Peter F Brown - Information Architecture

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Photograph of Peter Brown, addressing the Porvoo7 Conference in Reykjavik, May 2005

Curriculum Vitae of Peter Brown

Personal

Born: 17 September 1960, London, UK
Four children: Toni (1985), Emmanuel (1989), Alexandre (1993) and Andreas (1994)

Potted biography

Peter is founder of Pensive.eu, a consultancy, research and software development company based in Vienna, Austria, and - since 2008 - Managing Director of its larger sister company, Pensive S.A., based in Brussels. He was Chair of the CEN eGovernment Focus Group throughout its mandate and until July 2006 was Senior Expert on eGovernment strategy in the Austrian Federal Chancellery where he promoted work on pan-European eGovernment services, electronic identity management and EU "Information Society" policies. He is currently an elected member of the Board of Directors of OASIS (The Organization for the Advacement of Structured Information Standards).

From 2000 to 2004, Peter led data standardisation and interoperability efforts in the European Parliament and introduced the EU institutions to XML standards, business-centred information modelling, information architecture, and most recently to Topic Maps. He is the author of "Information Architecture with XML - a Management Strategy" (John Wiley and Sons, 2003), works regularly in many European languages, lectures extensively in Europe and North America and has worked as an expert for projects in Africa and Latin America.

Skills

I have a solid reputation as a public speaker, going back more than 25 years, and as a meeting organiser and chair. I believe in motivating people and teams, giving vision and direction, and trusting people to find their own best way of achieving given goals and objectives. I'm not afraid to lead by example and explore uncharted territories, and to take personal responsibility, not only for my own work but for those who work under my authority and management.

This approach is backed up by a wide range of professional skills:

  • Languages: English (mother tongue), fluent in French and Italian; very good in Portuguese; good in Spanish, and German; "get by" in a few others!
  • Computing: Predicate Logic, SGML and XML, Topic Maps, RDF, Javascript, ebXML, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Dreamweaver, and wide range of office productivity tools (including the Microsoft Office System 2007).
  • Training: Financial and Budget Management, Project Management, Research Methodology, Information Mapping, Inter-Cultural Learning and Conflict Management

Professional Experience

Pensive.eu:
  • 2008 - Founded Pensive S.A. and nominated Managing Director
  • 2006 - Founded Pensive.eu as a small consultancy and R&D firm in Vienna.
Government of Austria:
  • 2005 - 2006 Senior Expert on eGovernment Strategy, Austrian Federal Chancellery
Period of sabbatical leave:
  • Spring 2004 Lecturing at the School of Information Management and Systems, University of California at Berkeley
European Parliament:
  • 2000 - 2004 Head of Unit, Information Resources Management, Directorate of Information Technologies
  • 1998 - 2000 Advisor to Deputy Secretary General on IT and communications strategy
Party of European Socialists, Parliamentary Group in the European Parliament:
  • 1996 - 1998 Head of Information Management
  • 1994 - 1996 Policy Advisor
  • 1990 - 1992 Head of Group leader's private office ("cabinet")
Party of European Socialists:
  • 1992 - 1994 Coordination of Party Leaders Conference (network of leaders of national parties)
Council of Europe:
  • 1984 - 1989 Tutor, European Youth Centre (residential political education centre)

Education

  • Open University, UK: MA in social science research methodology (unfinished)
  • City of London Polytechnic (now London Guildhall University): BA(Honours) in politics, communications and information technology
  • Secondary education at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield College of Further Education

Publications

  • Information Achitecture with XML - A Management Strategy (2003, John Wiley and Sons) Details...
  • Britain, for and against Europe (1997, Oxford University Press)
  • Europe's Modern Prince - the emergence of European-level political parties (1995, ULB, out of print)
See details of all my writing...

Affiliations

See the separate page on affiliations
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