Speakers
BlogOn 2005 offered attendees a chance to learn from experts who have been in the trenches and have mastered invaluable lessons. The presenters and moderators chosen for BlogOn 2005 are respected leaders in their fields who have already invested in social media and who understand it firsthand.
Through best practices, case studies and forthright conversations, they shared their experiences to help attendees make smarter decisions in their own businesses.
Special Presentations
Keynote by Seth Godin, Author and Entrepreneur
Keynote by David Weinberger, Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center
Interview with Gil Schwartz, EVP of Communications, CBS Television
Interview with Steve Wilson, Sr. Dir. of Global Web Communications, McDonald’s
Elizabeth Albrycht
Alliance Partner, Blogging Planet
Elizabeth Albrycht is a 15-year veteran of high technology public relations and co-founder and co-producer of the New Communications Forum, a conference series designed to bring journalists and marketing and PR professionals together to learn how to use participatory communications tools. She has written articles on blogging, RSS and other new tools for PRSA's Tactics magazine, the IABC's CW Bulletin, and the Future of Work eNewsletter, and has presented seminars on new communications tools for PRSA. Albrycht is a member of the Future of Work, PRSA and the IAOC, and an alliance partner at Blogging Planet. She blogs at CorporatePR and is the editor of Future Tense, a Corante blog that explores the future of work.
Cathy Brooks
Vice President, Porter Novelli
Cathy has spent more than two decades working in and around media and communications. As a Journalist, Cathy's experience encompasses reporting, writing, editing, broadcast management, as well as media training and strategy development. She also has held a number of agency and corporate PR positions developing and leading public relations campaigns. Currently Cathy drives business development efforts in the Bay Area for Porter Novelli, one of the world’s largest communications firms. Prior to Porter Novelli, Cathy built and managed one of the largest, centralized Talent and Booking Departments in the cable industry for TechTV (now G4TechTV) – a national network dedicated to technology and the lifestyle that comes with it.
A graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Cathy currently lives in San Francisco, CA, and blogs at www.otherthanthat.com.
Suw Charman
Producer, BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit
Blog: Strange Attractor, Chocolate and Vodka
Suw Charman is a renowned social media expert who specializes in the use of blogging and other social software in business. She writes about these topics on her blog, Strange Attractor. An independent consultant, Charman works with companies in the UK and US advising on the use of blogs behind the firewall and as marketing and external communications tools. She speaks about blogging and social software at conferences and seminars. Recent engagements include Supernova, Northern Voice, the London School of Economics, New Media Knowledge's Blogging: A Real Conversation, and OpenTech 2005. A keen copyright and digital rights activist, Charman is involved with both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons. She has also written about file sharing and intellectual property issues for publications such as The Guardian. She is currently writing a book on the use of internal business blogs.
Peter Friedman
Chairman and CEO, LiveWorld
Peter Friedman founded LiveWorld in April 1996. LiveWorld creates, operates, and manages loyalty marketing, customer support, and business intelligence communities based on LiveWorld’s community applications platform and community model. Services include message boards, blogs, groups, chat, interactive webcasts, research, reporting, moderation, community management and consulting. Clients include AOL, eBay, The Campbell Soup Company, and Warner Brothers.
Friedman sets the LiveWorld vision and directs overall operations. As executive sponsor for several Fortune 500 clients, he works with them to define how community services will support their business objectives. Prior to founding LiveWorld, Inc., he was the vice president and general manager of Apple Computer's Internet/Online Services business unit.
Scott Gatz
Senior Director, Personalization Products, Yahoo, Inc.
Scott Gatz is Yahoo!’s senior director of Personalization Products, driving strategy and product management for key personalization features across the Yahoo! network. Gatz is also responsible for the company’s content syndication/RSS initiatives and leads the team that redesigned My Yahoo! around RSS and integrated RSS into Yahoo! Mobile and Yahoo! News.
Gatz joined Yahoo! in 1998, and has led a number of popular products including My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Toolbar, integrated the GeoCities technology and its users into the Yahoo! platform, and led the team that negotiated and launched Yahoo!’s original relationship with Overture.
Michael W. Geoghegan
President, Willnick Productions Inc.
Blog: MWGblog
Michael W. Geoghegan, co-author of the book Podcast Solutions – The Complete Guide to Podcasting, has been involved in podcasting since its earliest days. His first podcast is Reel Reviews - Films Worth Watching and he acts as executive producer for Grape Radio, the top-rated podcast about wine. Through his company Willnick Productions, Inc., Geoghegan has produced some of the first corporate podcasts. In working with Disney, he hosted and produced The 50th Anniversary, Disneyland Podcasts as well as an ongoing monthly show for the park. Geoghegan’s newest venture, PrivaCast™, is a first-of-its-kind enterprise-level solution for secure corporate communications among organizations and their employees and constituents.
Seth Godin
Author and Entrepreneur, www.sethgodin.com
Seth Godin is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work. Just out, All Marketers are Liars is on the Amazon Top 100 and has inspired its own blog: www.allmarketersareliars.com.
Godin was chosen as one of 21 Speakers for the Next Century by Successful Meetings and is consistently rated among the very best speakers by the audiences he addresses.
He was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry’s leading interactive direct marketing company, which Yahoo! acquired in late 1998. Godin holds an MBA from Stanford, and was called "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by Business Week.
Steve Hall
Publisher and Editor, Adrants
Steve Hall has done time in media, account management and new business. Prior to publishing the award-winning Adrants, Hall held management positions at Leo Burnett, Starcom/Mediavest, BlackSheep Marketing, and Bozell, where he managed marketing budgets for both consumer and business-to-business clients including Reebok, Sperry Topsider, Monster.com, Tyco, Marriott Hotels and Marshmallow Fluff. Most recently, Hall was media director at RDW Group working for clients such as Blue Cross Blue Shield and Timex.
Hall writes and speaks about the integration of public relations and advertising, the future convergence of media, and the decline of traditional media. He is co-founder of MarketingVOX, an online marketing publication and co-founder and publisher of the AD:TECH industry trade show weblog.
Dick Hardt
Founder and CEO, SXIP
Blog: www.sxip.com/blog
A pioneer in the Internet sector and open source software community, Dick Hardt has been active in software development for nearly two decades.
Prior to founding Sxip Identity, Hardt founded ActiveState in 1997.
Hardt ported one of the first LAN email packages to Windows 1.03 in 1986 and later joined Paradigm Development. In 1993 Dick connected Paradigm to the Internet and later founded hip Communications, which became one of the larger web development and hosting companies in western Canada.
As an entrepreneur and technology expert, Hardt speaks at conferences and holds a board position with the Vancouver Enterprise Forum. He blogs at http://blame.ca/dick.
Mary Hodder
CEO, Bloqx
Blog: Napsterization
Mary Hodder is CEO of Bloqx, Inc., developers of online video web services. She is an information architect and interaction designer, developing extreme usability methods, and creating usability for web service companies with social media sites. She has worked with companies in open source, photo sharing, blog aggregation and search, legacy media and was at Technorati before starting Blogx.
Hodder has written reports on blog search and on new media for the American Press Institute. She is a blogger at Napsterization and an original author at bIPlog (the first UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism blog). She has a Master's in Information Science from The School of Information at UC Berkeley.
David Hornik
General Partner, August Capital
Blogs: VentureBlog, SaysMe
David Hornik is a General Partner with August Capital. He invests broadly in information technology companies, with a focus on consumer-facing software and services, enterprise applications and infrastructure software. Prior to joining August Capital, Hornik was an intellectual property and corporate attorney at Venture Law Group, Cravath Swaine & Moore, and Perkins Coie LLP. Hornik teaches business and law at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and writes about the venture capital industry in VentureBlog. David sits on the board of Six Apart and is an investor in Technorati.
Jackie Huba
Blog: Church of the Customer
Jackie Huba is the co-author of Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force. Her book has been called the "new mantra for entrepreneurial success" by the New York Times and "an absorbing read" by Harvard Business School. Huba and her co-author, Ben McConnell, have been quoted in the Financial Times, Chicago Tribune, Fast Company, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Boston Herald, Inc. magazine, and others discussing how customer advocacy has become the new currency in today's advertising saturated world. McConnell and Huba have evangelized audiences at Disney, Microsoft, Whirlpool, Starbucks, and small/medium businesses around the country on how to make customers volunteer members of the sales force.
Shel Israel
Co-Author, Naked Conversations & Editor-in-Chief, Conferenza
Blog: It Seems To Me
Shel Israel writes and speaks about blogging, communications and innovation. He also consults with startups as a senior strategy and communications advisor. He is co-author of Naked Conversations, How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, with Microsoft’s Robert Scoble. He is working on a second book and serves as editor-in-chief of Conferenza Premium Reports, the leading newsletter covering technology industry executive conferences.
A self-proclaimed recovering publicist, Israel spent more than 20 years as a PR executive specializing in technology startups. Among more than 100 companies, he’s worked with Sun Microsystems, SoundBlaster, PowerPoint, Filemaker, MapInfo, Virtual Vineyards and very briefly, Napster. Visit his web site at http://www.itseemstome.net.
Joseph Jaffe
President and Founder, jaffe LLC
Blog: Jaffe Juice
Joseph Jaffe is President and Founder of jaffe, L.L.C. – a “new marketing” consulting practice. jaffe, L.L.C. works with both the buy and sell sides, offering a suite of strategic and creative services, agency relations consulting and training, and custom publishing and speaking opportunities.
Prior to consulting, Jaffe was Director of Interactive Media at TBWA/Chiat/Day and OMD USA, where he worked on clients including Kmart, ABSOLUT Vodka, Embassy Suites and Samsonite.
His first book is entitled "Life after the 30-second spot: Energize your brand with a bold mix of alternatives to traditional advertising."
Jaffe is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School.
Jeff Jarvis
Consultant, New York Times Company
Blog: BuzzMachine
Jeff Jarvis is former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner. Until recently, he was president & creative director of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications. Jarvis is now working as editor of a news startup, still in stealth. He is working with The New York Times Company at About.com on content development and strategy and consulting for Advance and Fairchild. In 2006, he will become associate professor and director of the new media program the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism. He is a columnist for Media Guardian and is at work on a book.
David M. Johnson
Blog Software Architect, Sun Microsystems
Blog: BloggingRoller
David M. Johnson is a Blog Software Architect for Sun Microsystems. A software developer, blogger and writer who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, Mr. Johnson is the developer of Roller, blog server software that he created for an O'Reilly Network article titled Building An Open Source J2EE Weblogger.
In 2004, Sun Microsystems decided to encourage its employees to speak freely on mailing lists, newsgroups, forums and, especially, blogs. Sun created blogs.sun.com using Roller and later, Mr. Johnson joined the Sun.com team to develop and support Roller and other blog technologies.
He is also the author of RSS and Atom In Action, a new book about using blog, wiki and feed technologies to develop interesting new applications and to enable new ways of collaboration.
Mark Kingdon
CEO, Organic
Mark Kingdon has served as Organic's Chief Executive Officer since 2001, overseeing both the strategic and day-to-day management of the business and ensuring that Organic delivers exceptional experiences to clients and their customers.
Most recently, Kingdon worked with idealab!, providing strategic guidance and operational support to help them rationalize and refocus several of their business-to-consumer companies.
Prior to joining idealab!, Kingdon was a partner with the consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). He was a global leader of PwC's e-business practice, responsible for strategy, planning, marketing and knowledge management. During his tenure, the global e-business practice grew from $250 million in revenue to $1.4 billion.
Kingdon is a frequent industry spokesperson on customer relationship management and globalization.
John Kosner
Senior Vice President and General Manager, ESPN New Media
John Kosner was named senior vice president ESPN New Media in March 2003. In this role, Kosner oversees ESPN.com including it's editorial, production, sales and marketing operations. Additionally, he oversees ESPN360 the interactive and customizable broadband service from ESPN. Kosner most recently served as senior vice president of business operations and programming for ESPN.com, overseeing business development and ESPN's product development in broadband, wireless, interactive TV and new technologies.
Kosner, a 20-year media veteran, began his tenure at ESPN in December 1999 as vice president of programming development for ESPN, Inc. While in this capacity, he was involved in the acquisition of ESPN and ABC's exclusive prime time NFL rights, and the networks' exclusive NHL package, as well as ESPN.com's renewal of its exclusive NFL, NBA and NASCAR agreements. Prior to ESPN, Kosner worked at Sports Illustrated and the NBA. Kosner began his career at CBS Sports in 1982. Kosner graduated with distinction from Stanford University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American History.
Randall McAdory
Manager, Business Intelligence, Interactive Communications, DaimlerChrysler - DaimlerChrysler
Randall McAdory is Manager of Business Intelligence within the Interactive Marketing organization at DaimlerChrysler (specifically, at the Chrysler Group—the North American based division of DaimlerChrysler). His responsibilities include developing processes for accessing and interpreting Chrysler Group data and information from web-based sources. He is responsible for the development of web metrics for internal Chrysler Group brand sites such as Dodge.com, Chrysler.com, and Jeep.com.
Prior to his current role, Randall worked as Brand Manager for Chrysler minivans; and Advertising Manager for the Dodge brand.
McAdory holds an MBA from The University of Michigan Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from General Motors Institute (currently Kettering University).
Laurie Mayers
Senior Vice President, Deputy Managing Director, Hass MS&L BlogWorks
Laurie Mayers leads Hass MS&L's web and technology team. She joined Hass MS&L in 2000 as a project manager for General Motors'
communications web projects. She began working on the Internet in 1997 on the motorsports startup irace.com, and later worked as a web consultant in Ford Motor Company's Public Affairs department. She has extensive experience writing and editing for daily newspapers, including the Hartford (Conn.) Courant and the Ann Arbor (Mich.) News.
Susan Mernit
Partner, 5ive
Blog: Navigating the Info Jungle
Susan Mernit has more than ten years of senior executive experience building profitable new brands and products. As an entrepreneurial, creative leader skilled in managing media brands and services through a full life cycle, she has led the development of leading consumer brands for Scholastic, Parade Magazine, Advance Publications, Netscape, and America Online. Mernit’s products have won industry awards from The Newspaper Association of America, Folio, and Clarion Women in Communications among others. Regarded as one of the most effective and experienced Internet/new media executives in the country, she served as Vice President, Programming, Design and Production at Netscape.com, transforming the site into the number 1 daytime work/home content destination on the Internet and tripling advertising, e-commerce and search revenues.
Judith Meskill
Editorial Director, Weblogs Inc.
Blogs: The Social Software Weblog,
The Judith Meskill Weblog
Judith Meskill originally started blogging her poetry—haiku and sonnets—on September 1st, 2001. These days you’ll often find her lingering at the intersection of ‘knowledge’ and ‘social’ practices and tools—discovering and testing new ways to extend and support global connections through the Internet.
Ms. Meskill has about twenty years of Internet-related expertise with advanced skills in collaboration, knowledge-transformation, social networking systems, artificial intelligence and enterprise architectures.
In addition to being the Editorial Director of Weblogs, Inc., she has an ‘archive’ status, personal weblog—judith meskill’s knowledge notes—wherein she chronicled knowledge sharing and social software news for a period of about eighteen months. Today, she is in constant contact with over 120 Weblogs, Inc. bloggers as they are swarming and posting to over 80 weblogs including: Engadget, Autoblog, TUAW, Cinematical, TVSquad, DLSquad, and AdJab—to name just a few.
Michael O'Connor-Clarke
Independent PR Consultant
Blog: Uninstalled
An independent marketing and communications consultant, Michael O'Connor Clark has spent almost 20 years in and around the PR world, including stints as a senior vice president and practice director with two of the world's largest public relations agencies. His business card lists his skills as: Strategist, Story Teller, Builder, Bullet Catcher. He has pitched people, products, processes, and pop-tarts, but has a congenital inability to peddle fluff.
Jeremy Pepper
Founder and President, POP! Public Relations
Blog: Musings from POP! Public Relations
Jeremy Pepper opened his Arizona PR firm to help companies execute national strategic public relations plans and programs.
Past clients and projects have included: PR strategy for the national launch of a new tea company; developing strategy and marketing communications for a new bridal jewelry line; event planning and local media outreach for non-profit organizations; launching wireless technology products and services; booking media and analyst tours for various clients; securing local press coverage for a group of physicians; launching a public relations program for an online-based service; and advising a venture capitalist firm.
Pepper's campaigns have won the IPRA/United Nations Grand Award for outstanding achievement, the IPRA Golden Award and two Silver Anvil Awards of Excellence.
Lisa Poulson
Managing Director, Burson-Marsteller
Lisa Poulson, managing director in Burson-Marsteller’s Global Technology Practice, brings a deep understanding of the processes of persuasion to her work – helping her clients understand and use communications vehicles to build credibility and strong relationships among the constituencies they need to reach, as well as guiding them to make provocative contributions to the public discourse. During her tenure at Sun Microsystems, Poulson launched the Java technology to business, trade and consumer press and analysts—taking it from a lab project to an international force in software. She also counsels technology companies involved in intellectual property and anti-trust litigation. At Burson-Marsteller, she has served clients as diverse as IBM, the US Postal Service and Hydro-Quebec. Poulson serves on Guidewire Group's Sounding Board and occasionally posts thoughts on communications on Guidewire Group's Social Media blog.
Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network
Blog: Cameron Reilly's Blog
Cameron Reilly worked for Microsoft Australia and Australia's largest ISP before co-founding the world's first podcasting business, The Podcast Network, in January 2005. He is 35 and lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and kids. Apart from the role of independent digital media in helping the human race to evolve, his other passions include Napoleonic history, the work of Lou Reed and Advaita Vedanta.
Scott Rafer
Chairman, Wireless Ink
Blog: rafer.wirelessink.com
Scott Rafer is chairman of Wireless Ink, the mobile publishing service and portal. He was most recently CEO of Feedster, a rapidly growing blog search engine and advertising network. Before Feedster, Rafer co-founded WiFinder, the World's Largest Hotspot Directory; Fresher Information, a provider of immediate content indexing technology; and FotoNation, a creator of connected photography solutions. Prior to his adventures in Silicon Valley, Rafer led the Internet products group at Kodak Hollywood, and worked in investment banking at Needham & Company. He graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Steve Rubel
Vice President, Client Services, CooperKatz & Company
Blog: Micro Persuasion
Steve Rubel is a marketing strategist with nearly 15 years of public relations, online marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as Vice President, Client Services at CooperKatz & Company, a mid-size PR firm in midtown New York City.
Mr. Rubel heads up the agency's new Micro Persuasion practice, which helps clients launch conversational marketing programs that include blogs, podcasting and RSS. He also widely evangelizes the use of these and other new technologies via his well-read Micro Persuasion blog.
David Rubin
Brand Development Director, Axe, Unilever HPC NA
David Rubin has been with the Axe Brand since before its launch in North America, joining the team in 2000. He was responsible for the launch plans of Axe Deodorant Bodyspray to young guys in the U.S. On Axe, he has led several advertising campaigns, pioneered Axe's viral marketing, developed a video game and led several national events including one that led to a national TV program on Spike. He and Axe have won numerous awards, including Cannes Lions, Guerrilla Marketer of the Year from Brandweek, Ad Age's Top 50 Marketers of 2004 and several Reggie awards for promotions and events.
Mr. Rubin joined Unilever in 1999, also working on Dove and Degree. He also worked for a US Congressman and in economic policy at the U.S. Treasury. He is a 1999 MBA Graduate of the Wharton school of Business and received a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University.
He and his wife live in Chicago. He has run 3 marathons and is an avid video gamer.
Bill Schreiner
VP and GM of AOL Community Programming, AOL
As Vice President and General Manager of Community Programming for America Online, Bill Schreiner spearheads new programming experiences for such core AOL products as journals (blogs), chats, message boards, social networking, groups, home pages and more.
Schreiner began his career at AOL in 1996 as "CEO of Love" for his work on Love@AOL, which he developed into the largest romance and personals site on the web. With the acquisition of MapQuest in 2000, he became Vice President of Product and Programming for MapQuest and led the redesign and growth of the MapQuest.com site, expanding traffic from 8 million to more than 16 million unique visitors per month. More recently, Schreiner served as head of Product Strategy for AOL Entertainment while overseeing the creation and launch of AOL TICKETS.
Deborah Schultz
Marketing Director, Six Apart
Deborah Schultz engages and educates Six Apart customers, partners and developers on the power of weblogging as a communication medium.
Prior to joining Six Apart, Schultz founded and launched her own successful marketing consulting firm, DRS Solutions. She was previously a consultant at the Internet consulting firm, AnswerThink and spent five years at Citibank where she led the global bank's foray onto the Internet. She was also a founding member of Citibank's Corporate Web Council. Schultz has lectured on entrepreneurship and the symbiotic role of marketing and technology in growing revenue and increasing customer satisfaction. She passionately believes in the power of the Internet and weblogging to fundamentally change how individuals and businesses communicate and connect.
Gil Schwartz
EVP of Communications, CBS Television
Gil Schwartz is executive vice president of communications at CBS Television where he represents the network as a spokesperson on a variety of critical issues.
He is also a best-selling author and Fortune magazine columnist (aka Stanley Bing) who writes with insight and humor about the inner workings of corporations. He began writing as a business advice columnist for Esquire magazine, and is the author of Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up and What Would Machiavelli Do? The Ends Justify the Meanness.
Andy Sernovitz
CEO, Word of Mouth Marketing Association
Andy Sernovitz, a twelve-year veteran of the interactive marketing business, is CEO of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). He also has been a Visiting Scholar at the Wharton School of Business, where he taught Internet Entrepreneurship, and he is Founder and President Emeritus of the Association for Interactive Marketing (AIM).
In 1993, he began pulling the Internet industry together under AIM, which grew to represent more Internet companies than any other organization. As the de facto Washington representative for the Internet industry, Mr. Sernovitz was involved in the formative policy debates surrounding privacy, spam, and other key Internet issues. In 1999 he sold AIM to the Direct Marketing Association, where he led efforts to help traditional marketers effectively use new technologies.
He holds degrees in Marketing from the Wharton School of Business and in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Chris Shipley
Chris Shipley is a leading technology and product analyst. Best known as the executive producer of the DEMO Conferences for IDG Executive Forums, Shipley has helped technology companies bring nearly 1,000 new products to market since 1996. As a founding partner and editorial director in Guidewire Group, she consults with emerging technology companies in the U.S. and Europe to identify market opportunities and accelerate products to market. Fortune Small Business Magazine placed Shipley on its "Top 10 Minds in Small Business," and the San Jose Business Journal named her a "Woman of Distinction." She has often been cited as a leading influencer by Marketing Computers magazine. Shipley has covered personal technology since 1984 and has worked as a writer and editor for a variety of technology and consumer media. She is currently authoring a book on the social impact of technology-driven change.
Shipley holds BAs in Literature and Communication Arts and pursues knowledge and understanding relentlessly.
Randy Silver
Producer/Interactive, SIRIUS Satellite Radio
A former music journalist and editor, Randy Silver has spent the last 10 years developing the marketing and editorial efforts for entertainment, retail and cultural institutions. Before joining SIRIUS Satellite Radio in 2004, he was involved in the launch of the music stores for both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk; he also spent time at Prodigy, AOL's The Hub and developed the interactive components for a exhibits at the Museum of Science and Brooklyn Children's Museum.
Cydni R. Tetro
Vice President, Product & Corporate Marketing, NextPage
With more than 13 years of high-tech product management and marketing experience, Cydni directs the strategy and execution of NextPage’s global marketing initiatives—including product marketing and strategy, brand management, market research and marketing communications.
Cydni was named as a 2005 vSpring Capital Top 100 Venture Entrepreneurs (v|100), and is the co-founder of the Marketing Executive Forum.
Prior to joining NextPage, Cydni oversaw the Novell Directory Services (NDS) product management group at Novell and managed Novell's NDS technical support and escalation team. She has also served as an IT manager for Nu Skin and as a tester and beta manager for WordPerfect Corporation.
Cydni holds a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor's degree in computer science from Brigham Young University.
Vicki Warker
VP - Product Management and Marketing, Sprint Business Solutions
Blog: Things That Make You Go Wireless
With more than 20 years experience in telecommunications, Vicki Warker has extensive experience in marketing, voice and data product management, customer service, and channel management. Known to her coworkers as the "geek with a manicure," Warker is looking forward to a positive dialogue with Sprint users and anyone interested in communications. Sprint has been open with their customers about strategy, and customers have responded with valuable feedback. Warker's looking forward to continuing that conversation, discussing business wireless and other topics of interest to her readers.
Warker holds both Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Heart of America United Way Metro Alliance on Adult Learning Steering Committee.
David Weinberger
Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Blog: Joho The Blog
David Weinberger, Ph.D. (www.JohoTheBlog.com) is co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and the author of Small Pieces
Loosely Joined. His work has appeared in Harvard Business Review,
USA Today, Wired, Salon, The Guardian, Esther Dyson’s Release 1.0, and many others. He is a commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and a columnist for Worthwhile and KMWorld. He is on several advisory boards, including Technorati, ITConversations and the Information Architecture association. He's a marketing consultant with a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto and he does too much weblogging. He's working on a book (Times Books, winter 2007)called Everything Is Miscellaneous about the social effect of digital ways of organizing knowledge and he hates writing about himself in the third person.
Steven Wilson
Senior Director, Global Web Communications, McDonald's Corporation
Steven Wilson leads McDonald's global Web communications group responsible for AccessMCD, the McDonald's corporate employee communications, franchisee and supplier enterprise portal, and the corporate presence on McDonalds.com.
Prior to coming to McDonald's in July of 2002, Mr. Wilson was a founder and CEO of EyeConcur Corporation, an innovative streaming media service company serving the employment and recruiting markets. In his diverse 23 years in the technology industry, he has held product marketing and business development roles at Microsoft Corporation where he was instrumental in the initial content development and launch of the Microsoft Network (MSN), and product-line management positions at Oracle Corporation.
He received his education from the University of Maryland and Arizona State University, and holds a degree in Business Management and a Masters of Business Administration.
