Month: March 2009

Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. Solis blogs at PR2.0, bub.blicio.us, and regularly contributes PR & tech insight to industry publications. Solis is among the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media. He’s a co-founder of the Social Media Club, is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, and also contributes to the Social Media Collective.

In concert with Geoff Livingston, Solis recently released “Now is Gone” a new, award-winning book that helps businesses learn how to engage in Social Media. He has also written several ebooks on the subjects of Social Media, New PR, Customer Service, and Blogger Relations.

Charlene Li is an independent thought leader on emerging technologies, with a specific focus on social technologies, interactive media, and marketing. She has a blog that discusses these topics at charleneli.com.

She is also the co-author of the business bestseller, “Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies“, published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008.

Charlene is one of the most frequently-quoted industry analysts and has appeared on 60 Minutes, The McNeil NewsHour, ABC News, CNN, and CNBC. She is also frequently quoted by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USAToday, Reuters, and The Associated Press. She is a much-sought after public speaker and has presented frequently at top technology conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW, and adTech.

Most recently, Charlene was a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. She joined Forrester in 1999, after spending five years in online and newspaper publishing with the San Jose Mercury News and Community Newspaper Company. She was also a consultant with Monitor Group in Boston and Amsterdam.

She is a graduate of Harvard Business School and received a magna cum laude degree from Harvard College.

Tara Hunt specializes in community marketing, which she defines not as ‘building communities’, but rather, “delighting and enchanting those people already part of your community – through product, communication and experience.”

Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and raised in small town Alberta, Sundre [on a farm] [with cows], I am the least likely city girl you will ever meet. Yet, the bigger, the smellier, the more crowded the city, the happier I am. I prefer city scapes to mountain views and I think the most beautiful thing in the world is old, slightly broken down city architecture.

I currently live in San Francisco, California. The past year and a half has been incredibly exciting for me. I was in Toronto, minding my own business (literally, with Rogue Strategies – now forwarding here) and writing on this blog, when I was ‘drafted’ to come to SF to join an exciting stealth startup called Ojos, which became Riya, who has just launched a great new product called, Like. I left Riya in May of 2006 to pursue my own business, Citizen Agency, launched in June of 2006. We moved into our new offices (also a coworking space) in November 2006.

Although I spend a good deal of time railing against marketing and consumerism, I am by profession an Online Marketing professional and, well, a consumer to the nth degree. You can ask anyone who knows me. I think these three personalities can meet in the middle, though, and I think that makes me more effective. I think about the consumer…the person, the living, breathing, thinking, feeling being that is out there looking for good ways to spend her hard-earned money. I have never believed in mass anything, because people are individuals and not ‘targets’. People don’t buy brands, they buy hope, stories, memories, necessities, etc.

Take off your marketing hat and put on your regular every-day person who has some money in your pocket (i.e. consumer) hat and you’ll see what I mean, but remember that we all have different experiences, memories, desires and needs.

I specialize in community marketing, which isn’t ‘building communities’, but rather, delighting and enchanting those people already part of your community – through product, communication and experience. We only take on clients and products I believe in, although I am the first to admit being a total marketing whore in the past.

Chris Saad is the founder of a number of online projects. Saad founded and hosted the live radio/internet show Radioactive in 1997, and continued with the project until May 2000. The show also integrated online functionality with chat, forums, and voting to create an immersive experience. During this time he founded RedShift Pty Ltd, which he was involved with until 2006. He is currently involved with Faraday Media, APML Workgroup, Media 2.0 Workgroup, and DataPortability (all of which were co-founded by him).

Todd Steinman oversees operations and strategy for M80, a social media and online publicity agency specializing in grassroots and viral marketing. M80’s clients include Microsoft, Fox Home Entertainment, Cisco, Warner Bros. and MTV. Prior to M80, Steinman served as General Manager of Media & Entertainment for iXL, a global internet services firm, and as Vice President, New Media and Marketing at Warner Bros. Records.

At iXL, his blend of technical expertise, product development and strategic planning enabled him to help foremost publishing, broadcast, filmed entertainment and music companies identify and develop successful digital business solutions. Steinman began his career at Warner Bros. Records, where he became Vice President, New Media and Marketing. He founded the company’s New Media department in 1993 and was instrumental in putting them on the map as the first major record label online. He developed and managed the company’s online presence including highly trafficked artist sites, mailing lists, and e-commerce. Todd managed strategic partnerships with technology companies, content providers and internet portals and played a key role in the conception and launch of Warner Bros. Online. Steinman got his start at Warner Bros. Records in Product Management and Creative Services.

Ed Terpening is responsible for strategy and development of social media marketing strategies for Wells Fargo, including initiatives on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. He launched the first blog by a US bank which won a “Best of the web” award in 2006. He is a founding member of The Blog Council and was formerly associate vice-president of product management for CNET Networks.

Shel Israel writes and speaks on social media’s impact on business and culture. He is an editorial contributor to BusinessWeek, Dow Jones and FastCompany. According to AdAge, his GlobalNeighbourhoods.net, is among the world’s 50 most popular business blogs. Israel is the co-author, with Robert Scoble, of Naked Conversations–how blogs are changing the way businesses talk with customers, which is considered by many to be the seminal book on business blogging.

Since July 2007, Israel has interviewed more than 100 people in 35 countries on the impact of social media in his Social Media Global Report. His subjects have ranged from Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers to Wael Abbas, who posts hidden camera videos n YouTube of Egyptian police brutality.

He often speaks on his findings from this ongoing study. Since 2005 he has been a featured speaker more than 50 times in eight countries to audiences totaling more than 10,000 people.

Israel on the board of directors for YourTrumanShow, a video blogging startup and is a senior advisor to the Society for New Media Research.

Mr. Lamberti leads the Search practice at comScore, Inc. within the Media Division. Since joining comScore in 2001, James has led the development of the firm’s qSearch data stream into an industry leading data and analytics tool widely used by search engines, portals, publishers, marketers and analysts all around the globe. James is a 15 year veteran of the market research industry with a background in all facets of marketing research, marketing, product development, and database management.
James began his career at Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) in 1992 and learned the fundamentals of panel based research working with wineries in California’s Napa and Sonoma Valleys. A transition to the Clorox Company in 1995 cemented James’ skills as both a qualitative and quantitative researcher with the one of the CPG industries most respected companies. During his tenure at Clorox, James eventually managed all research for the Home Cleaning division including brands such as Tilex, 409, and Clorox. In 1999 after making the jump to the technology sector with Tickets.com, James transferred his classic marketing background into the Internet sector.
James is now regarded as one of the industry’s foremost authorities on the Internet search space and is a frequent speaker at industry events such as Search Engine Strategies, ARF, and Piper Jaffrey conferences. Mr. Lamberti is also frequently quoted by leading news organizations such as the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, NPR, and Wall Street Journal to name a few.

In his spare time for nearly a decade, James was a guitarist with the San Francisco rock quintet Blueland signed to an indie label out of the famous Plant Recording Studios in Sausalito, California.

James earned a BA in Economics from Colby College in Waterville, ME.

LaSandra Brill is a social media enthusiast, avid blogger and marketing innovator. As Manager of the Service Provider Web & Social Media Marketing group, LaSandra Brill shapes Cisco’s marketing strategy to include a mix of social media marketing techniques leveraging web 2.0 technologies. LaSandra is an Ezine expert author and authors a blog, Marketing in a Web 2.0 World, where she explores how marketing is changing for B2B companies with the rise of social media and Web 2.0. She has ten years of technology marketing, communications, and web strategy experience. Before joining Cisco, she held marketing management positions at Mirapoint and AppStream.

LaSandra holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Management from San Jose State University.

With over 10 years Internet specific Business Development experience, Brian Caldwell specializes in creating new consumer platforms for marketing and sales of products and services. Caldwell provides market driven guidance to help companies explore new technologies and business models in the world of social media, online advertising/marketing and affiliate sales. His muse is named “curiosity.” Brian can be reached at http://eponymousx.com