're interested in doing one. We'll keep the speaker list updated as we get closer to the event. Our wonderful sponsors; [Revity](https://www.linkedin.com/company/revity-group/): Revity helps startups, scaleups and established organisations deliver product-led quality software outcomes. We partner with businesses to build high-performing teams, uplift engineering capability, and deliver product outcomes that last beyond the project.From applied AI and mobile apps to global expansion and customer lifecycle platforms, we focus on practical, scalable solutions that drive business value.At Revity, we don’t just deliver projects, we empower teams to learn by doing, so organisations grow stronger with every engagement.

Back to Bonegilla - Albury Regional Weekend Trip

Presenting - Voice, Audience Effect

Smashing! Try something new Thursday **VOICE → AUDIENCE EFFECT** *How Your Voice Influences, Engages and Moves People* An interactive workshop exploring the impact our voices have on an audience. Receive and listen to receive constructive feedback from the audience. Discover how to make your voice captivating, persuasive, engaging and memorable — see how small changes in delivery can make a huge difference. **Connect with your audience, and make every presentation memorable!** Why is Smashing different to other speaking clubs? Interactive reality workshops- Tonight get involved and have some fun. Just two member's thoughts, "The fun/laughs factor is definitely a point of difference. We keep it moving with high standards so it’s a nice balance. Too strict makes it tense and boring, too loose and we can lose the energy/commercial feel. SmashSpeak's vibe's in the sweet spot." "At other clubs I used to listen to long speeches and lectures, here we get so many chances to talk every meeting, that we have to improve" **Free parking** close: O'Connell and Cobden streets **IMPORTANT: Be on time, as doors close when the show starts** “Proudly Australian" – Free-flowing teamwork, greater good focus, sharing the stage, etc Multicultural Hub, 506 Elizabeth St (Opposite Queen Vic Market) Level 1, PURPLE Room (End of corridor) More to come

Shipping with AI - Live in-person event

Hi folks, Exciting news. The UX Book Club is sponsoring an awesome live in-person event, happening in Melbourne Australia on 11 November. The event is an AI meetup. RSVP quick! Details below. // OVERVIEW The Shipping with AI meetup (formerly UX Design in SaaS) has partnered with the [Outlook AI Conference 2026](https://theoutlook.io/events/outlook-ai) to bring you an in-person evening as part of the conference activities. Shipping with AI is a meetup for designers, product managers and engineers who want to move past the hype and learn how AI is actually being used to build and ship real products. No theory-heavy keynotes. Just demos, real workflows and practical tips you can take back to your team the next day. // WHAT IS HAPPENING Our three speakers come at AI from different angles: delivery in regulated industries, engineering and AI agents, and design quality. They'll each share how their teams are shipping with AI right now. That includes the tools, the workflows, what's working, and what they've learned the hard way. Expect presentations, live demos, Q&A, drinks, food, games, prizes and plenty of time to network. // WHEN 6:00pm – 8:30pm, Wednesday 11th November // WHERE Nintex Offices, Level 14, 530 Collins Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 // WHY COME ALONG * See it, don't just hear about it. Live demos of real AI workflows, not slides about the future. * Practical takeaways. Tips and tricks you can try with your team straight away. * Three perspectives in one night. Delivery, engineering and design, so you get the full picture of what it takes to ship with AI. * Ask the hard questions. How do you keep AI output on-brand? How do you bring AI into regulated businesses safely? How do you give coding agents the right context? * Meet your people. Connect with Melbourne designers, PMs and engineers working through the same challenges. * It's free, and there's food, drinks and prizes. // OUR SPEAKERS ANASTAS MANOJLOVSKI – Technical Director, Whitefox Cloud Consulting Anastas has spent 20 years where customers, sales and engineering meet. He specialises in turning messy problems into solutions that actually get delivered. At Whitefox he leads sales and delivery for clients in financial services, insurance, health and logistics, and oversees 25+ engineers across Australia and offshore. His work includes governed Claude adoption with human review and audit trails for financial advice provider Padua, and AI road-defect detection models running in production. Before Whitefox, he spent nine years at Whispir, including five as AU/NZ Head of Solution Architecture. Anastas brings a grounded view on getting AI into regulated businesses without creating new risk. TOM PETERSON – Co-Founder, ctxpipe.ai Tom is a builder who orchestrates local and cloud AI models to get things done, fast. He is co-founder of ctxpipe.ai, an open-source, Git-backed context layer for coding agents and software factories. He is also Head of Product at TRU Rec AI, building computer vision analytics with open-source models. With 15 years in tech across project management, business analysis, design, product and founding, Tom is passionate about developer experience and building tools that make engineers' lives easier. Previously, he co-founded Appear, an API discovery and automation tool. HAMISH O'NEILL – Founder, UI Rules Hamish is a multi-award-winning design leader with more than two decades in digital product design across retail, telecommunications, finance and digital marketplaces. He is the founder of UI Rules, a governance layer that serves brand and design system rules to AI coding tools like Cursor, Claude Code and v0, keeping AI-generated interfaces on-brand. Previously, Hamish was Head of Design Systems at Carsales, where he led the team behind the Torq design system. Before that he was Design Chapter Lead and Design Lead for the Brand & Design System at ANZ. // OUTLOOK AI CONFERENCE The [Outlook AI Conference 2026](https://theoutlook.io/events/outlook-ai) is on Thursday 12th November in Melbourne and is not to be missed. [Tickets are on sale now](https://theoutlook.io/events/outlook-ai#block-tickets-62bf87ad-1efc-4e26-91e6-cd62d9c8affb). // SPONSORS A big thank you to Nintex and the UX Book Club, our amazing sponsors, for making this event happen.

Ignite Greatness – Speak to Inspire

**What if your words could awaken something powerful in others?** *What if you could speak in a way that expands vision, unlocks courage, and inspires people to step into new levels of possibility?* At this Toastmasters meeting, our Skill Shot presenter and MC will share how to speak with conviction, emotional depth, and authentic presence—so your message doesn’t just inform, it elevates. You’ll discover the techniques exceptional speakers use to ignite belief, create momentum, and move audiences toward greater thinking and bold action. Learn how to connect heart to heart, communicate vision clearly, and deliver messages that leave people feeling energised, empowered, and inspired. Inspiration isn’t about performance—it’s about clarity of purpose and strength of belief. When you speak from that place, your words carry power. Equip yourself with the ability to captivate your audience, expand what they believe is possible, and leave a lasting imprint long after you’ve finished speaking. **THIS IS A CURATED GUEST EVENT** Join us tonight at Port Melbourne Toastmasters and learn how to inspire greatness, elevate thinking, and speak in a way that truly moves people. *Guests, Meetup Group members, and visiting Toastmasters attend for free.* 🌐 [www.portmelbournetoastmasters.org](http://www.portmelbournetoastmasters.org) 📍 Where: Find directions [here](https://www.portmelbournetoastmasters.org/directions.html) ***Port Melbourne Toastmasters is a club for people who are serious about developing their speaking, leadership, and personal presence.*** We offer limited, curated guest sessions throughout the year for prospective members. These sessions allow you to experience our high-engagement, growth-focused environment firsthand — without open access to every meeting.

Presenting - How, full interactive engagement

Smashing! Try something new Thursday Discover your unique speaking style and learn how to make it your greatest strength. Explore practical ways to engage your audience through your voice, gestures, eye contact and power questions. **Be yourself, connect with your audience, and make every presentation memorable!** Why is Smashing different to other speaking clubs? Interactive reality workshops- Tonight get involved and have some fun. Just two member's thoughts, "The fun/laughs factor is definitely a point of difference. We keep it moving with high standards so it’s a nice balance. Too strict makes it tense and boring, too loose and we can lose the energy/commercial feel. SmashSpeak's vibe's in the sweet spot." "At other clubs I used to listen to long speeches and lectures, here we get so many chances to talk every meeting, that we have to improve" **Free parking** close: O'Connell and Cobden streets **IMPORTANT: Be on time, as doors close when the show starts** “Proudly Australian" – Free-flowing teamwork, greater good focus, sharing the stage, etc Multicultural Hub, 506 Elizabeth St (Opposite Queen Vic Market) Level 1, PURPLE Room (End of corridor) More to come

Startup Pitch & Themed Networking Melbourne | Unlock Your Idea

Join founders, investors and tech talent at this curated **startup networking event in Melbourne.** Meet ambitious builders, exchange ideas and discover new opportunities in a dynamic community environment. **RSVP: [Use this link](https://luma.com/n5wg2yi1)** **Please note that RSVP is managed via luma to control attendee lists — don’t ignore it to avoid issues with on-site payment.** You've been running the idea past AI. AI has never once told you it wouldn't work. Tonight you get a room that will. Five founders, five minutes each, The Duke of Wellington in Melbourne. Friday. **Three reasons people come back:** * You get a table, not a lap of the room. You pick a topic the room voted on and stay there for the hour, instead of wandering with a drink looking for a gap in somebody else's conversation. * You get a stage short enough to be honest. Five minutes each, no slides read out loud, then the room asks questions. The questions are the good part. * You get the hour after. The stage ends, nobody's performing any more, and the floor stays open. That's the hour people actually remember. **Your ticket is also a login:** Most events end when you walk out. This one hands you a link: your profile, who else is coming before you get there, a group chat for this specific Friday, and a recap afterwards of who you actually met. Then you land in the Melbourne space and stay there. That's where the second conversation happens, the one you meant to have before the room got loud. Free with your ticket, on the web or in Telegram: [ascentvalley.com/community](https://ascentvalley.com/community) **Is this your room?** Yes, if you're building something, anywhere from the first line of code to Series A. Or you run a function at a company that's scaling, write the code, do the hiring, or you're still deciding whether to start. Probably not, if what you're picturing is a room full of investors. How that actually works is further down, and it's better than the picture. Want the stage? [Apply ](https://ascentvalley.com/pitch)at Five founders an evening, and we answer everybody, including the people we don't pick. Applying is free, but you do need a ticket, because we check the order number. Never pitched before? Five minutes is short enough that it's over before the nerves have finished arriving. **What we don't promise, and what we do instead** We don't promise an investor will be in the room on any given Friday. Angels and people who work at funds come, some Fridays several of them, and we won't tell you in advance who's coming, because we don't know. **We don't run a judging panel, hand out a prize, or keep a leaderboard.** Here's what doesn't depend on who walks in that night. Your application to the stage becomes your profile in our startup directory, and a person reads it, not a scoring script. Once you're verified, that profile sits in front of the funds and angels in our network, and they ask for the introduction themselves when your company matches what they're actually looking for. You choose whether you're in the weekly digest and you can leave it any time. We never sell your details, we don't take equity, we don't take a cut of your round, and we don't give investment advice. Which means the room on Friday isn't the whole opportunity. It's the part you can see: [ascentvalley.com/pitch](https://ascentvalley.com/pitch) Why it's worth a Friday * Watching somebody explain their company in five minutes teaches you more about explaining yours than another evening alone with the deck. * You'll hear the question you've been quietly avoiding get asked out loud to somebody else, and you get to watch how they handle it. * That skill travels. It works on a first date, in a performance review, and at the dinner where somebody asks what you do and you've got twenty seconds before their eyes move on. So bring the friend who keeps saying they have an idea. Five minutes on that stage is the shortest distance between having an idea and finding out what a room full of strangers thinks of it.

Friday Night Friend Mixer: Hollibar

Start the weekend with a relaxed Friday night social designed to help you meet new people without the awkwardness. This event is for anyone who wants to make friends but doesn’t want to walk into a room and feel lost. We’ll create a warm, welcoming environment with simple icebreakers, BeSocial prompt cards, and small group conversations so it’s easy to start talking. You can come alone — many people will. The event is designed so no one has to figure it out by themselves. We’ll help people move into small groups, introduce themselves, and connect over shared interests, weekend plans, and the kind of friendships they’re hoping to build. Whether you’re new to BeSocial or have been wanting to attend an event for a while, this is a fun and easy way to start your weekend around people who are also open to real connection. **Perfect for:** people who want a social Friday night, first-time event attendees, young professionals, new-to-city users, and anyone looking to meet friends in a relaxed setting. **Please note that downloading our app is a requirement for attending the event.** The app will be used throughout the event for prompts, activities, and other interactive content so having it ready will ensure you can fully participate. https://apps.apple.com/au/app/besocial/id6759604739 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appetiser.besocial&hl=en **Event photography and videography may take place at this event. Images and footage captured may be used in future BeSocial promotional materials.** **If you do not wish to appear in promotional materials, please notify Nexaro Group Pty Ltd before the event by emailing support@besocialapp.co, or let the event hosts know on the day.**