Clock Your Skills
The Victorian Music Development Office (VMDO) partners with CLOCK Your Skills to offer Victorian music professionals the chance to discover, recognise and validate their skills with formal qualification credits.
We understand that there are highly skilled people working in the Victorian contemporary music community who may not recognise the significance of their experience acquired throughout their professional working lives.
The CLOCK Your Skills program aims to help music business professionals identify and consolidate their strengths and transferable skills as well as contribute to formalised qualifications. This program is open to professional creatives who want to validate their skills at a master’s level, irrespective of any previous formal qualifications.
VMDO previously introduced CLOCK Your Skills to Australia through a program in 2020. Read more about our program and past participants here.
"In the creative industries, it’s hard to differentiate between ‘what are professional skills’ and ‘what is personal drive and determination’. A majority of skills are learned from hands-on experience, but the CYS program is an expansive tool that helps you harness both your past Professional AND Personal skills into tangible resources. It changes the way you think about approaching projects and gives you the ability to find strength and confidence in something that you may consider a weakness. Reshaping the mental process, through innovative language and deep diving experience.”
- Kiwat Kennell (2022 CLOCK Participant)
"I didn’t attend university, so the opportunity presented by the program to retrospectively assess the skills I’d attained through my career and have them certified at a Masters level was incredibly appealing. In such a fast-paced and hands on industry, it’s not often we find the space to do a bit of a deep dive into our own work, to observe how we’ve grown and how our skills have developed, CLOCK really allowed space to take note of learnt skills and how well we integrate these into our daily practice as creative professionals."
- Blaise Sherrie (2022 CLOCK Participant)
CLOCK Skills Discovery Workshop
Do you want to better understand your skills and where they might take you?
As creatives we can take for granted or miss the value in the many integrated and transferable skills we acquire throughout a career.
The 3-hour CLOCK Skills Discovery Workshop is a space where our team of CLOCK mentors help you:
Uncover your sector-specific and transferable skills
Recognise, appreciate, and value all the skills you have learned and developed in any context
Gain a deeper understanding of your strengths and use that insight to move forward with your creative projects and ideas with renewed confidence and belief
The CLOCK Skills Discovery Workshop is suitable for anyone at any stage of their career. Whether you work in the Victorian music industry as an employee, freelancer, volunteer, trainee, intern, senior manager, or entrepreneur, come join us!
Download a high-resolution version of “The CLOCK Journey” here
CLOCK Your Skills 3-day Professional Development Bootcamp for Music Industry Leaders
Do you own a business or are you employed or self-employed? Have you got 5+ years of professional experience in the Victorian music industry? VMDO are providing 3 x fully funded places (valued at AUD$2,650 each) at the CLOCK Your Skills Bootcamp.
Program participants will:
Have their high-level skills validated and accredited through a certified master’s level award in the Creative and Cultural Industries
and then have the options of:
Becoming a CLOCK Peer Mentor and Reviewer and add an additional income stream to a portfolio career
Gaining an internationally certified master’s level qualification in the Creative and Cultural Industries
During the Bootcamp, participants will be supported to:
Discuss roles, projects and activities from the last two years.
Create an online portfolio of applied skills and knowledge.
Make three statements demonstrating critical reflective practice.
Discuss professional practice and theories with CLOCK Your Skills colleagues.
Validate high-level skills through professional dialogue.
The program will take place from Wednesday 31 August – Friday 2 September.
Applications close at 11:00 PM AEST On Sunday, 14 August 2022.
Successful applicants will be notified by Friday, 19 Aug 2022
CLOCK Your Skills Facilitators
Denise Stanley
CLOCK Founder and Facilitator
I am passionate about practical learning and the EU directive of 2012 that states: ‘Every citizen has the right to have their learning recognised and validated irrespective of the context in which it occurred’
My current role is developing strategic Peer-to-Peer Learning Programmes and engineering positive cultural changes and inclusion for industry, charities and education contexts.
The groundbreaking CLOCK Programme is an example of this. CLOCK is based on 13 years of field research with employers and practitioners in the creative and cultural industries across 15 EU countries. CLOCK creates a level playing field for skilled creatives and entrepreneurs irrespective of where or how they learned their skills. We have broken the 2 glass ceilings of Formal Education at Level 3 and Level 6 to allow non-formal and creative learners to access Higher Level learning and achieve Levels 4 and Levels 7! CLOCK makes invisible skills visible and valued!!
Michelle Escoffery
CLOCK Your Skills facilitator
Michelle Escoffery is an Ivor Novello Award and Brit Award-Winning Singer Songwriter with over 3 decades active experience in the music Industry.
She is an educator, co-owner of boutique production company 528 Music Global, vocal producer/arranger and facilitator with an avid interest in developing future talent.
Having signed with both major and independent labels, and recognised for her creativity, musical ability and professional contributions, she is presently elected President of PRS for Music Member's Council and a proud trustee for PRS Foundation. SCQF qualified in the Professional Development Award Practice Based Learning for Creative and Cultural Industries, a CLOCK Sector expert, Peer Reviewer, strategic educational developer and External Assessor.
Outside of music, Michelle's passion is wellness. She is a qualified Life Wellness Consultant supporting entrepreneurs and professionals to balance creativity with the demand of daily life; increase energy, productivity and avoid burnout. Her speciality is Joyful Life Mastery, accessing Joy through and despite adversity.
Claudia Matera
CLOCK Your Skills facilitator
Claudia Matera is a Game Designer, Professor, Cultural Manager for International projects and an entrepreneur within the Creative and Cultural Sector. She’s a qualified CLOCK Sector Expert and Peer Reviewer for Cultural Learning & Business Development and Support for the Creative & Cultural Industries.
Claudia holds a PhD in Contemporary History of Art investigating the economical and cultural relationships between the Arts and the Economy within Europe over the last four decades. Her career started within both Higher Education and the Gaming industry. At University she worked for over a decade as a Researcher and Project Manager exploring methodologies, tools and resources conceiving the development and reinforcement of entrepreneurial skills of practitioners.
She was one of the pioneers of mobile games running an indie game company and exploring business models and marketing strategies. Claudia is currently working as Programme Manager for CLOCK, teaches Game Design and Cultural and Psychological aspects of Games at the Academy of Contemporary Music and operates as Cultural Manager for International projects for partners based in the UK, the Netherlands and Italy pursuing cultural exchange, citizenship awareness, entrepreneurship and strategic partnership through culture.
Ximo Peris
Sector Expert
Ximo Peris was initially trained as an architect before moving into architectural visualisation in 1997. He lived in Holland for 3 years, teaching at TU Delft and working at DPI Animation House before moving to London. In the year 2000 he joined Smoothe Animation where he liaised with the London 2012 Olympic Bid Team.
From 2009 to 2012 Ximo worked at Crystal CG as a Creative Director. He was one of the three Creative Directors that delivered all digital content for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. During this period his team also produced animations for the winning FIFA world cup bids of Qatar 2018 and Russia 2022.
After the London 2012 Olympics delivery Ximo decided to work as a mentor and teacher. He joined Homeboy Industries for 3 months in LA to learn about gang rehabilitation and re-entry programs. In 2016 Ximo spent 6 weeks in Lima supporting Foundation Hogares in the digital programs for schools in the city slums. Ximo has combined this work with his job as a mentor at Collage Arts and The Crib.
Since 2017 Ximo has been working with CLOCK as a sector expert. He is a visiting Professor at City University of London where he teaches Media Studies to Sociologists.