Aaron Bannin is a Data Analyst for GREE International, the leading mobile social gaming company that is currently developing a global platform with a focus on free-to-play games. He spends his days telling stories with data, working on titles such as Kingdom Age, Crime City, and Modern War. Prior to GREE, he consulted with a variety of developers, including SkyVu, Riptide Games, Appy Entertainment, and Venan Entertainment.
For 15 years, Adam Kmiec has worked for some of the most forward thinking organizations in the world, while helping some of the most dynamic brands find success in the interactive and social space. Currently he is Director, Digital Marketing and Social Media at The Campbell Soup Company. In his role he is responsible for developing a global digital marketing and social media strategy that encompasses both consumer-facing communications and corporate initiatives to make Campbell one of the most digitally fit organizations in the world.
His career spans both the client and agency sides of the marketing and advertising industry, covering stops at renowned organizations that include Fallon, Leo Burnett, and ConAgra Foods. His focus has always been on solving business problems by leveraging consumer driven insights to fuel creative ideation. From video games to mobile and social to the future of websites, Kmiec is always thinking forward. He doesn’t view interactive as simply digital; to him, it’s more than what’s taking place on a screen.
A frequent speaker and news contributor, he’s constantly challenging the norm and convention. Opinionated, but honest and always grounded in facts, he enjoys a spirited conversation and the culture of continuous knowledge transfer.
When not leading organizations through the ever evolving interactive landscape, enjoys traveling, photography and being a “cool” dad. He is currently working on a book titled, “Yes, It’s Hypocritical,” due for completion next summer.
Senior Web Producer, Minnesota Public Radio
Brett has worked at MPR and American Public Media for over 12 years as an e-commerce developer, as an online editor for national programs like A Prairie Home Companion and Splendid Table. In his current role, he is responsible for the digital portfolios of 89.3 The Current and FM 91 Classical MPR — from Web sites to social media. With his firm grip of technical, creative, content creation, editorial and business knowledge, Brett is uniquely positioned to comment on how brands can learn from the transformation of what used to be a broadcast-only business.
Chris began his career as a Wall Street strategist, produced Off Broadway theater, and eventually found his passion in digital marketing. The constants in his career have been the combination of public persuasion, adaptation to change and all things digital. Bringing together innovative creative media strategy with a disciplined test-and-learn mentality has served his clients well.
Chris currently leads the co-leads Compass Point Media and heads up efforts on Chipotle Mexican Grill, winning a Jay Chiat Media Planning award in 2011, and the fourth largest grocery store chain in the US, SUPERVALU. While at Crispin, Porter+ Bogusky, he helped lead the re-launch of Microsoft Windows via the “I’m A PC” campaign and was a part of several award winning campaigns — from Burger King’s “Whopper Sacrifice” app to VW’s Routan Babymaker 3000. The five years before CP+B, Chris developed Carmichael Lynch’s digital media practice, with Harley-Davidson as his lead client.
Cindy Chastain is a Creative Director at R/GA in New York, currently leading the strategy and design of a complex B2B sales ecosystem for Nike. Her favorite activities these days include helping companies identify customer-informed opportunities in digital; developing clear, actionable experience strategies; and creating frameworks (and conditions) for helping teams innovate and create great work. She’s also an educator at heart, moonlighting as an adjunct professor of interaction design as well as recreational noodler of ideas, especially around storytelling and design, digital ecosystems, and the art of collaboration. Former clients include Hewlett Packard, Verizon, Qantas Airlines, Walmart, BBC Worldwide, GlaxoSmith Klein, Showtime, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Pfizer and HSBC. She holds an MFA in screenwriting from Columbia University and earned a BS in Radio, TV, Film from Northwestern University.
Dan Khabie has been the leader of Digitaria, OMMA Magazine’s current Agency of the Year for Design/Interactive, since the company’s 1997 launch. His strategic vision and direction are key reasons the company experienced at first steady and then rapid growth, and is now among the most highly regarded digital design, strategy, technology and marketing firms in the United States, part of the legendary global advertising agency network JWT, formerly J. Walter Thompson.
Khabie built the company’s reputation through its partnership with major brands — NBC, MTV, NFL, Warner Bros., Comcast, Qualcomm — as well as the launch and optimization of highly effective digital strategies that build strong and sustainable online relationships between brands and consumers.
From Digitaria’s early days as a boutique digital creative shop, Khabie has gradually added and acquired divisions in the areas of analytics, search engine optimization, sports, digital marketing and traditional advertising to create a genuinely full service integrated digital agency, one that blends memorable creative design with innovative technology and services.
In 2006, Khabie led the acquisition of Console, a technology services firm, which helped spark the company’s record revenue run: Through 2009, CEO Khabie oversaw four consecutive years of 100 percent revenue growth, including a year of deep recession. Since then, as the company reached a point of significant critical mass, the firm’s growth has held in a steady 40–70% range, and led to its acquisition by WPP, the world’s largest marketing services holding company, in August 2010. It has since been aligned with JWT, the world’s best known global advertising network.
A charismatic and natural presenter, Khabie often speaks at industry events; his thought leadership has been featured inThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Advertising Age, DM News, Adweek, Success Magazine and many other general and trade publications. During Khabie’s tenure, Digitaria has won significant industry recognition for its creative work, including the most recent Creative Media Award Best in Show honor for the human rights organization Invisible Children’s LRA Crisis Tracker; a Pencil from The One Show; several Webby Awards; a pair of national Addys; numerous WebAwards from the Web Marketing Association; Summit Creative Awards; and the FWA Awards.
Digitaria clients include Qualcomm, United Health Group, Under Armour, NBC/Universal, Rolex, Royal Caribbean, the NFL and a number of its franchises. Khabie is involved in the fellowship program for the Entrepreneurial Management Center at San Diego State University, serves on the board of the San Diego Ad Club, and remains active with regional non-profits such as the Tony award-winning La Jolla Playhouse. He is married and has three children.
SVP, Creative Director, Gage
Over the past 12 years, David Whitman has helped Gage transform itself from a print-based agency to a digital powerhouse with clients 3M, Microsoft, Thomson Reuters, Walmart and UnitedHealth Group. Prior to Gage, he was an advertising Creative Director and Brand Strategist in Minneapolis and Denver.
Chief Innovation Officer & SVP, Mobile – Meredith
Managing Director – The Hyperfactory
Doug Rozen is responsible for leading Meredith’s mobile capabilities, including The Hyperfactory – iMedia’s 2011 Mobile Agency of the Year. Doug is also responsible for defining emerging products and services across Meredith Xcelerated Marketing (MXM). Ensuring innovative ideas exceed client needs, he oversees teams around the world that bring together creativity, technology and data. His vision and know-how is helping position MXM as the recognized leader in customer engagement with clients like Kraft, Lowes, Nestle, Acura, Chrysler and many more. Prior to joining Meredith, Doug was SVP, Global Lead – Communications, Design and Emerging Technologies at Aimia. Doug oversaw the creative, interactive, media, mobile, social and market research offerings as well as helped in the acquisition of Carlson Marketing by Aimia (formerly Groupe Aeroplan). Before Aimia, Doug was the Senior Partner, Managing Director at JWT – one the world’s largest advertising agencies. There, he helped establish digital@jwt, combined JWT’s digital/direct offerings into connect@jwt, which ultimately lead to RMG Connect Worldwide.
Duncan has a passion and background in the “location” space spanning many years. From time spent in RFID and universal positioning startups, to founding and leading a venture-backed consumer Internet business with the goal of enabling and empowering users of location-aware devices. Much of this experience has led to the vision behind PlaceIQ. Duncan’s experience in early stage businesses goes beyond this market, having led the operational and system build of a successful retail organization, growing it to a multi-location, multi-state enterprise. He also built and led IS Solutions INC, a premier Silicon Valley based System Integrator. Outside of the startup environment, Duncan has also made an impact for one of the world’s largest organizations in working for ExxonMobil, in the UK and Asia.
Erin Anderson cares a lot about content. She manages Tablespoon.com – a modern food and recipe website owned by General Mills. She’s recently been interviewed by Forbes about the importance of remarkable content to grow scale and engagement. Erin’s goal is to inspire all of us to be change agents in the evolving digital world. Her extensive background in consumer focused marketing has given her strong insights into the world of social media.
Through innovation and experimentation, Erin has grown Tablespoon.com to the third largest General Mills website in just three years. Just this past year, Tablespoon was awarded the top 3 spot in ClickZ’s list of top 50 content marketers.
Erin holds a Bachelors of Science in Marketing from the Carlson School of Management. She is the former Marketing Chair for the Minnesota RollerGirls, and has previously served on the MIMA content committee. In addition to her passion for great content, Erin’s other interests include sailing, yoga, and learning improv.
Erin Scime is Associate Experience Director, Content at Razorfish New York. In 2008 she founded the content strategy group at HUGE and has published on content curation in A List Apart magazine as well as spoken at conferences such as IA Summit, WebContent2011 and STC Content Strategy Conference in Paris.
Erin specializes in guiding brands in developing their digital product, tactical content strategy and guiding businesses in modifying their structures and operations to adapt to new digital products.
Farhad Manjoo is the technology columnist at Slate and Fast Company, and he’s also a regular contributor to the New York Times. He is the author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society. He lives in Palo Alto, Calif., with his wife and son.
Gretchen brings a love of the complex and challenging to her design work. Over the course of her career she has worked on a wide variety of products from medical devices to educational tools. Gretchen seeks out those design challenges that ultimately make a positive impact on people’s daily lives and environment, always focusing on how to balance being effective with being desirable. She is currently the VP of Product at GreatSchools, helping parents get the best education possible.
Gretchen graduated with honors from Harvard University. Prior to joining GreatSchools, she worked for several Bay Area design consultancies including frog design, Cooper, and Punchcut. Her clients include: Johnson & Johnson, Optimedica, Omnicell, TurboChef, and Virgin Records.
Guy Kawasaki is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also a columnist for the Open Forum of American Express. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple.
Mr. Kawasaki is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. His newest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions, was released on March 8, 2011 and is a New York Times best seller.
He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
Heather LaMarre is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication at The University of Minnesota, School of Journalism and Mass Communication where her research focuses on strategic messaging, persuasion, and mass media processes and effects. Dr. LaMarre’s work is most often applied to public relations, public affairs, and political/policy communication, with a special interest in the strategic use of social and entertainment media as a platform for engaging audiences, managing stakeholder relationships, and influencing public opinion.
Professor LaMarre serves as a media expert across a variety of strategic communication topics, including social and entertainment media, public relations, politics, and public affairs. Her work can be found in top, peer-reviewed academic journals, as well as the national and international press. Examples include: Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine, Huffington Post, National Public Radio, The Colbert Report, Wall Street Journal Radio, ABC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, LA Times, Denver Post, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic Journal, St. Petersburg Times, Canadian Public Radio, Winnipeg Free Press, Sky News, UK Daily Mail, etc.
Prior to joining the academy, LaMarre’s ten + years of professional experience spanned corporate communications, government affairs, and public relations. Professor LaMarre is affiliated with the Center for Political Psychology and works with the School of Public Health on research projects that investigate the influence of social and entertainment media on socio-political attitudes, public opinion, and stakeholder relations.
Digital Media Practice Lead, Ovative Group.
J.J. Possesses a deep background in both the tech and music businesses. While Executive V.P. of Sales at Sony Music Entertainment in New York, she witnessed firsthand the amazing impact that digital technology had on every aspect of the business. Prior to joining Sony, she was VP of Music, MP3 and Mobile Electronics for Best Buy.
Imagine a world where every challenge is a quest — where the harder a task is, the more people want to do it. Where people take pleasure in failing and come back invigorated every time they fall. Where they communicate spontaneously with their collaborators to pool their knowledge towards shared solutions. It turns out that world already exists. And if you draw on its secrets, you can transform your business: that creative collaboration, that effortless grasp of new technology, that very 21st-century connectivity and that power to solve complex problems can all be yours. Your guide to that world is Jane McGonigal. And that world? It’s the world of…gamers.
Gamers?
In her engaging, forward-thinking book Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal makes the case that the gamer spirit — an attitude of fun, dedicated, collective problem-solving — is our greatest asset as we face the social, economic, and environmental problems of the 21st century.
She argues that game designers are effectively happiness engineers, experts in making difficult tasks engaging, and that we should draw on their smarts as we frame the challenges of our time. Jane herself is a specialist in this field, a designer of alternate reality games, where a real-life activity is re-framed as a game. The activity could be as mundane as household chores or as epic as surviving peak oil or establishing local sustainable businesses, the subjects of two of Jane’s own games: whatever the challenge, we can face it more boldly if we bring to it a gameful state of mind. But as Jane explains, in her quirky, spirited way, all of this is more than just a question of re-framing. It’s about bringing back to contemporary life the kind of heroism, epic purpose, and communal striving that so many of us struggle to find in our lives. With Jane’s help, you can understand how to channel that drive to revitalize your company — and fill our world with epic wins.
John Ebbert has worked in media for 15 years in digital marketing and operational roles for companies such as Viacom’s Nickelodeon, Arkadium, Contextweb and as an entrepreneur. Following his entrepreneurial instincts, in July of 2008, he started AdExchanger.com, an advertising news and discussion website which encourages an exchange of ideas on digital media optimization and the move from buying placement to buying audience.
John splits his time between USVP (a venture capital fund where he is a partner) and FRWDMedia Services. John joined FRWD as part of FRWD’s acquisition of Brandinhand. Brandinhand handled more than 600 mobile campaigns and its clients included: Procter and Gamble, Best Buy, American Express, Coca Cola, General Mills. Lions Gate Studios and others. In April 2007, BrandWeek dubbed John as one of the “Marketers of the Next Generation,” the publication’s highest honor, and in July 2007, Advertising Age acknowledged Hadl as one of its distinguished “40 Under 40″ executives.
Prior to Brand in Hand, John was Strategic Advisor to Procter and Gamble for mobile, founded Enverta (acquired 2001) and Creative RX. John was also a managing director at Quigley-Simpson Interactive. John began his career as a corporate lawyer in New York City at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and holds a J.D. from the New York University School of Law.
Jon is an Internet marketing industry veteran who has been in the space for over a decade. Since the mid-90′s, Jon’s passion for technology and marketing have driven innovative marketing strategies that focused on achieving significant ROI for multiple Fortune 1000 companies. Jon’s broad understanding of the space includes: all facets of Internet marketing, technology, web analytics, web video, tracking tools and social media. As Co-CEO of Proceed Interactive (1997–2005), Jon built the firm from start-up to an early search-marketing leader. While at Proceed, Jon’s business acumen resulted in an impressive portfolio of more than 50 customers, including General Motors, Wells Fargo, Omni Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Kaplan (Score! Educational Centers), and Great Expectations.
In 2005, Jon joined industry leader iCrossing as the Director of Client Services for the Central Region. While at iCrossing, Jon managed a team responsible for a roster of blue chip, Fortune 1000 clients. Jon started SIM Partners in January 2006. As President of SIM Partners, Jon manages all day-to-day operations; helps drive the company’s business and product development, sales and marketing, partnerships and strategic direction. SIM Partners is a full service ecommerce agency with a unique set of proprietary tools & technologies. SIM Partners Velocityä platform is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that empowers national brands to maximize Social, Local Search, and Mobile at the location level through automation and scalability.
Jon earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Indiana University in 1993. Jon is a frequent speaker at industry shows and conferences.
Konrad Feldman co-founded Quantcast with the aim of transforming the consistency and performance of online advertising through science and scalable computing. Quantcast is an audience measurement and targeting company. The pioneer of direct audience measurement, the company starts with the industry’s most in-depth understanding of digital audiences to help marketers and publishers buy and sell the most effective targeted advertising. Today, Quantcast directly measures more than 100 million web destinations, collects well in excess of 500 Billion new data records every month and routinely processes more than 10 Petabytes of data every day.
Mr. Feldman has over 15 years’ experience in applying machine learning to the analysis of massive data sets across a diverse range of industries. Mr. Feldman co-founded the software company Searchspace, which helped the global financial services industry detect terrorist financing and money laundering. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from University College London (UCL).
Lauren Danis is a senior vice president at Weber Shandwick who over the past 15 years, has managed progressive marketing communications programs for clients across a wide range of industries. Through laser-focused, geo-targeted earned, paid and owned media, Lauren led a video-propelled social media campaign for iconic brand Aunt Jemima to drive conversation, preference and sales. By shining the spotlight on its ‘Every Batch Made from Scratch’ story and the dedicated employees behind the products, her team produced a sharable, three-part social video series starring real employees who help get pancakes on the plates of millions of Americans. Lauren was also the strategic lead for one of the agency’s largest accounts, the National Milk Mustache “got milk?” Campaign and for Unilever’s Degree deodorant business. She currently oversees the multi-office consumer and entertainment campaign strategy for Motorola Mobility.
Prior to her tenure at Weber Shandwick, Lauren was the Director of Hotel Public Relations for Hyatt Hotels Corporation, worked at Edelman Public Relations and received her communications degree from Northwestern University.
Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, editor at MarketingBlog.com and Author of the new book, Optimize (http://optimizebook.com): How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing published by Wiley. He’s been cited in the New York Times, Forbes, The Economist and The Wall Street Journal for his internet marketing and PR expertise and writes a Social Media Marketing column for ClickZ. Lee has worked with hundreds of companies developing strategic search, social and content marketing programs and speaks internationally on the convergence of internet marketing, PR and new media.
Mark W. Schaefer is a globally-recognized blogger, educator, business consultant, and author who blogs at {grow} — one of the top marketing blogs of the world. Mark has worked in global sales, PR, and marketing positions for nearly 30 years and now provides consulting services as Executive Director of U.S.-based Schaefer Marketing Solutions. His clients include both start-ups and global brands such as Cisco, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, and the UK government.
Mark has advanced degrees in marketing and organizational development and holds seven patents. He is a faculty member of the graduate studies program at Rutgers University and is the founder of Social Slam, a national social media event that takes place each April. He is the author of two best-selling marketing books, Return On Influence and The Tao of Twitter. In 2012, he was named by Forbes magazine as one of the Top 50 social media “power influencers” of the world.
Matt Creamer is editor at large at Advertising Age, where he writes features on media and marketing topics and the publication’s popular “Mad Men” recaps. He’s worked for the publication since 2004, when he joined as a reporter, and has won several awards for his writing and reporting, including the Society of American Business Editors and Writers “Best in Business” award.
A freelance writer and editor, he has also written for The Atlantic, The Awl, New York Daily News, The New York Observer, and PRWeek. One of his stories for The Anniston (Ala.) Star was made into a sketch on “The Daily Show” and he’s also a former Jeopardy! contestant.
He graduated from New York University, from which he has a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in journalism. He lives in Manhattan with his wife.
Matt Doherty serves as Director of Shopper Marketing and Mobile for FRWD out of Minneapolis, MN. FRWD acquired Matt’s previous LA based mobile agency, BrandinHand, in September 2011. BrandinHand was the Mobile Agency of Record for P&G for 5 years leading up to FRWD acquisition. Since then, Matt has been focused on helping FRWD clients like Meguiar’s & General Mills develop their approach to mobile CRM and shopper marketing. His experience with CPG in mobile is setting FRWD up to be a key agency to watch as more brands invest in mobile as an in-store purchase driver. He has also been consulting for a number of Fortune 500 companies as they work to define what their holistic approach to mobile marketing should be.
With over 18+ years of media planning and buying experience, Maxine Nisse brings a wealth of knowledge in both traditional and digital media. Maxine began her career in the early 90’s as a Broadcast Buyer at Hal Riney & Partners and then worked client side at Coca-Cola, responsible for buying all traditional media for Northern California/Hawaii.
In 1999, she joined the digital space at agencies large and small such as Leftfield, Mediaplex, Universal McCann, Razorfish, AKQA and currently enjoying her time at Eleven Inc.
Maxine’s focus has been on both brand awareness and DR clients in the digital world, utilizing anythingfrom display to mobile and social. Her expertise spans across various industries from travel (Virgin America and Cathay Pacific), to technology (NetApp, Microsoft Office, One Care and Dynamics), consumer electronics (Tivo) and retail (Gap and Macy’s).
Michael Hart is a founder and creative co-chair of mono, the Minneapolis-based branding and advertising agency. Since its founding in 2004, mono’s work and philosophy of simplicity has attracted a well-respected roster of clients, including Herman Miller, Target, The Harvard Business School, MSNBC, Virgin, Blu Dot, Fisker Automotive and Apple. An early believer in cross-disciplinary teams, technology and innovation, mono’s work has won everything from AIGA design awards to Cannes Cyber Lions to One Show Entertainment pencils. In 2010, they were named “Agency of the Year” by both Advertising Age and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, winning the latter again in 2011. Prior to forming mono, Hart was a creative director at Fallon in Minneapolis, creating all the work behind Dyson’s extremely successful launch here in the U.S., as well as the Emmy Award-winning “Stay Curious” campaign for PBS.
As Head of Patient Solutions, US Diabetes, Ms. Polz is responsible for identifying and operationalizing new services so that people with diabetes can lead the most productive and successful lives possible. She is an advocate for putting the patient first.
Most recently, Ms. Polz launched Data, Design, Diabetes, a next-generation challenge that brings together the richness of open data, the values of human-centered design, and the leading-edge methodology of the top innovation accelerators.
Prior to her career with Sanofi, Ms. Polz’s served multiple roles with Lexis-Nexis, overseeing client development marketing, business analysis and performance management, and direct marketing. She is thrilled to bring and outside perspective to the pharmaceutical and health care industry.
Ms. Polz holds a BBA from Saint Bonaventure University.
Mitchell Reichgut is CEO of Jun Group, the premier social video platform. Jun Group delivers millions of monthly opt-in video views across social networks, mobile devices, entertainment sites and YouTube. Founded in 2005, Jun Group’s clients include Fortune 500 brands, major entertainment companies, and media agencies.
Prior to founding Jun Group, Mitchell headed up the interactive division of Bates Worldwide Advertising. Earlier, as Creative Director of the New York office of Think New Ideas, Mitchell supervised Web development for clients such as Budweiser, Chrysler, Sony, and Continental Airlines.
A graduate of Boston University, Mitchell began his career as an Art Director at Grey Advertising in New York.
Mitchell wrote and directed The Scene, an online drama that was viewed over 8 million times in 90 countries. He has published two national comic book series, and he wrote and produced an online drama entitled Stream, starring Whoopi Goldberg.
Nicole Newville leads a team of truly integrated digital media and brand strategy specialists . She’s an expert in helping space150’s industry leader clients stay ahead of cultural shifts, emerging technologies and digital strategies that all generate real business results. A believer in absolute integration, Newville has built the strategy and media functions at space150 as seamless partners to departments that range from creative to development. Her team’s work for Forever 21 is creating a whole new category of intelligent outdoor digital billboards while her and her team’s insight-driven digital strategies are shaping the brand futures of giants such as OptumHealth, Cambria, Dairy Queen and many more.
Angel Investor. Founded (and sold) HARO. World Traveller. Ironman Triathlete. Cat father. See http://shankman.com/about for more!
Peter Shankman blames ADHD for most of his success. A serial entrepreneur, Peter is best known for founding Help A Reporter Out (HARO), the social media website that redefined how journalism and PR works by connecting millions of sources with hundreds of thousands of journalists around the world each day, for free. HARO was acquired by Vocus in 2010. Peter sits on the advisory board of NASA, is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Dell, and is a successful angel investor with multiple start-up companies in his portfolio. 2011 marked his entry into Hollywood, when he became Executive Producer on Right Next Door, a new film premiering soon. When he’s not spending 90% of his time running through airports to catch a connecting flight, Peter is based in Times Square, New York.
He currently lives in New York City with an overweight psychotic cat and a beautiful wife, and in his little spare time, is a sub-4 marathon runner, an Ironman, and B-licensed skydiver. And in classic ADHD fashion, in 2011, a tweet of his was voted one of the top 10 Tweets of the year by ABC News and Twitter.
Robbie Whiting is a Creative Technologist working in San Francisco. Robbie leads strategic, creative and development teams that create content, tools, applications and experiences to enable people to have direct interaction with brands — regardless of medium.
Robbie’s 11 year experience in marketing has been about deconstructing legacy processes and building new types of teams for agencies and brads. It’s an alignment of his experience and passions which span both traditional and digital advertising.
Robbie’s background as a developer/builder/tech entrepreneur gives him empathy in creating brand-led experiences that are both useful and entertaining.
Robbie is an alumnus of Duncan/Channon, Draftfcb and TBWA\Chiat\Day.
Ryan K Manchee is MediaMind’s resident technology visionary and creative strategist for North and Latin America, providing agencies, marketers and our technology partners with a prescient and strategic perspective on the shifting media landscape.
Ryan’s digital evangelism developed during his career, where he helped inspire and launch over 3,500 of the most innovative rich media campaigns ever created for brands including Microsoft, Activision, Burger King, Dr Pepper and Gatorade.
As Client Solutions Director, he helped lead the conception and development of the AdWonder Component, online advertising’s first rich media ad development plug-in for creative developers. With his imagination several generations ahead of the industry, Ryan brings a unique understanding of how tomorrow’s digital technology will translate into creative innovation and market performance.
After more than 12 years of customer focused work at companies like Amazon and Microsoft, Samantha Starmer is currently the Director of Customer Experience at REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.). At REI, Samantha leads the teams focused on cross-channel experience strategy, digital design and architecture best practices, content management, information architecture, and eCommerce production.
Samantha is passionate about creating and evangelizing for holistic customer experiences that are seamless and provide delight across channels, time, and devices. Samantha is active in customer experience and experience design communities and co-chaired the 2011 and 2012 Information Architecture Summit. Samantha regularly teaches graduate courses at the University of Washington, is asked to speak at many conferences and events, and has served on the boards of the Information Architecture Institute and Content Management Professionals.
Sara Wachter-Boettcher is a content strategist and writer based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she helps clients learn to stop creating endless content and start building strategies that are sustainable, flexible, and future-ready. She left agency-land for independent life in 2011, and is currently working on her first book, Content Everywhere, with Rosenfeld Media. You can find her slightly off-color commentary on content strategy and related topics at sarawb.com.
Scott created Evidon (formerly Better Advertising) while an Entrepreneur in Residence at Warburg Pincus LLC, the global private equity firm that is supporting the company. From 2005–2008, Scott was President and CEO of About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. He spent eight years with The New York Times Company in a number of senior management roles. In addition to his role at About.com, he was the General Manager of the company’s flagship website, The New York Times on the Web. He also served as vice president, strategic planning for The Boston Globe. Before joining The New York Times Company, Scott was with Multex.com (a venture-backed company which was acquired by Reuters in 2003 after a successful IPO in 1999), where he was Vice President and General Manager of its business-to-consumer division. Before beginning his media career, Scott worked in management consulting at The Boston Consulting Group and in investment banking at Merrill Lynch & Co. Scott holds an A.B. in Public Policy and American Institutions from Brown University, where he was a winner of the Rouse Prize for Economics. Scott also interned in the US Senate and in the Office of Management and Budget as a recipient of a White Internship from the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown. He has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Co-Founder of Foodspotting & Digital Strategist to ABC News.
Soraya Darabi began her career as manager of digital partnerships and social media at The New York Times, where she successfully led the drive to syndicate NYTimes.com news and video across multiple social-media platforms.
In 2009, her New York Times multimedia Inauguration Day campaign on Facebook won first prize at the INMA Awards for excellence in marketing. Darabi was named one of AdAge magazine’s “25 People in Media to Follow on Twitter” and was on the “Silicon Alley 100” list in 2009. In June 2010, Fast Company featured Darabi on the cover of its annual “Most Creative People in Business” issue and in October she appeared on the cover of Brandweek’s Hot Digital issue.
She served as product lead at drop.io, a real-time online sharing and collaboration and presentation service based in New York City recently acquired by Facebook.
Today, Darabi dedicates her time to the location-based mobile application Foodspotting and to ABC News where she reports on online communities as their digital strategist.
Darabi leverages her social media expertise to help important nonprofit causes, including Charity: Water, The Robin Hood Foundation, and Goods4Good.org; in 2011 she became the first digital ambassador to The United Nation’s technology group “Global Pulse.“
She earned her BA in English literature from Georgetown University in 2005.
Spike’s background includes contributing strategic development — from insight to creative execution — of online and offline word of mouth programs for companies including: BMW, USAA, AT&T, General Motors, Chevrolet, Dagger Kayaks, Fiskars Brands, Rage Against the Haze (SC’s EFFIE winning youth-led anti-tobacco movement), Gatorade and Best Buy.
Spike also played a significant role in growing Brains on Fire into one the most sought-after and respected word of mouth companies in the industry. In addition, he is a co-author of the book Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable Word of Mouth Movements, published by Wiley & Sons in August of 2010.
He has served on the Board of Directors for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and has presented at private events (Unilever, Michelin, Biltmore Estates, Susan G Komen Foundation) and at national conferences like SXSWi, SocialFresh, the Public Relations Society of America events, GasPedal’s WOM Supergenius Summits and the Association of National Advertiser’s Senior Think Tank Committee.
Stephen P. Anderson is an internationally recognized speaker and consultant based out of Dallas, Texas. He created the Mental Notes card deck, a tool that’s widely used by product teams to apply psychology to interaction design. He’s also of the author of the book Seductive Interaction Design, which answers the question: “How do we get people to fall in love with our applications?”
Between public speaking and project work, Stephen offers workshops and training to help organizations manage creative teams, make use of visual thinking, and design better customer experiences.
Steven is chief revenue officer at foursquare. He has held positions in the advertising and digital media industry for the last 13 years. Before joining foursquare, Steven worked at Apple as director of advertising sales and strategy for iAd, where he oversaw sales, account management, agency relations, and the creative and strategy team. Prior to launching Apple’s iAd, Steven served as Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales at Quattro Wireless, where he helped turn Quattro into the leading mobile advertising company, until it was acquired by Apple in January 2010. Steven has also worked at Dennis Publishing, the parent of Maxim.
Tom Webster is Vice President, Strategy, for Edison Research, the company best known as the sole providers of exit polling data during elections for all major U.S. news networks. He has 20 years of experience in researching consumer behavior around technology adoption, new media and social networking. He is the principal author of some of the most widely cited studies in new and social media including The Social Habit, Twitter Users in America, and the co-author of the Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Research series, now in its 20th iteration.
Vanessa Fox is the author of Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business (Wiley, 2nd edition, April 2012), which has been called the “first must-read-to-survive business book of the twenty-first century”.
She is the founder and CEO of Nine By Blue, which provides training, custom reporting, and strategic consulting for organizations to help them better connect with customers through search. She’s been named one of Seattle’s Top 40 Under 40” one of Seattle’s “Top 25 Innovators and Entrepreneurs“, and one of the “Top 100 Seattle Women in Seattle Tech“.
A sought after speaker, Vanessa has traveled the globe discussing the evolution of how we search for and consume information. She writes regularly about the search engine industry, searcher behavior, and technical site architecture for a variety of publications including Search Engine Land, O’Reilly Radar, and MSN Business on Main.
Vanessa previously created Google’s Webmaster Central, which provides both tools and community support to help website owners improve their sites with an eye towards gaining more customers from organic search. She was instrumental in the sitemaps.org alliance of Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search. Fox has also been an entrepreneur-in-residence with Ignition Partners and served as an advisor for several startups.
In additional to her writing, speaking, and consulting, Fox also hosts the live weekly podcast Office Hours and posts regularly to Facebook and Twitter on a variety of technology and search related subjects.
Given her busy speaking schedule, she is highly skilled at navigating airport security. A California native, Vanessa resides in Seattle.
