Speakers
Eric Weaver – Vice President, Digital Strategy, Ant’s Eye View
ERIC WEAVER is a veteran marketer who has helped build awareness, revenue and loyalty for household brands across the United States. Over his 20-year career as one of the very first digital marketers, Eric has helped firms like Clorox, De Beers, eBay, Ford, GE, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Lincoln, Mattel, the Mayo Clinic, Procter & Gamble, RCA, the US Postal Service, and the Clinton Administration build and extend their brands online. He got his start in what we now call social media as a community manager and content cultivator at America Online in 1991.
Eric speaks regularly on social marketing, social good, and marketing ethics – and has been quoted in AdAge, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Hoover’s, Inc. Magazine, the Seattle Times and the Washington Post. In 2009, he was awarded a Brand Leadership Award from the World Brand Congress for his work in brand-building over the years. He graduated summa cum laude from Xavier University, and lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.
Brian Solis – Author, Speaker & Marketing Executive, Altimeter Group
Brian Solis is principal at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm. Solis is globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has studied and influenced the effects of emerging media on business, marketing, publishing, and culture. His current book, Engage, is regarded as the industry reference guide for businesses to build and measure success in the social web.
Cory Edwards – Director, Social Media & Corporate Reputation, Dell Corporation
Cory Edwards is director of social media within Dell’s Corporate Communications group. In this role, Cory leads the company’s social media and reputation team (SMaRT) responsible for helping Dell’s business units, regions and departments manage social media initiatives related to awareness, thought leadership, reputation, and online influencer relations. Cory’s social media team has successfully launched a new program called Customer Advisory Panel (CAP) Days which aims to give vocal online customers (both ranters and ravers) an in-person day-long forum to give feedback and suggestions to Dell management. Dell’s CAP Days program has successfully hosted events from Austin, Texas to Shanghai, China to Frankfurt, Germany.
Prior to working for Dell, Cory was global social media strategist at Symantec where he led the company’s social media initiatives. He also worked as group manager of corporate communications providing public relations support for Symantec’s products, mergers & acquisitions, and alliance & partner activities. In 2005 Cory was appointed as communications project manager for the largest announced software merger in history – Symantec’s $13.5 billion acquisition of Veritas Software.
Elizabeth Houston – Global Events Social Media Manager, Comsys for Cisco
Elizabeth Houston is an events marketing social media and communications manager for the Cisco Global Events organization. She is responsible for creating social media for events best practices, working with solutions and global stakeholders to create strategic social media internal and external event communication plans, training peers, piloting new ideas, and researching trends.
She is also is responsible for developing innovate social media technologies for events, such as the Cisco Events mobile app. Other responsibilities also include acting as the organization liaison to other Cisco and external social media teams, participating in broader social media practitioner roundtable sessions, community resource tiger team projects, training, and mentorship opportunities.
Gary Wicks – Web Strategy, Boeing Commercial Airplanes
Gary leads the Web Strategy Team at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. He is responsible for strategy development, content development and social engagement in the digital space. He manages the twitter account for Boeing Commercial Airplanes (@BoeingAirplanes) and is on the editorial board for the corporate website.
Gary joined Boeing in 1995 and has held several marketing positions including Brand Manager for the 777 and 787 airplane programs. He has been integral in the development and execution of Boeing’s expanded use of digital content to aid in sales and marketing campaigns. He has a wonderful wife and two teenage boys and coach’s high school football.
Dan Anderson – Emerging Media Manager, T-Mobile USA
Dan Anderson is the Emerging Media Manager for T-Mobile USA. Dan leads T-Mobile’s social media strategy and manages the company’s growing online community. Although he considers sending a tweet in binary code to be among his career highlights, Dan’s social media efforts have also been recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal and PR Week. T-Mobile’s “No More Ties for Dad” Father’s Day campaign was recently named a Sabre Award finalist. When he isn’t busy posting to T-Mobile’s Facebook wall, Dan also contributes to dadsontech.com, where he writes about his two passions in life, his family and tech gadgets.
Sara Lingafelter – Social Media Specialist, REI
Sara Lingafelter is the newest member of the REI Digital Engagement team. Sara’s work at REI emphasizes customer engagement at the local level, and through video content and product reviews. Prior to working at REI, Sara became known as an influencer in sports and outdoor thanks to her self-effacing approach to storytelling: while it’s “cool” to be an expert; Sara has always been comfortable sharing uncool stories from her life as a “chronic beginner,” and still argues when people call her a “social media expert.” She is also a recovering attorney, a freelance writer, and inveterate four-season outdoor enthusiast.
Sara is active on Twitter as @theclimbergirl and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/saralingafelter, is The Girl behind http://rockclimbergirl.com, and the Secretary of the Outdoor Industry Womens Coalition.
Rod Brooks – V.P. and Chief Marketing Officer, PEMCO Insurance
Rod has enjoyed tremendous success during his 3S year career in sales, marketing, and business development roles since graduating with a bachelor’s degree in communications from Washington State University in 1975. He is known for his vision, leadership, and ability to transform vision into effective corporate strategy and unique implementation plans. Rod has been the marketing force behind successful start-ups, emerging growth companies, and well established businesses such as Schuck’s Auto Supply, Egghead Software, WordPerfect Corporation, and Coinstar.
In 1999, Rod took the marketing helm at PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company. With the role came the opportunity to help transform an analytical operations-based organization with a predominantly commoditized product into a dynamic customer-centric, market-driven and results-oriented mutual organization. Now, 11 years after joining the company, Rod calls the insurance business one of the biggest marketing challenges he’s faced, and he views PEMCO’s current campaign as one of his most rewarding.
Ross Asdourian – Interactive Producer, Banyan Branch
Ross Asdourian is the Interactive Producer for Banyan Branch, where he has garnered over 1.5 million views in the past 8 months with videos like “What Grills Faster?” and “How to Make a Grilled Cheesus.” Ross has written and produced for ESPN, Lonely Planet, and Sony BMG and, of course, Microsoft. He is a business man, a dude, a teenie bopper and a ninja; and he embraces those qualities in his approach to creating content and social campaigns. He also hates writing about himself.
Jenny Samppala – Executive Director & Principal, Banyan Branch
Jenny Samppala is enamored with all things related to tech, entertainment and social media. She wants to know what you think about gadgets as much as she wants to get her hands on them; she not only wants to know why your mom is on Facebook and Twitter, but she may be friends with her. At Banyan Branch, Jenny’s role is both simple and complex: follow and set trends within social media so that her clients have a strong and positive share of voice within online chatter.
Mike Whitmore – President, Fresh Consulting
Mike Whitmore is the President of Fresh Consulting based in Bellevue, WA. Fresh Consulting is an emerging business strategy consulting firm, delivering solutions utilizing Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technology implementation, design, crowdsourcing models and best business practices involving collaboration technologies, social media, program and project management, mobile app development, website design and content creation.
Mike is known for his powerful business networking skills and media presence with over 17,000+ Twitter followers, 900+ LinkedIn connections via his professional network and as a co-host of Eastside Networking Events (www.eastsidenetworkingevent.com). Mike has been interviewed for several books and pod casts, his videos are used as examples of how to create meaningful About Us stories. He has been referenced in Forbes and interviewed for Business Week, Fortune and Smart Money magazines.
Jeff Dance – Founder, Fresh Consulting
Jeff Dance, founder of Fresh Consulting, has managed or advised several web-based businesses and led dozens of consulting projects, including Social Media and Enterprise 2.0 strategy projects, working with entrepreneurs to fortune 500 clients. Prior to founding Fresh Consulting, Jeff was a Strategy and Operations management consultant at Deloitte Consulting where he worked on projects across the nation and pioneered nationwide initiatives on the West Innovation team. Jeff is also a level 3 professional snowboard instructor who trains instructors part-time throughout the winter season to keep things “fresh”.
Tom Vaughn – Social Media Global Practices Director , Microsoft WW Marketing Excellence
As the digital lead for social media within Microsoft’s Worldwide Marketing Excellence Group, Tom is responsible for guidance, tools and strategies to help Microsoft excel in social media marketing and engagement. Over the past 13 years, Tom has led digital programs across social, email, editorial, search, personalization and user interface design.
Prior to joining Microsoft, he helped launch the social media program at the financial services firm USAA, which delivered $192 million in measurable ROI from user-generated content and customer engagement strategies.
Panelists
Liza Sperling – Director of Corporate Relationships, Seesmic
Liza Sperling is the Director of Corporate Relationships at Seesmic and manages strategic relationships, social media and customer engagement. Prior to joining Seesmic, Liza was the first public-facing hire at Scout Labs (acquired by Lithium Technologies) with a cross-functional focus on marketing, community management and sales in the Social Media monitoring, measurement and analytics space. Before moving to San Francisco, Liza spent a decade on Wall Street at Maverick Capital and Morgan Stanley and raised $20 Million to co-found Fortuno Capital Fund, a start-up hedge fund.
Liza is an outspoken customer advocate and consummate beta-tester of anything new. She is active on Twitter as @lizasperling, Facebook, and within the Silicon Valley technology and social media communities. Liza graduated Cum Laude from Duke University in 1998.
Jessica Northey – SocialMediologist
Tucson Native Jessica Northey specializes in, using Social Media when you ARE the brand. Her optimization techniques are being implemented at top stations across the nation, and her writings/methods instructional material for various programs from Real Estate to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. She is a Writer, Blogger, Nationally recognized Speaker, On-Air Personality and SocialPR Expert who owns Social Media boutique firm Finger Candy Media, LLC. Jessica is a Daily Columnist for AllAccess.com the web’s largest radio and music industry community as well as contributor to Full Throttle Country, Nashville Music Guide and KrisCountry.com.
A speaker at Radio’s Conclave, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, 140 Character Twitter Conference, Jeff Pulvers Brands Conference, Arbitron Client Conference/Jacobs Media Summit 2010, American Marketing Association, Texas Music Seminar, Worldwide Radio Summit, NAB Show, Radio Ink’s Convergence Conference, NAWBO, Social Media Masterminds of America, Finalist for the Trailblazer Award from SMAZ, contributor to Albright and OMalley, Entercom Radio, Clear Channel conference calls and a guest blogger on Social Media Today.
Tac Anderson – VP of Digital Strategies, Waggener Edstrom
Tac Anderson is the Head of Digital Strategies EMEA, Waggener Edstrom Studio D where he leads the agency’s digital capabilities and serves as a strategic counselor and partner to clients in the EMEA market. While at Waggener Edstrom Tac has been crucial in developing and launching several key initiatives and agency products including the WE Social Influence System™ and the Ripple Effect™, a measurement and visualization tool.
Before joining Waggener Edstrom, Tac managed both internal and external social media initiatives for Hewlett-Packard. His work was a featured case study in the Harvard Business Review book Groundswell. Tac was named one of iMedia’s 2010 top 25 Internet Marketing Leaders and Innovators. He is a regular public speaker, and blogs at http://www.newcommbiz.com.
Maria Ogneva – Head of Community, Yammer
Maria Ogneva is the Head of Community at Yammer, the enterprise social network used by 100,000 organizations, including more than 80% of the Fortune 500. At Yammer, she is in charge of social content, as well as community programs, fostering internal and external education and engagement. You can follow her on Twitter at @themaria or on her blog, and Yammer at@yammer and company blog. Maria has a social media bent and a over a decade of experience in various roles in consumer products, fashion / retail and technology. She is passionate about building communities and very excited about bringing social to the business world.
Daniel Rasmus – Strategist and Author
Daniel W. Rasmus, the author of Listening to the Future, is a strategist and industry analyst who helps clients put their future in context. Rasmus uses scenarios to analyze trends in society, technology, economics, the environment, and politics in order to discover implications used to develop and refine products, services and experiences. His latest book, Management by Designproposes an innovative new methodology for the design workplace experiences. Rasmus’s thoughts about the future of work have appeared recently in Chief Learning Officer Magazine, Government eLearning!, KMWorldand TabletPC. A wildly popular article on CIO,com titled, 10 Lessons from Angry Birds That Can Make You a Better CIO, went viral on the Internet.
Prior to starting his own consulting practice, Rasmus was the Director of Business Insights at Microsoft Corporation, where he helped the company envision how people will work in the future. Rasmus managed the Microsoft^®^ Office Information Worker Board of the Future and was the creative leader of the Center for Information Work. Before joining Microsoft, Rasmus was a research Vice President at the Giga Information Group, and later Forrester Research Inc.
Sarah Austin – Founder of Pop17
From research, design, hardware, and development, Sarah lives and breathes Internet technology every day. She constantly uses tech tools to share every day ordinary moments of her life with the world and records everything by software, hardware, and data transfers. Sarah started lifecasting on Justin.tv (JTV) in 2007 after Justin Kan offered her the opportunity to participate in the closed beta test. When the site actually launched Sarah was almost immediately streaming to thousands of people. Her goal at the time was to make the ultimate reality show…24/7 raw, live and uncut coverage. Being one of the first lifecasters on JTV changed her life and made her completely dedicated to the cause. She truly believes live streaming and video are the future of the Internet and communication technology and Sarah is determined to be a leader within it.
Kati Chevaux – Content Editor, Cozi
A trained writer and nutrition scientist, Kati Chevaux has been creating and curating the kind of content consumers trust and seek out for over 10 years. She has worked for major household brands including Nabisco and Mars Inc, and has been published widely both on and offline in a range of formats including USA Weekend Magazine, the NJ Suburban, ParentMap and the mega mom blog, 5 Minutes for Mom.
Now the Content Editor at Cozi, Kati directs the company’s overall content strategy, one designed to serve many masters including traffic, conversion, SEO, social buzz, sponsorships and more. From this vantage point she has a deep understanding of the multiple roles content must play in driving online business.
