Elan Lee is the Chief Creative Officer and Founder of Fourth Wall Studios, a studio dedicated to creating next generation digital content and connected entertainment experiences. Lee heads the studio’s creative concepts from product development to brand identity. Elan has been instrumental in the ideation of Fourth Wall’s groundbreaking original content series and how they interact with their proprietary Rides.tv platform, delivering exclusive content to viewers in a way that has never been seen before – across texts, phone calls, email and more.

Prior to Fourth Wall, Lee began his career at the Microsoft Game Studio as the lead designer for the Xbox launch portfolio where he also directed the world’s first alternate reality game, The Beast for Steven Spielberg’s thriller Artificial Intelligence: AI. Today, he is considered one of the foremost creators of the ARG genre, and he continues to influence next-generation entertainment as he speaks all over the world. As a co-founder and Vice President of Design for 42 Entertainment, Lee championed some of the most influential titles in transmedia entertainment such as I Love Bees, and Year Zero for Nine Inch Nails. Throughout his career, Lee has won awards for Best Web Game of the Year, Best Advertising Campaign of the Year, Best Idea of the Year and most recently, a Primetime Emmy® nomination for DIRTY
WORK, one of the flagship series for Fourth Wall Studios.

Television personality, filmmaker and philosopher, Jason Silva was recently described as “part Timothy Leary, part Ray Kurzweil, and part Neo from The Matrix.”

Others have described Jason as “A Digital DJ, a re-vitalizer and remixer of optimism, and above all, a curator: of ideas, of inspiration, and of awe… like a trumpet player or modern-day digital Mingus, he jams, riffs and rhapsodizes through a tumbling thicket of ideas with such a sharp and vital alacrity that it can take the breath away. He’s a modern performance philosopher, reviving the vibe of Tim Leary and Buckminster Fuller and revivifying the dialogue that they started decades ago.”

From 2005 to 2011, Venezuela-born Silva was a presenter on Current TV, the Emmy winning, independent cable network started by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, where he hosted, wrote and produced over 100 hours of original content.

Jason recently launched a series of non-commercial micro-documentaries exploring the co-evolution of human and technology, the latest of which was called “stunning” by TED Conference owner and curator, Chris Anderson. Jason has recently spoken at The Singularity Summit in NYC and his work was featured at The Economist World in 2012 Ideas Festival. In January 2012, Jason spoke TWICE at the prestigious DLD Digital Life Design Conference in Munich.

Jason has also partnered with Oscar nominated producer Peter Martin to create a feature length 3D Documentary on the technological singularity.

Silva’s work has been featured in The Economist, Vanity Fair, Forbes and Wired, among many others. Silva was also featured as part of the GAP ‘Icons’ campaign.

The Imaginary Foundation wrote of Jason’s most recent talks and short films that, “like some kind of Ontological DJ, he recompiles the source code of western philosophy by mixing and mashing it up into a form of recombinant creativity, which elevates understanding from the dry and prosaic, to a sensual cognitive romance.”

In 2011 he became a fellow at the Hybrid Realities Institute, examining the symbiosis between man and machine. Silva recently closed a deal to host “Brain Games” for National Geographic Channel. “Brain Games” uses interactive experiments, misdirection and tricks to demonstrate how our brains create the illusion of a seamless reality through our memory, through our sensory perceptions, and in how we focus our attention. 

Silva resides in Los Angeles, California and New York City.

Jack Menzel leads the teams developing new technologies used for understanding and answering users' questions, such as the Knowledge Graph. Prior to joining Google Jack worked as a Program Manager at Microsoft. Jack holds a MS in Computer Science from the University of Washington as well as an BS in Computer Science and Mathematical Economics from Brown University.

Clark Kokich is the Chairman at Razorfish and is one of the premier thought leaders in the world of digital marketing.  He has been quoted frequently in the Wall Street Journal, Ad Age, and the New York Times, among others.  A popular speaker, he brings his unique perspective on the future of marketing to business audiences world-wide.  In the fall of last year, Clark wrote and released Do or Die, the world’s first business book published exclusively as a fully-interactive iPad app.

In 1999, Clark Kokich took a giant leap of faith and traded in a successful career working for traditional ad agencies to join Razorfish--then called Avenue A. At the time, few people had even heard the term "digital agency," and fewer still thought it was an area of great promise. They were wrong, of course. Over the next few years, Razorfish grew from one office in Seattle to the current 14 in eight countries around the world--while Clark rapidly ascended to the CEO's office. Razorfish now serves nearly a quarter of all Fortune 100 companies, including Nike, Dell, Microsoft, Disney, Kraft, Ford, Delta Airlines, Starwood Hotels, and Intel. Now the chairman of Razorfish, which is now part of Publicis Groupe, Clark sums up his career and the theme of his book, Do or Die, in one succinct statement: "I used to be in advertising. Now I do things.”

Abe Thomas is the General Manager for the Microsoft.com team.  As one of the top 10 most visited websites in the world, Microsoft.com serves a global audience of more than 270+ million unique users every month.  Abe is responsible for ensuring that Microsoft.com is the cornerstone of Microsoft’s online marketing efforts by enabling the network to deliver increased customer relevance and network experience, increased quality and volume of user traffic to and through Microsoft.com and promoting self-serve sales and support.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Abe served as Vice President of Online Marketing for MySpace. In this role Abe was responsible for developing the overall strategy for acquiring new customers through online advertising, affiliates and search marketing. In his time at MySpace, Abe revamped the use of SEO and more than tripled sign-ups from organic search, increased signup conversions in total by 40%, and built new data systems enabling a data-driven approach
to marketing decisions.

In Jan 2007, Abe moved to PayPal Merchant Services where he was focused on marketing PayPal to their Large Merchant Services business. In 2006, Abe spent a year in Mumbai, India leading eBay India’s Internet Marketing team. With Google still in its infancy in India, successful optimization of eBay’s Search program resulted in a high representation of eBay pages in Google’s Paid Search program and Google’s Natural Search results.

Prior to joining eBay, Abe held multiple business development, product marketing and consulting positions at AltaVista, Palm, IBM Consulting and Motorola.
Abe received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, a MSEE from USC and then an MBA from the University of Chicago. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two girls.

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. Through his entrepreneurial career he has helped large corporations such as Amazon, AOL, GM, HP and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was he named one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal, but he was also named one of the top entrepreneurs in the nation by Entrepreneur magazine. Neil has also received Congressional Recognition from the U.S. House of Representatives for his work in the nonprofit sector.

Rob Reid is a writer and technology entrepreneur based in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. He's the author of "Year Zero" (Del Rey, 2012) - a novel about aliens with a mad passion for human music. His other writings have included a cover story for Wired Magazine, as well as prominent features in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, and the Gilder Technology Report. He has also written for countless websites, including Ars Technica, Wired.com, and TED.com.

Rob was the founder, CEO, and Chairman of Listen.com, the online music company that developed the Rhapsody music service. Listen was the first online music company to secure full-catalog licenses from all of the major labels. Rob sold Listen to RealNetworks. Viacom's MTV Networks division later bought half of Rhapsody, and in March of 2010 it was spun out as an independent company. Rhapsody now has over a million paying subscribers.Rob Reid is a writer and technology entrepreneur based in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, California. He's the author of "Year Zero" (Del Rey, 2012) - a novel about aliens with a mad passion for human music. His other writings have included a cover story for Wired Magazine, as well as prominent features in publications including the Wall Street Journal, Business 2.0, and the Gilder Technology Report. He has also written for countless websites, including Ars Technica, Wired.com, and TED.com.

Rob was the founder, CEO, and Chairman of Listen.com, the online music company that developed the Rhapsody music service. Listen was the first online music company to secure full-catalog licenses from all of the major labels. Rob sold Listen to RealNetworks. Viacom's MTV Networks division later bought half of Rhapsody, and in March of 2010 it was spun out as an independent company. Rhapsody now has over a million paying subscribers.

Duane Forrester is a Sr. Product Manager with Bing’s Webmaster Program. Previously, he was an inhouse SEM running the SEO program for MSN in the US & Americas. He's also the founding co-chair of SEMPO's In-House SEM Committee, was formerly on the Board of Directors for SEMPO and is the author of two books: How To Make Money With Your Blog & Turn Clicks Into Customers.  Duane was a moderator at SearchEngineForums.com, maintains his own blog at TheOnlineMarketingGuy.com, used to write for Search Engine Land and has almost 15 years’ experience as an SEO.

David Bunnell is a legendary media entrepreneur and one of the pioneers of technology publishing. In the mid-1970’s he created the marketing campaigns for the world’s first personal computer, the Altair, and for the first personal computer software, Microsoft BASIC.

Personal Computing magazine, launched in 1977, was the first of his many magazines. In exchange for articles written by his friends Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Bunnell continued to work on Microsoft projects including the design of the company’s original logo.

In 1981 he started PC Magazine in the spare bedroom of his house near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Wildly successful, some of the early issues of the magazine were over 700 pages. Following PC Magazine, he created PC World, and in 1984, working in secret with Steve Jobs, he published Macworld on the very day the Macintosh was introduced.

Other Bunnell magazines include Publish!, NewMedia, Upside, DigiT and Eldr. In the early-1990’s he published the first electronically delivered newspaper, BioWorld, which was delivered daily to biotechnology and pharmaceutical executives using “fax blasting” technology.

In addition to magazines, he has founded or co-founded many other media properties including websites, conferences, and most recently, virtual social worlds. Winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Computer Press Association, Bunnell lives in Berkeley, CA.

David Shing is AOL’s Digital Prophet. He regularly speaks at conferences across the globe, discussing the latest trends and the future of the web, providing his insight on the evolving digital landscape and where he believes it is headed in the future. In this role David works across both North American and International territories to identify new opportunities for the business and assist in building the external profile of the company across the globe.

Prior to moving to New York, David was based in London and held the position of VP Media & Marketing for AOL Europe. There, he focused on delivering the best possible online experience for AOL users by delivering on all aspects of the media content vision and marketing strategy including online, offline, social and viral partnerships of AOL and its brand and product range. He was also the lead for creative design and key experiences innovation.

David joined AOL in 2007 as European Marketing Director. Prior to that he spent more than 15 years helping build successful web technology start-ups and multimedia businesses in the US and Australia.

Wayne Kramer is a songwriter whose reputation writing music for film and television risks supplanting his legend as one of the world’s stellar guitarists. Wayne was a teenage greaser and leader of the MC5, widely recognized as the prototype for punk rock and heavy metal. Ironically, he was also the first to incorporate a nod to free jazz. In 1969, the MC5 released the incendiary album Kick Out The Jams on Elektra Records. After being dropped from Elektra due to “radical antics”, they released two albums on Atlantic Records: Back In The USA, produced by soon-to-be Bruce Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau; and the critically hailed High Time. Between world tours, Wayne scored Gold and The Living Theatre’s film production of Paradise Now.

Wayne spent 1976-1978 in Lexington Federal Penitentiary where he was tutored by fellow inmate, Charlie Parker’s jazz trumpeter Red Rodney. It was Red who taught Wayne how to read music and the two formed a prison band. After release, Wayne co-wrote the acclaimed R&B musical The Last Words of Dutch Schultz with Mick Farren, then joined Don Was’ revolutionary acid funk band Was (Not Was) as the original guitarist. Wayne helped define the band’s sound through, of all things, the dance hit “Wheel Me Out”. In the 1980s in New York City, Wayne teamed up with the infamous Johnny Thunders for a short-lived, headline grabbing, punk rock group Gang War.

Wayne has completed score for the third season of HBO’s East Bound & Down and the feature thriller Concrete Blondes as well as the acclaimed “zeitgeist” doc Let Fury Have The Hour. In 2012, he will write and produce original compositions for ShadowMachine’s stop-motion animation feature Hell & Back. Wayne scored the comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby for Sony Pictures, where his song “Edge of the Switchblade” also runs at the film’s end title credits. Wayne composed the score for HBO’s controversial feature length documentary Hacking Democracy, which also utilized “Something Broken in the Promised Land” as its title track. He wrote additional underscore for the feature film Daydreamer (Aron Paul) and he will compose the score for Nelson Algren, a documentary about the legendary Chicago writer, in 2013.

On television, Wayne’s title theme for the Fox Sports program 5-4-3-2-1 was a bona fide hit and he now has many themes running on Fox including, Spotlight, In My Own Words and Under the Lights. Wayne composed the theme for E!’s hit series Split Ends as well as the “Unlabeled” commercial for Jim Beam. His songs have been featured in a wide array of TV shows and feature films Jackass, Judging Amy, Millenium, Almost Famous, Rock ’n’ Roll High School, I Shot Andy Warhol and Pump Up the Volume. His cues are heard in NFL, NBA and MLB Playoff events and Food Network productions. He has written over 1000 cues for network production music catalogs, including Fox, TelePictures, PostHaste and Bravo’s 2010 series Kell on Earth, among others.

Wayne is recognized nearly as often as a vigorous social activist. Along with wife Margaret Saadi Kramer and legendary British singer Billy Bragg, Wayne founded Jail Guitar Doors USA, a Los Angeles based 501(c)3 non-profit group that provides guitars for use in prisoner rehabilitation. Known as “the loudest charity on planet earth,” JGD-USA launched at Sing Sing Prison in Spring 2009 and has since intervened at over 25 adult and juvenile — both minimum security and maximum-security — facilities in the USA. Shepard Fairey donated the charity’s logo and board member Adam McKay’s company Funny or Die donated the design and programming of its interactive site. JGD-USA is currently building its Board of Directors.

Kirsten Ward is a senior director in Microsoft’s Central Marketing Group. Kirsten is responsible for media strategy and execution across Xbox, Bing, and MSN in over 10 global markets. 

Kirsten was a member of the core leadership team responsible for the launch of the Bing brand in 2009 and has led or contributed to multiple award winning campaign initiatives. Honors achieved by the Bing campaign include the 2012 OMMA Award for Online Advertising Creativity, 2011 Cannes Titanium Lion Award, 2010 ARF David Ogilvy Award for Excellence in Advertising Research, and Ad Age 2009 Best New Brand award.

Since joining Microsoft in 2001, Kirsten has held a variety of advertising, marketing, and product management roles in the Central Marketing Group, Online Services division, and the Server & Tools division. Her marketing experience spans traditional and digital advertising, engagement marketing, branding and PR.

Prior to Microsoft, Kirsten held product management and management consulting positions in the Pacific Northwest after graduating from the University of Washington with an Honors degree in Economics.

Chris Kornelis is music editor at Seattle Weekly and the founding editor of Reverb Monthly, SW’s music magazine. He has been at the Weekly since 2007, when he became the paper’s first web editor. He worked previously as a features reporter at Bremerton’s Kitsap Sun, and web editor at the Summit Daily News in Frisco, Colo. Chris has a journalism degree from the University of Idaho (same as Sarah Palin). Chris has never received a professional journalism award (which is really saying something), but he has made Janet Reno laugh. They don't give awards for that. But they should.

Dan Wright is the Director of Product Specialists for Amazon Media Group, leading Amazon’s sales efforts surrounding emerging advertising products.

Dan joined Amazon in 2011, after holding leadership positions at a number of technology startups focused on innovation within the digital media space.  He was most recently president of Precision Demand, which provides a demand-side platform for television advertising.  Prior to that, Dan was CEO of mPoria, a mobile shopping platform provider, and General Manager of mobile messaging with Mobliss, which is focused on continued growth in the mobile-application industry. Dan started his career in digital media with AskMe.com, where he was Vice President of Sales and Account Management.

Dan holds a BA degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kevin Mackey is the BI & Analytics Practice lead at Point B, a management consulting firm that helps clients develop strategic insights and translate them into impact. With over 15 years of experience in data management, business intelligence and analytics, Kevin has helped many organizations develop and execute data-driven strategies and has presented at events across the US and Europe.

Brett Sheppard is a product marketing senior manager at Tableau Software. Previous roles include senior analyst at Gartner. His work focuses on enabling analytics and collaboration for enterprises and public sector organizations.

Dan began his career in agency-side account management and planning for clients like FedEx (boxes and envelopes), Unilever/Lawry's (spices and marinades), Steelcase (great chairs), Syngenta (crops), Mayo Clinic (philanthropy), M&M Mars (w/ peanuts), and NASCAR (NASCAR!).  In a fit of ambition, he jumped the agency ship and went client side at Target where he led digital marketing for health/wellness/pharmacy/clinic, user experience research and design for in-store digital kiosks and target.com, and the research and design of Target's first iPhone application and mobile site.  Dan then led Target's foray into social media, where he helped bring the Target brand to life based on the idea that success for great brands means helping them become more inclusive and transparent.  Dan built Target's social planning and community management capabilities, the social experience design discipline, and created and managed the social business strategy COE and governance process.  Along the way he won some awards and worked on stealthy ideas and applications for the reinvention of multi-channel retail.  After 6 years at Target, Dan joined Starbucks to lead planning for the Global Digital Marketing group.  In his current role, Dan and his team are responsible for crafting insight-driven, intention-harnessing strategies that go beyond just advertising to deliver meaningful opportunities for passionate fans to engage.  His favorite drink (right now) is a Clover brewed Sundried Sumatra.

Like everyone, Ryan started out thinking he would teach poetry writing to graduate students while skiing 50 days a season and brewing his own beer. Student loans came due, and things got interesting. Ryan lucked into a writing job at the Gates Foundation and quickly shifted from writing to information architecture and usability, then to online community. Looking to fulfill a lifelong dream to work in his own basement, Ryan shifted to consulting, with an early focus on enterprise social software, knowledge management, and leadership development. It was too geeky. He got out, and switched to the agency side, first as the resident online community guy, then the Web 2.0 guy, then the social media guy. Ryan built from scratch the social media practices at ZAAZ (now Possible Worldwide) and Razorfish in the West, working along the way with clients including Morgan's Hotel Group, Microsoft, Janus Capital, Best Buy, Nike, Miller-Coors, Weight Watchers, Disney, and many more. It was fun. Now he leads social media and digital creative for Starbucks, looking to reimagine the place of brands in society and culture. He no longer lives in a 1985 Volvo. He raises kids, and reads more poetry than he writes—but still ties his own flies, skis hard the few days he skis, and rides with pride a cheap beater bike to work, rain or shine.

Kyla is the publisher of No Depression.com, the online domain of the former No Depression magazine which launched in 1995 with roots music, alternative country, and Americana at its core. No Depression was one of the most prominent, award-winning music publications in the U.S. The magazine received Utne Reader Independent Press Awards for Arts & Literature coverage, and was cited as one of the nation's Top 20 magazines of any kind in 2004 by the Chicago Tribune. In 2008 Kyla transitioned No Depression from a print publication to a thriving online community, digitizing all 75 issues to create a free online archive.

No Depression began as one of the first Internet forums on AOL back in the early '90s. Today, the spirit of that first-generation discussion board is alive and well—though the depth and variety of content makes the site far more than a discussion board. With more than 135,000 unique readers a month and growing, the site is continuing ND’s tradition of giving voice to the roots music community. Members include journalists, bloggers, videographers, artists, record labels, venue owners, DJs, festival promoters, podcasters, and fans from around the world. They contribute articles, reviews, music, videos, live concert photography and lively commentary in the forum.

Kyla is also co-founder of Ladies Who Lunch (a networking organization for women in Seattle's music community), co-owner of legendary Hattie's Hat restaurant and lounge in Ballard and on the advisory board for the Seattle Interactive Conference.

Michelle Goldberg focuses primarily on consumer, digital media and software companies at Ignition Partners. Her investments include, SEOmoz, Glympse, Visible Technologies, Ice.com, and previously served on the board of TrackSimple, which was acquired by BlueKai in 2011. 
Michelle was named one of Seattle’s Top 100 Most Influential Women in Technology by the Puget Sound Business Journal,  and was a “40 under 40” Honoree.  She has been quoted in various industry publications including “Marketing in the Age of Google”.  Michelle cultivates local CEOs, entrepreneurs and engineers by helping foster their talent and bring early phase company visions to life.  In addition to mentoring, she is active in the community as an advisor and fundraiser in early childhood education.
Prior to joining Ignition Partners, Michelle consulted to Microsoft’s Developer Division, worked as an investment banker in mergers and acquisitions at Olympic Capital Partners, and as a management consultant with A.T. Kearney and the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA) in Taiwan.
Michelle earned a Masters degree from Harvard University, and an undergraduate degree from Columbia University.

Julie joined Madrona in 2011, and is a board observer for AdReady, OnMobile Media, ThisLife, and Rover.com.  At Madrona, Julie is pursuing new investment opportunities, and is actively involved in Madrona’s portfolio companies and the firm’s activity in the startup community.  She launched the Seattle Entrepreneurial Women’s Network (SEWN), a forum for women entrepreneurs, startuppers, and aspiring entrepreneurs to connect here in the Greater Seattle area.

Prior to joining Madrona, Julie was a senior product manager at Amazon on the Kindle team, where she managed online marketing/traffic for Kindle’s ebook business, both in the US and internationally.  She also led the definition, design, and technical implementation of new Kindle Content products.  Earlier in her career, Julie worked at Accenture, where she spent several years in product management within Microsoft’s SMSG Solutions Delivery group.  While pursuing her MBA, Julie did a stint in product management and business development at TeachStreet, a Madrona portfolio company (acquired by Amazon in February 2012).

Julie serves on the board of directors of the Northwest Entrepreneur Network (NWEN). She is also a trustee on the board of the Seattle Repertory Theatre.  Julie graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with honors, with distinction, and with both a Master’s and a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She also received an MBA with honors from Harvard Business School.  She is an avid photographer, musical theatre aficionada, and Seattle waterfront runner.

Born and raised in New York City, Rebecca began working at Maveron in 2011 while earning her MBA at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. She joined full-time in 2012 upon completion of her degree. While at Stanford, Rebecca focused on entrepreneurship and leadership studies.

Prior to attending GSB, Rebecca was Special Projects Editor at Narrative, an online literary platform dedicated to bringing great literature into the digital age. She focused on driving revenue and scaling the user base as well as flexing her editorial muscle.

Rebecca earned her AB with honors in English and American Literature and Language at Harvard in 2008. Her passions include great novels, Russian literature (especially Vladimir Nabokov), tennis, traveling, and skiing. She lives in San Francisco.

Larry Sivitz is the publisher of Seattle24x7.com, a Seattle business community since 1994, and the founder and president of SearchWrite, a search advertising and content marketing firm. Among his many milestones, he named and launched the Sonicare toothbrush for Optiva, developed campaigns  for T-Mobile and RealNetworks (while at Publicis), brokered a content deal between Google and Corbis Images, and, in the mobile space, produced and launched the flagship Web property (and microsites) for MFORMA  (aka "Hands-On Mobile," acquired by EA) organizing gaming and content channels across multiple countries, systems and devices.  His certified credentials include Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Bing and the IAB.

Grad is the CMO Lead for Microsoft’s U.S. Central Marketing Organization (USCMO), and he is responsible for a team of 100+ marketing and data professionals who drive direct marketing activities for all Microsoft products in the $21B Microsoft U.S. subsidiary (MSUS).

Previously, Grad managed the launch of the Microsoft HealthVault cloud platform and drove significant SQL implementations at healthcare institutions such as New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and the Mayo Clinic.

Prior to joining Microsoft in 2006, Grad spent nine years in product management at Procter & Gamble Inc., and 12 years as an entrepreneur in the education, search, and loyalty industries. Positions included: CEO of dot.edu, which built the world’s first business school website and was the marketing engine that created the world’s largest distance-education EMBA and executive development center; CEO of OpenCola Inc. (named by Fortune as “…one of the 25 coolest technology companies of 2001”); and CMO of Points.com, where he built and launched the industry-leading Points.com loyalty point exchange.

In his spare time Grad drives his 1981 DeLorean just below 88mph and attends musical theatre productions with his wife and two daughters.

A veteran of 12 years in the digital marketing industry, Mel is founder of Seattle-based Delightful Communications, a social media, digital PR and personal branding consultancy.
Before starting the company in 2012, Mel worked for 7 years as Digital Marketing Evangelist at Microsoft Advertising building relationships within the online advertising community by supporting and educating through the Microsoft Advertising Blog, evangelizing through social media, writing and by speaking about internet marketing and digital at conferences, trade shows & other events.

He began his digital advertising career as an editor at the search engine LookSmart in 2000, spending time at 24/7 Search as an Account Director before moving to Microsoft in 2005. He was part of the team that planned & executed the UK roll-out of Microsoft adCenter in August 2006, and it didn’t take much persuasion for Mel to help set up Microsoft Advertising’s Community Team that same year, when it became apparent that Social Media Marketing was going to be huge.

Mel has spoken about Digital Marketing, Search, Social Media and adCenter at conferences and events in the UK, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, Reykjavik, Dublin, Barcelona & Tenerife. He has also lectured on MBA, MSc and online marketing courses, advising syllabus decision makers at Cranfield School of Management and Birkbeck College – part of London University.

More recently, Mel has built up a reputation for incisively interviewing industry heavy-weights on camera like Biz Stone, Sir Martin Sorrell, David Sable and Carolyn Everson (and less incisively, people like Hugh Grant!)
With his first book – Pioneers of Digital – due to be published in the US in November, he is now based with his family in Seattle and regularly writes for Media Week, Brand Republic, Econsultancy and other 3rd party publications.

Before getting into digital marketing, Mel was an eternally-resting-actor and got an ignominious break in a Joe Cocker Video alongside Catherine Deneuve, way back in 1997!
Do follow him on Twitter and Facebook!

Steve Clayton is Editor of the Next at Microsoft blog and resident Microsoft storyteller. In this role, Steve works with teams across Microsoft to highlight work of our product groups, Microsoft Research, incubations teams and individuals – all with the aim of providing an insider’s view of Microsoft and showing people what’s next in technology. He spends time with the company’s developers, researchers, ethnographers, sociologists, cinematographers, and even race car drivers and highlights their work through speaking his blogging.

Prior to this, Steve held roles as Director of Cloud Strategy in Microsoft International and CTO of Microsoft's UK Partner Group. He has worked at Microsoft for over 14 years in a range of sales and technical roles - always with a passion for technology and its potential impact on the world. Steve has won the coveted Microsoft Circle of Excellence Award three times, most recently in 2012.

Steve has a keen interest in all areas of technology and prior to launching the Next at Microsoft site, authored the award winning blog titled “Geek in Disguise”.

Steve holds a 1st class honours degrees from Loughborough University in Information and Computing. Outside of work he’s a fan of Liverpool Football Club and enjoys design and scuba diving.

Matt is a digital director and partner at Assembly. Matt has worked in the industry of ‘creating images for screens’ since the Amiga. Drawing influences from graphic design, animation, interaction and film give Matt a unique take on projects. As one of the four partners at Assembly, based in Auckland, New Zealand, Matt has found his home amongst the designers, 3D maestros, designers, animators,  producers and directors that make up the 12 strong company.

Scott Snibbe is a world-renowned interactive media entrepreneur, researcher, and artist. He is the founder of Snibbe Interactive, a developer of immersive interactive solutions whose clients range from James Cameron’s Avatar to Coca-Cola and Disney. A pioneer of interactive music and graphics, he recently produced Björk's groundbreaking Biophilia App Album. Snibbe began his career at Adobe Systems, where he was one of the early developers of After Effects. At Interval Research Corporation, he was a senior manager of research teams, and later was the founder and CEO of venture-backed Sonamo Collaborative Media. Snibbe holds over 18 patents for interactive media technologies, and his interactive media art is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Whitney Museum (NY), and other prominent institutions. A regular worldwide speaker, Scott has held teaching and research positions at UC Berkeley, NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematics, San Francisco Art Institute, and California Institute for the Arts. He holds a M.Sc. in Computer Science and a dual B.A. in Computer Science/Animation from Brown University and RISD, and has received grants from the NSF, NEA, and Rockefeller foundations.

Matt McVicker has worked in the digital media industry since 2008. Having started in an agency role managing paid search, he transitioned into account management and started at T-Mobile USA as a media manager in December 2010. He currently oversees the strategy and planning for T-Mobile’s paid search and digital direct response programs.

David leads Oblong’s business development efforts. Prior to Oblong, David served as VP, Creative Director at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Online. At Creative Artists Agency, David specialized in emerging technology for clients including Coca-Cola, Sprint, and Hasbro. Previously, David developed enhanced television programs as a Disney Imagineer and was a design lead with Art Technology Group. He holds degrees from MIT's School of Architecture and the MIT Media Lab.

John Gaeta is an Academy Award-winning visual effects designer best known for his work on the Matrix film trilogy where he advanced the effects methods known as "Bullet Time", "Virtual Cinematography". Currently, he is collaborating Wachowski/Warner Bros. again on an original franchise called Jupiter Ascending.
He  is an avid proponent of "Hybrid Entertainment" which could be described as emergent content formats attempting to blur the lines between passive and interactive experiences across converging platforms.
To that extent, in 2009 he had founded(and acts as it's CCO) a new type of development entity called FLOAT (hybrid). Float prototypes and produces compelling and revolutionary interfaces between audiences and new media and works closely with Microsoft on some of it's most outstanding new platforms including Kinect and Smart Glass. 
John Gaeta believes that there are threads in today's most exciting technologies that are leading toward a fundamental leap forward in the way people interact and immerse within all media.

James Ashley is a Presentation Layer Architect on the Emerging Experiences Team at Razorfish, a leading international digital agency.  He is a Microsoft MVP for the Kinect as well as the co-author of “Beginning Kinect Programming” published earlier this year by Apress.  He has spoken on the Kinect at a number of developer and gaming conferences in the past two years as well as at the Atlanta Film Festival.  He is deeply involved in finding new uses for the Kinect in retail and digital out-of-home installations.”

Hanson Hosein is President of HRH Media Group, and serves as the Director of the Master of Communication in Digital Media program at the University of Washington in Seattle. He’s also the Telly Award-winning host of Four Peaks on UWTV and Northwest Cable News that features interviews with the region's influential network of visionaries and leaders. The TV show is just one element of a creative leadership network that Hanson founded, which is intended to drive innovation and entrepreneurship in the Pacific Northwest through education, roundtables and events. He specializes in storytelling, social media strategies and business models of communication advising organizations such as Weber Shandwick, Tableau Software and the Pacific Science Center. Hanson’s book "Storyteller Uprising: Trust and Persuasion in the Digital Age" explores how individuals and organizations can tell their own multimedia stories and create their own channels of distribution — thereby serving as trusted sources in their own right. His pioneering work earned him Seattle Magazine's "Most Influential" in fall 2010, particularly due to his role in hosting TEDx Seattle. Hanson directed the award-winning documentary films Rising from Ruins and Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop, which have been broadcast around the world and prominently featured online, including on Hulu and Yahoo!'s homepages, as well as on Netflix and iTunes. He's a former NBC News war correspondent, backpack journalist and investigative producer -- and is a recipient of Overseas Press Club and Emmy Awards.

Laurel also brought The Decemberists and Alberta Cross to Red Light Management. She conceived of the idea to arrange a tour for The Decemberists with the philharmonics/orchestras in major markets across the US – and it was the band’s largest grossing tour to date. Every step of the way the band and management worked together to build and create a world that was wholly The Decemeberists own.

As an independent manager, Laurel managed: The Dirty Dozen Brass Band (Mammoth), The Descendents, ALL (Epitaph), GWAR (Metal Blade), The Paladins (4AD), Plastilina Mosh (Capitol). Laurel helped develop fan bases for these bands with branded tours & creative marketing ideas (ie: comic book in stores for GWAR, shows on cruise ships for Dirty Dozen Brass Band, The Descendent’s “Caffeine Nation Tour” - which did not allow any beer sponsors or corporate posters in the venue). Her fiercely independent ‘can do’ attitude has remained with her through every step of her career – and has taught her to never rely solely on record labels or radio.

Earlier in her career, Laurel also scouted for The Sony WORK group, where she was involved in the album set up for artists such as Fiona Apple, Jennifer Lopez, Jamaroquai & Eagle Eye Cherry. She was also editor for a Los Angeles based magazine where she interviewed everyone from Joey Ramone to Shel Talmy. She worked at Cherokee Recording Studio and Studio 55 where she worked on sessions for The Pixies, Rod Stewart, Phil Spector and more.

Marc leads strategy for POSSIBLE, a global agency that creates meaningful and measurable interactive marketing. The network is comprised of 1,500 employees across 26 offices.

Marc works in Cincinnati, the largest office within the global network where he oversees a team of strategists that set brand direction and drive digital innovation through consumer insights, thought leadership and performance marketing (search, analytics & measurement). In the last few years, Marc led strategic planning for some of the agency’s largest and most innovative clients including Procter & Gamble, ConAgra, Smuckers and Red Bull.  Marc has been praised for his strategic leadership on P&G’s Prilosec OTC Official Sponsor of You Campaign that championed real people, by awarding micro-sponsorships to connect the brand to all kinds of fans. The campaign was so successful that it was selected to Ad Age's Book of Tens for cause marketing in 2010.

Before joining POSSIBLE, Marc lived an entrepreneurial life in technology, in launch of the flip camcorder; and in fast moving consumer-packaged goods where he drove sales and marketing for Cape Cod, Nathan’s, Mrs. Fields while working with retailers including Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Target and COSTCO.

Marc brings his strategic discipline, creative inspiration and entrepreneurial spirit to every endeavor as he seeks to “find the new” for POSSIBLE and its clients.

Ben Tesch is the creative and technical director of Breaking News, a member of NBC News Digital.  He was previously the manager of the R&D design/development group at msnbc.com, and web designer for Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media.  He has also designed and developed personal projects such as a music search engine, a collaborative music playlist site, a collaborative weather prediction site, and a social movie trivia app.

Cory Bergman is the general manager of Breaking News (@breakingnews), a Seattle-based startup owned by NBC News.   Prior to Breaking News, Bergman was director of new product development at msnbc.com and director of digital media at KING TV in Seattle.   Separately, he’s the co-founder of Next Door Media – best known for the neighborhood news site MyBallard.com – and the founder of the social TV startupLostRemote.com, which was recently acquired by Mediabistro. Bergman worked for two decades in TV news, including several weeks covering 9/11 at Ground Zero.

Born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Luca fell in love with music at a young age. He decided to pursue music professionally, and moved to Los Angeles. From 1989 to 1999, Luca toured with his band around the US and Canada, before hanging up the mic. Luca then launched a successful career in real estate development in Seattle. When the idea of RockStar Motel struck, Luca knew he was being called back to his original passion, but in a dramatically different role. The former-front man is now the tireless supporter of anyone who dreams of music success. In early 2010, Luca assembled a team to make this possibility.

Bryan has 20+ years of experience in solutions envisioning and architecture for companies in numerous industries. Consulting on in-depth customer-to-provider collaboration to vision, design, develop and deploy a solution that is what the customer wants and needs, and which can be enhanced over time by the provider. Managing rapid deployments of new functionality through Agile and ongoing usability research to make sure the feature gap is as small as possible. This approach with heavy experience in the social networking and marketing space led Bryan to work in the field of collaboration implementation in the enterprise environment. Using methods to assess and understand the corporate mental model and then identify the right change catalyst to enable viral adoption of new concepts for collaboration.

Darnell Holloway is Yelp's Manager of Local Business Outreach. He hosts informational sessions with local business owners across the country to educate them on best practices for navigating the world of online reviews. He oversees Yelp's Small Business Advisory Council, and delivers constructive feedback from the business community to the different divisions within Yelp. He also hosts a series of monthly webinars about Yelp's free online tools, and regularly produces informative content for Yelp's "Blog for Business Owners." Prior to joining Yelp in 2009, Darnell worked in the banking industry as an equity research broker for Thomas Weisel Partners. He is a California native, and UC Davis alumnus.

Kevin Conroy is founder and president of Blue Rooster, an interactive technology consulting firm specializing in collaborative internal- and external-facing social business Web sites for large corporations. Blue Rooster works with the world's leading companies, helping them to Create, Build, and Experience powerful and intuitive Microsoft SharePoint solutions that are easy to adopt in the enterprise.  A US-based team of UX designers, strategists and software engineers, Blue Rooster delivers the connected User Experience that is required in today's marketplace; on premise, in the cloud and on any device. Blue Rooster works with Fortune 500 companies in Pharma, Healthcare, Consumer Products, Financial Services, Logistics, Energy and Technology. Working with such clients as FedEx, Abbott Labs, Chevron, Eli Lilly and Microsoft, the company develops collaborative solutions that work across multiple platforms, teams and devices.
Conroy's consumer branding and marketing design experience was honed by helping to establish Hard Rock Cafe's brand. He has delivered strategy and branding services for Harley-Davidson, Universal Studios, Hard Rock Café Worldwide, and Disney. Kevin received an EMBA, Executive Master's in Business Administration 2004, University of Washington, and a BS, Business/International Business Marketing, San Francisco State University.

Eric Gottloeb is a Social Media Strategy Manager who has been with Walgreens since 2011.  In his current role he manages marketing strategy, paid social media campaigns, and social listening.  Originally from Chicago, Eric graduated from the University of North Carolina - Charlotte.  Before joining Walgreens, Eric spent five years at Allstate working in a variety of roles include, Org Design, Product Management and Social Media.

Julie Johnston has served as Vice President of Merchandising for drugstore.com since 2006.  When drugstore.com was acquired by Walgreens in 2011, Julie assumed responsibility for merchandising on Walgreens.com as well.   With more than 20 years of retail experience, Julie has spent more than half of it in e-commerce.   In her current role, Julie oversees all aspects of site merchandising including pricing and promotional strategy, assortment, site functionality and conversion optimization.  She also guides brand partners on how to best leverage their digital assets online, including utilization of social media to create compelling promotional opportunities.  Julie is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Technical Director and Principal Matt Fordham brings looks and brains to the interactive department at WINTR. He's focused on the technical translation of visual communication.  In his 11 years of industry experience he's assumed the roles of designer as well as front-end and back end developer working with brands like Sony, Starbucks, the Seattle Seahawks and more - but the alliteration is fun so we'll stop there.

Matt's previous life as an audio engineer and teacher also lend unique cultural insight to his contributions at WINTR. Recent projects include interactive infographics for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as the award winning 2012 Sasquatch Festival site.

Tony Kiewel is the VP of A&R Sub Pop, Hardly Art, Sub Pop Publishing where he’s worked for over 12 years. Before making the move to Seattle, he worked in the radio promotions and new media departments at Geffen and DreamWorks Records. Over the years he’s been fortunate enough to work with such artists as The Postal Service, Flight of the Conchords, Shabazz Palaces and David Cross to name just a few.

Taylor Winters is a consumer's creative (and a creative consumer) designing future-forward user driven experiences. As a Principal and Creative Director at WINTR, her set of skills and cultural awareness have served a range of brands by bringing them closer to their audiences including Marc Jacobs, HTC, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation over the course of her career. Her work with WINTR has been recognized by Fast Company Design, Wired magazine and The One Show among others. Taylor is a loyal user of the visual thesaurus, quick with Facebook Open Graph trivia and she'd one day like to MC an awards show.

Nancy Trott is the Northwest Bureau Chief for The Associated Press. Trott started her journalism career in the AP in 1991 after graduating from The University of New Hampshire. She left the AP when she first moved to Seattle and worked briefly at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer before joining Starwave, which launched ABCNews.com in 1997. Trott came back to AP three years later and has been in management roles since. Trott played a key role at the AP in designing a writing style for the Web, broadcast and print – effectively getting news out to all customers faster than ever before.

Ted is a proven executive and visionary in consumer mobility with a broad base of experience working for Carriers, Technology start-ups and Agencies.  As Chief Product Officer of UIEvolution, Ted drives overall product strategy and leads UIEvolution’s User Experience Team designing end-to-end enterprise mobile solutions for Fortune 100 companies in Hospitality, Automotive and Entertainment.

Prior to his position at UIEvolution, Ted spent 10 years at AT&T, most recently as Vice President Wireless Data and Cloud Services for AT&T’s Mobility division where he drove product strategy and managed product marketing in IP communications, HTML 5 application distribution, cloud music and cloud-based sharing applications. Prior to AT&T, Ted was a Partner and Creative Director for MarchFIRST managing the Creative practice for the US Northwest Division of the company. Ted began his career as a user Experience practice leader with various Internet start-ups in the early 1990’s.

Ted holds a BA in Advertising from The University of Washington and a AA in Visual Design from the Art Institute.

Gene Stout bio 2012
Gene Stout was the pop music critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for more than two decades. He is currently freelancing for the Seattle Times and other media outlets.
His stories have appeared in newspapers around the country through the New York Times and Hearst Corporation news services.
Gene is a Seattle native who grew up on Mercer Island and graduated in communications and editorial journalism from the University of Washington.
“I started this journey when Little Richard knocked me out of the cradle,” Gene says. “And I continue to be a sucker for a great musical hook.”
Over the years, Gene has interviewed hundreds of musicians, from Eddie Vedder and Courtney Love to James Taylor and Quincy Jones. He was front and center when Seattle’s garage-rock scene exploded internationally in the early 1990s.
The week of Kurt Cobain’s death in April 1994 was one of the most intense of his career, with many hours spent working with a team of P-I reporters to piece together the story of Cobain’s life and untimely death.
Today, the Seattle music scene continues to thrive, producing such bands as the Head and the Heart, Hey Marseilles, Fences, Shabazz Palaces, Champagne, Champagne, Campfire OK, Absolute Monarchs and The Young Evils.
The late Frank Zappa once said, “Most rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.” But criticism of music – whether it’s pop, rock, country, blues, R&B, jazz, hip-hop or any other style – attracts many creative minds, dedicated fans and colorful characters.
Gene continues to write and edit stories about popular music and culture. His interests include movies, books, wine, photography, vintage cars, collectibles, golf, travel, Italian culture, history and art.
In an interview with Gene, Dick Clark of “American Bandstand” fame said, “If you’re lucky enough to find a line of work that you like, and you don’t watch the clock while you’re doing it, then you don’t mind when Monday rolls around and you’ve got to go back and do it again.” Amen.

Maggie Vail is a musician and activist.  She's worked in the music industry for 18+ years, most of which was spent working at the independent label Kill Rock Stars. She is currently Co-Executive Director of the nonprofit CASH Music as well as the label manager for Bikini Kill Records.

Maggie has been in dozens over bands over the past 20 years, most notably Bangs, and is currently playing bass in Hurry Up. She was also one of the founding organizers of Ladyfest.

Having served as a film producer, entertainment executive and business consultant prior to practicing law, Matt brings extensive industry experience and knowledge to Foster Pepper's Arts and Entertainment Group. As the former CEO of an online proprietary television network viewed in 44 countries, he understands the unique pressures facing high-level executives and anticipates and helps clients avoid legal entertainment, licensing, and intellectual property issues.

Among his many clients, Matt represents a 2012 Academy Award-nominated production company and motion picture, one of the World’s top YouTube sensations (having received over 150,000,000 hits in 2011), several nationally-renowned authors, and one of America’s leading Connect TV development companies. Matt has drafted and negotiated artist agreements, producer and director agreements, literary agreements, crew agreements, agency agreements, SAG and AFTRA agreements, music license agreements, distribution agreements, and related technology and entertainment contracts.

Carl Spence is the Artistic Director of SIFF (organizers of the Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF Cinema, and FutureWave Education) and has been curating film exhibitions, festivals and programs for more than 20 years. Previously, he held the positions of Director of Programming at the Palm Springs International Film Festival; Director of Programming at the San Francisco International Film Festival; Associate Director at SIFF and worked in field publicity and promotions as a representative for Disney, MGM, and other major studios. He curated films, concerts and live performances at the University of Washington where he received his Bachelors degree in theatre with an additional emphasis in Japanese language and cultural studies. Additionally, he studied Film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in New York City. Carl continues to consult for the Palm Springs International Film Festival as their lead programmer.

50 Word
Carl Spence is the Artistic Director of SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival). Previously, he held the positions of Director of Programming at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival; Associate Director at SIFF and as a field publicity representative for Disney, MGM, and other major film studios.

Meredith Han is the Global Director of Ecommerce at Brooks Sports, a leading running company that designs and markets high-performance men's and women's running shoes, apparel and accessories in more than 40 countries worldwide. A subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the company’s mission is to inspire everyone to run and be active.

Meredith has led Ecommerce strategy and management for Brooks since 2007, where she is focused on building the direct to consumer business and helping make Brooks a loved brand around the world. Meredith started her ecommerce career at Amazon.com, where she spent seven years in Product Management in the Media and Consumables categories. Her background gives her a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities for branded manufacturers in the digital space.

You can find Meredith on LinkedIn, or get frequent brand updates from Brooks on Twitter (@brooksrunning) and Facebook (Brooks Running).

Donald is a product designer and partner at LIFFFT, a company that brings the speed and innovation of startups to major brands.

Prior to LIFFFT, Donald led user experience at Giant Thinkwell, a TechStars company funded by Madrona Venture Group. At Giant Thinkwell, he designed Facebook applications used by Grammy award winning artists Sir Mix-A-Lot and Duran Duran. Before Giant Thinkwell, Donald designed products for early stage startups.

Donald’s writing on startups has been covered in national media outlets including GeekWire, GigaOm, Boing Boing, and The New York Times. As a speaker, Donald has traveled to the Middle East and Central America to facilitate workshops on behalf of Startup Weekend, a 501c(3) non-profit based in Seattle, Washington.

As the Vice President, Digital Development at Random House, Inc., Randi Rosenkranz oversees mobile application development for all Random House divisions -- including Crown, Knopf Doubleday, Random House Children¹s Books and the Random House Publishing Group -- and manages the relationship with recently acquired digital media agency Smashing Ideas.  Randi began her career as a Sales Assistant at Random House, and served as a Barnes & Noble National Account Manager at both St. Martin's Press and Simon & Schuster. After eight years in book publishing, Randi left the industry to pursue a career in digital media, joining methodfive, a leading web development firm. During her years in web development, Randi led multi-disciplinary teams in the creation of enterprise content management systems, portals, websites and mobile applications for such companies as E.W. Scripps (The Food Network, HGTV and DIY), The New York Times, The New Republic, Paramount Digital Entertainment, Arista Records and CBS.  Randi returned to Random House in 2008, believing that her background in books and technology would prove valuable during publishing's rapid digital transition. Randi graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in psychology.

Seth is the creative director of the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington. He received my PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington, advised by Zoran Popović. Seth's current research focuses on using video games to solve difficult scientific problems. Seth is also the co-creator and lead designer and developer of Foldit. You can read more about Foldit here. He has also done research in real-time animation for games, often in the mocap lab. Seth previously worked at Square Enix, Electronic Arts,Pixar Animation Studios and the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory (on BOINC).

Kushal is the founder and CEO of Vittana. Today, Vittana works in 12 countries, reaching thousands of youth and continuing to grow exponentially. Vittana pioneered the Vittana Loan — a $750 student microloan that fights youth poverty at the root cause, tripling a girl's income beyond $10 a day and empowering her to think beyond her home's four walls. Vittana is an award-winning organization (Fast Company, Seattle 2.0) and its impact has been highlighted in the Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and many others.

Previously, Kushal ran technology for a $1+ billion team at Amazon.com and is the author of 20+ patents, papers and talks. In his free time, he runs Ironman triathlons and trains guide dogs for the blind. Kushal was recently named as one of Seattle's Top 40 People Under 40 and voted the #1 Game-Changer in Philanthropy by 1.7 million readers on Huffington Post. He is a frequent speaker on youth poverty and education, including SOCAP, Pop!Tech and TEDxBrussels. Kushal lives in Seattle with his 1-year-old German Shepherd puppy.

As Director of Public Relations and Social for Expedia, Sarah Keeling Gavin holds responsibility for influential programs across press, bloggers, broadcast and social media for the Expedia consumer brand in the U.S.
Sarah has a strong background in technology communications and came to Expedia after six years at Waggener Edstrom where she most recently led the launch teams for Windows 7 and Internet Explorer for Microsoft.  Last year, her team was awarded the Global Product Launch of the Year Platinum Award by PR News for A Year in IE9: Launching a More Beautiful Web.
Sarah is passionate about the marriage of technology and travel and joined the Expedia team in fall 2011.

Katherine LaFranchise is the Director of eCommerce at Urban Decay Cosmetics, the largest independently owned color cosmetic company in the United States.  For the past 2 years, she’s led Urban Decay’s eCommerce strategy and management; including advertising, social media integration, and content development across all digital platforms.  She is focused on building brand advocates and a robust community for the company’s highly-engaged fan base, AKA the ‘UDer’.

Based on her 7 years in the beauty industry, Katherine believes that the digital experience should enhance what a consumer will encounter when shopping the brand in-store, and that the company website must be seen as the most comprehensive door from a branding and education perspective.

Katherine’s career spans over 11 years in the online space, primarily in the beauty industry. Prior to joining Urban Decay she was the Senior Director of eCommerce at Murad Skin Care where she led Online Sales and Marketing as well as Social Commerce initiatives for the brand.

Perry Underdown is Managing Practice Director at Wimmer Solutions. He is a 20-year veteran of IT professional services and has worked on a broad spectrum of projects including healthcare, finance, government and manufacturing. Perry’s core technology focus is Microsoft SharePoint. He has designed and implemented SharePoint solutions for Wall Street, the United States Army, and Homeland Security.
Perry will speak about the new capabilities of SharePoint 2013 and its ability to integrate with social networking platforms. The new SharePoint platform will provide significant opportunities for organizations to design and deploy innovated business solutions, leveraging external social media offerings such as Twitter and Facebook Integrated with SharePoint 2013.

Paul is an Associate Director of Strategy at OMD Chicago, working on Intel’s consumer business and currently focusing his efforts on Intel’s Ultrabook.  Paul rejoined OMD in the Los Angeles office in early 2009, leading global strategy and coordination for Apple’s brand promotions, before transferring to Chicago to work on Intel in late 2010.  Prior to that Paul had worked on 20th Century Fox’s global business at Vizeum Los Angeles and a first stint on Apple in OMD’s London offices.  Paul’s latest position on Intel has allowed him to focus on one market for the first time in since 2005, having had a lot of international and global experiences in between!

Ariel Dos Santos currently works on Social Business initiatives at Microsoft.  He spends his time working with marketers on ways to achieve business objectives by leveraging the power of social networks.  He also leads an effort to improve our engagement practices across a variety of social properties.  He has been at Microsoft for slightly over 2 years. Prior to that, Ariel got his MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Ariel lives in Seattle with his wife, a new baby, and their large St. Bernard.

Barbara Williams is the Global SEM and Digital Advertising Lead for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business Group driving global SEM and digital ad strategies for blockbuster game titles like Halo 4 as well as the Xbox 360 console, Kinect accessory, and the Xbox Live service. She recently transitioned from the company’s Central Marketing Group where she was the Mobile Marketing Global Practice Lead helping to build mobile-marketing capability for the company’s 6,000 marketers across 51 countries. She Joined Microsoft in 2007 as part of the Global Marcom team where she spearheaded global advertising efforts to engage B2B audiences, as well as served as a mobile SME for the team. Barbara’s experience prior to joining Microsoft includes brand management with Johnson & Johnson and Unilever Bestfoods, and agency account management for blue-chip clients including Amtrak, the former Wachovia, and the US Fund for Unicef. Barbara holds a B.A. in Mass Media Arts and a M.B.A. in Marketing. She was selected as an Internationalist 100 and featured by Mobile Marketer as one of the 25 Mobile Marketing Women to Watch in 2011. Barbara is truly an evangelist, speaking frequently at relevant events and partnering with other brand marketers to help improve digital marketing expertise industry wide. You can find Barbara on Linkedin and follow her @2mobile3

Lisa Phillips has 15 years of experience in Internet technologies with an emphasis on systems and database administration, large scale systems and technical operations management. Lisa worked on open source systems for early blogging companies Live Journal and Six Apart and is now a MySQL DBA for Twitter.

Matt Britton is the Founder & CEO of New York-based MRY (formerly Mr Youth)—a world leading social media marketing agency. Since founding the agency in 2002, MRY has worked with dozens of the world’s leading companies—including P&G, Microsoft, Ford Motors, Coca-Cola, & Visa—in creating shareable brands and highly engaged consumers by leveraging social technologies and engagement-led strategies

Matt, 37, has grown MRY from a one-man startup to a thriving agency with over 200 employees worldwide.

In 2009, MRY was named the "Social Media Agency Of The Year" by Mashable.

In February 2010, MRY was named one of advertising's 10 most innovative companies in the world by Fast Company.

In March 2011, MRY announced the launch and spin-off of CrowdTap, the world's first on-demand participation network. AdAge later named CrowdTap one of the 8 hottest startups at SXSW. In July of 2011, CrowdTap announced $7MM Series A funding. In Decemer of 2011 Mashable named CrowdTap the up-and-coming social media service of the year.

Prof. Mark Mueller-Eberstein is an internationally renowned business leader, entrepreneur, consultant, best-selling author, and a Professor at Rutgers University Center for Management Development. He leads “The Knowledge Economy Research Institute” as well as Adgetec Corporation’s consulting business. Using a cross-functional and international approach, they help current and future leaders align their business and technology strategies, and leverage opportunities. Mark is fascinated by the dynamic between the human and technical factors that positively impact business operations, and has advised business leaders from a variety of industries on these topics for over a decade. Mark has become one of the world’s leading experts on how businesses can leverage key technology trends to drive a competitive advantage and his books have been translated into a dozen languages and been recommended by leading publications from the US over Russia and China to Germany.

Each year, Mark sets aside time to personally work with select clients around the world as a keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, and trainer. More information about Mark at: www.mueller-eberstein.com

Scott Simpson is a writer and performer from California. He knows a lot about digital media from over a decade spent at Amazon.com and Apple, and as co-host of the hit comedy podcast You Look Nice Today. Find him at yourmonkeycalled.com

Prior to starting BigDoor, Smith founded the company that became Zango and served as its CEO for ten years. Smith grew Zango from a startup to a multi-national company employing over 300 people in four countries. The company grew to $78 million in annual revenue and $24 million in EBITDA and ranked number seven on the Inc 500. Zango was ranked among the Best Places to Work in Seattle for several years running. A veteran entrepreneur, Smith started and bootstrapped two other tech companies prior to 1999. Smith left Northwest College three weeks before graduating to start his first business, and has taken each professional iteration as an opportunity to learn and adjust to valuable challenges — both in success and failure. Smith is actively involved in youth based charities and has previously sat on the board of directors for the Washington Technology Industry Association.

As the Director of Getty Images Music, Melinda L. Lee leads the company’s digital music business focusing on business development, strategic partners including labels, publishers and artists and new digital platforms.  Lee is responsible for the implementation of Getty Images Music’s growth strategy and development of strategic relationships both with existing and new customers. Since joining Getty Images Music in April 2011, Lee has expanded the music offering by 30-percent by brokering distribution deals and partnerships with innovative music creators and content providers.  Prior to Getty Images, Lee co-founded Uncensored Interview, a digital producer and licensor of interview content which a focuses on bands, artists and other influencers.  Prior to co-founding Uncensored Interview, Lee headed content management strategy at Joost and ushered traditional media programming into the digital age by leading company-wide content and licensing partnerships at MTV Networks for over 6 years.

John Busby leads the Marchex Institute, a research and analytics team that publishes findings on mobile advertising and the growing digital call advertising industry. The Marchex Institute also provides custom research and consulting services for customers on their mobile and call-ready advertising campaigns. Previously, Mr. Busby served as Vice President, Product Engineering.

Prior to joining Marchex in 2003, Mr. Busby held various product and program management roles at InfoSpace’s consumer and wireless divisions and Go2net.  He holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

Jennifer Wood is the Director of Retention Marketing for Allrecipes.com, the world’s #1 digital food brand.  Jen has been with Allrecipes for over 2 years, where she is responsible for growing and retaining Allrecipes’ membership base.  Her career spans over 13 years in the digital space across a variety of industries, including content, travel and retail. Prior to joining Allrecipes Jen managed online marketing programs for The Seattle Times, Expedia and REI. She has a BA from Colgate University.

Eric Nystrom is director of social media and communities at Dell, Eric is responsible for developing and managing go to market and customer engagement models for Dell’s Social Media Solutions Group. Eric works with our customers by extending our unique enterprise social media business expertise to help create powerful business value through informed and efficient listening, engagement, collaboration, and innovation.

Mark Kurtz is a Principal at Gage responsible for Emerging and Social Media Strategy across Gage’s Fortune 500 client base. Clients include 3M, Allianz, Ameriprise Financial,  BASF, Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW),  Best Buy, Cargill, Carlson Companies, Coke-a -Cola, Fujistu, Hewlett Packard, Ingram Micro, Microsoft, Norwegian Cruise Line, Ricoh, UnitedHealth Group, Thomson Reuters, Time Warner, Walmart and Walgreens. Mark’s experience combines a deep background in technology coupled with international marketing. Includes global campaigns for clients and ad agencies in Australia, Asia, and the US. Mark is a regular industry speaker on Emerging Media and the impact of marketing solutions to drive behavior.

Rob Salkowitz, co-founder of Seattle’s MediaPlant, LLC, is an author, educator, consultant and unrepentant nerd. His latest book, Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture (McGraw-Hill, 2012), explores the connections between geekdom and digital media. Rob heads up MediaPlant’s strategic content practice for clients including Microsoft, Herman Miller, and Disney among others. He keynotes events worldwide, blogs at FastCompany, CNN.com, Young Entrepreneur and Internet Evolution, and teaches in the MCDM Program at the University of Washington.

As the solutions director for Slalom Consulting, headquartered in Seattle, Dave runs the company’s research-and-development organization on a national level. In this role, he brings a decade of technical and management experience to clients and their mobile projects. In 2009, he built the company’s mobile practice from scratch, a unit that after just one year generated $5 million in revenue for Slalom.  The goal of this group is to make business information accessible wherever it resides – in the cloud or on premise. Dave’s group creates unique iPhone apps to solve specific problems for clients, but also, more broadly, the group combines technical and management expertise to create mobile solutions that drive business results. The mobile component was just one of five groups Dave has launched within the company, and all of them have gone on to become nationwide initiatives for Slalom.
Prior to joining Slalom Consulting in 2003, Dave worked at AT&T Wireless where he worked in the strategic planning department as a billing technical lead. He worked for Anderson Consulting prior to AT&T Wireless. Dave got his start in the wireless industry after graduating from Pacific Lutheran University, where he studied biology, chemistry and Latin.
A Rhodes Scholar nominee, Dave has instituted a new type of thinking at Slalom and within the technology consulting profession. He is remarkably adept at developing an innovation and seeing it all the way through to results, and he has been widely recognized for his ingenuity. He was the instrumental player behind Slalom earning the Mobility Systems Integrator of the Year award from CRN, an organization that publishes news, analysis and perspective relating to the technology industry. Similarly, Slalom’s Group Health mobile app was named the Mobile App of the Year for 2011 by TechFlash, the technology news site of the Puget Sound Business Journal, largely because of Dave’s technology prowess. Over the years, Dave also has earned the AT&T Wireless Spirit of Excellence award (three times), membership in the AT&T Circle of Excellence, and Slalom’s Top Gun honors.
Dave is a magna cum laude graduate of Pacific Lutheran University, and his focus on the eclectic roots of innovation is reflected in his studies. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology with a research emphasis and minored in both chemistry and Latin.

Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Manager of Content Marketing for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. The Salesforce Marketing Cloud brings together social listening and social media marketing on the first and only unified, end- to-end social marketing platform. Jeff works with the content creation team to ensure we are publishing the most educational social media content on the web and are effectively sharing it with our customers, prospects, advocates and influencers to drive leads and sales.

With more than 20 years of marketing experience, Jeff has provided strategic counsel to B2B and B2C companies on both the client and agency sides. Jeff is the co-author of The B2B Social Media Book (http://b2bsocialmedia.com), and is also the co-founder and Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com, the leading online resource for social media’s impact on B2B marketing.

Erik Flannigan is Executive Vice President, Digital Media, Viacom Entertainment Group. He is based in the network's Los Angeles office and reports to Doug Herzog, President of Viacom Entertainment Group.

The Entertainment Group is comprised of a multi-platform portfolio of brands featuring the COMEDY CENTRAL, Spike TV and TV Land cable channels and Web sites, as well as the internet site GameTrailers.com. Flannigan supervises the linear channels’ digital media teams, overseeing the networks’ digital programming initiatives, to maximize revenue growth opportunities for the Entertainment Group. He also oversees all of their digital businesses as well.

Flannigan brings a wealth of experience in digital programming and content development to the job, with a deep and varied business background in Web development, digital media, video-on-demand as well as online and offline subscription services. He is a seasoned manager of multi-disciplinary teams and has extensive hands-on experience in creative editorial and content specialization for movies, music, television, sports and news.

Flannigan joined Viacom from AOL in Los Angeles in 2006, where he had been Vice President of Programming, responsible for strategic and operational oversight of Moviefone.com, AOL Music, AOL Radio and AOL Television. Before that, he was at Buena Vista Datacasting/The Walt Disney Company (2003-2005) in Burbank, CA as Vice President of Programming, overseeing programming and acquisitions for MovieBeam and prior to that, Vice President of Music Services and Programming at RealNetworks in Seattle (2001-2003). Earlier, Flannigan was Senior Vice President, Entertainment Verticals, for the Walt Disney Internet Group in Seattle (1995-2001).

During his various tenures in the digital media world, Flannigan was also active in publishing as managing editor of ICE magazine, contributing editor of The Rocket as well as working on several albums and books. He is a graduate of the University Washington in Seattle.

Adam is the CEO and Co-Founder of Simply Measured. Adam has led Simply Measured to become a well recognized brand in the analytics market, serving 25% of the top 100 global brands and over 40,000 users. He has been quoted on data-related topics in places like Forbes, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and spoken about measurement and analytics at events around the country. Adam is a two-time entrepreneur, former Analyst and Management Consultant, and a long-time data geek.

Cyrus Krohn has been a cutting-edge communicator, digital innovator and new media executive for more than 15 years. Before co-founding Crowdverb, Krohn was senior director and executive producer at Microsoft, responsible for the content programming and business strategy for the lifestyle and local initiatives for the U.S. web portal, MSN.com. Krohn returned to Microsoft in May 2009 after a four year hiatus.

Prior to Microsoft, Krohn served as director of digital strategy for the Republican National Committee's New Media Division. He joined the RNC following two years at Yahoo! as director of content production and election strategy. While at Yahoo!, Krohn worked under Hollywood mogul Lloyd Braun who ran the Yahoo! Media Group in Santa Monica, California, creating original programming.

Prior to Yahoo!, Krohn spent ten years at Microsoft. He was Slate Magazine’s first employee and then publisher while the webzine was owned by Microsoft. While publisher, Slate reached profitability and won a National Magazine Award for General Excellence Online. Krohn also managed the political advertising effort for MSN.com, the Microsoft Network and was executive producer at MSN Video. Krohn worked in CNN's Washington, D.C. bureau producing Larry King Live and Crossfire and served as an intern in the White House for Vice President Dan Quayle. Krohn served as president of the Washington State News Council, an independent, nonprofit, statewide organization whose members share a common belief that fair, accurate and balanced news media are vital to our democracy.

Krohn graduated from Lynchburg College and served on the Board of Advisors of the George Washington University Institute for Politics Democracy and the Internet and the E-Voter Institute. He has lectured on the impact the Internet is having on the political process at Johns Hopkins University, American University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, University of Pennsylvania, The Aspen Institute, Harvard and MIT. Krohn is editor of the Slate Diaries, published by Public Affairs Books.

Dariusz Paczuski is responsible for mobile advertising, corporate marketing, and product management for Telenav, developer of the award-winning Scout daily personal navigator and the industry’s first Drive-To Advertising platform.  Leveraging over 12 years of mobile experience focused on location and geo-intent at Telenav, Dariusz has led the efforts to develop the only mobile platform that allows national brick and mortar advertisers to drive more customers to their stores with a performance-based Drive-To Advertising unit that lets advertisers use hyper-local targeting to reach customers and guide them directly to stores.

Dariusz's career spans 15 years in consumer-focused media including mobile, local, search, content, and advertising. Dariusz joined Telenav from Microsoft where he led the Bing and Tellme carrier strategy to transform directory assistance into mobile search.  Dariusz served as vice president of search products at AOL, where he managed marketing, product, and design. During his career, Dariusz has also held leadership roles in advertising at Netscape, MSNBC, and NBC. Dariusz holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and a Certificate in International Business from California State University in Long Beach.

Glenn is the President of DoubleDown Interactive.  He has played a vital role in the profitable growth of the company from 7 to 100+ employees and the successful sale to International Game Technology (IGT) for up to $500 Million.  In the past Glenn has held leadership positions with other fast growing Seattle startups including Blue Nile & Big Fish Games.

Alex Kochan is a music industry veteran with a few decades in the live music sector spanning artist management, agency representaion, and the establishment of two major concert promotion offices in the Northwest. As an artist manager in Los Angeles during the 1980’s he helped guide the careers of REO Speedwagon and Survivor. Later he became an agent and Vice-President at International Creative Management before founding his own agency in New York  City,  Artists & Audience Entertainment, where he represented Paul McCartney, Guns & Roses, and Nine Inch Nails among others.  Alex is currently the Northwest Regional Vice President of AEG LIVE, having established this office in 2006. 
AEG LIVE is the second largest international concert promotion company, and the Northwest office includes the Showbox clubs,  WaMu Theater, Concert Series at the Puyallup Fair and produces over 300 shows per year in the region.  Alex brings his experience in the music business as a guest instructor for the University of Montana’s Entertainment Management Program, is a member of the North American Concert Promoters Association , is the Vice-Chair of the Seattle City of Music Commission, and a  member of the  Seattle Waterfront Committee.

Shauna Causey has managed communications, community relations and social media strategy for companies, non-profits and elected officials. She’s worked for the Seattle Mariners Baseball Team, Fox Sports Net, FOX, WB, Comcast and Nordstrom. She's also consulted for various companies including Google on social business strategies. She's currently serving as vice president of marketing and communications at Decide.com and as president of Social Media Club Seattle.

Shauna was voted in the 100 Top Women in Tech by TechFlash and has been featured in the LA Times as part of the "Female Empire of Technology," the Huffington Post, and Geek Wire, among others. In 2011, she was voted in the Puget Sound Business Journal's "40 Under 40." She serves on four non-profit boards and in early 2009, she started Voluntweetup, a grassroots event series where local technology enthusiasts volunteer to train and educate non-profits how to effectively use social media.

As founder of Hughes Media Law Group in Seattle, Washington, Joleen Winther Hughes has assembled a world-class team of veteran media, technology and entertainment attorneys to provide holistic and customized in-house/general counsel services to clients. Joleen was one of the first attorneys in the world to bring traditional media into the digital age and has been responsible for providing company guidance and developing licensing strategies at the intersection of entertainment and technology in music, games, apps, motion pictures and sports since the advent of media on the internet and devices. HMLG provides its unparalleled expertise to a wide range of clients from the US to the UK to Russia to Japan including Yamaha, Amazon, Paramount Digital Entertainment, Microsoft, Agility Studios (the LXD, Tastemaker, Ultradome); DIY Media, ZeptoLab (Cut the Rope), Lima Sky (Doodle Jump), The Application Developers Association, Entertonement d/b/a Hark, Tap the Frog, Votiv Entertainment, Vuguru, Big Fish Games, RotoHog, WISEr technologies, Brightcove, 206 Partners, Ideal Bureaucracy, Digital Sidebar, Entertonement, Wet Paint, Ooyala, Common Craft, PulpLab, Atmosphere Artist Management, Smartbomb Interactive, @Hand Gear, Sanjaya Malakar, Acton, Inc. (SpinKIX), Cascade Game Foundry, Rockaraoke, Saky Sacks, Frag'd, r2integrated, Smashing Ideas and the Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company.  At HMLG, clients are afforded a wide range of in-house level services and strategy from soup to nuts including corporate, IP valuation and protection, patent, trademark, setting up employees and contractors, multi-level strategic licensing strategy, insight and experience on strategic transactions, drafting and negotiation of all types of agreements from traditional media to technology to merchandising to any type of “new” media transaction, and general overall company guidance.  In other words, HMLG will provide you with a dedicated “legal executive” for your team, and just may be the only law firm in the country that offers a service level standard of care to back up its dedication to high standards.
Prior to her legal career, Joleen was an entrepreneur who owned a successful artist management, talent booking, concert production and special event business during the height of the Seattle music explosion representing RKCNDY nightclub, Susan Silver and Kelly Curtis Management (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees) and many music production companies. If you visit her Seattle office at Pike Place Market, you will walk into a museum of rock memorabilia from this time. Her first "real" jobs in the media industry were as the marketing assistant at KING Broadcasting (radio/TV) and as a PR assistant responsible for publicizing films from Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers in the Seattle market. Joleen also is the proud co-owner of her husband's authentic Irish pub, the Celtic Swell on Alki Beach in West Seattle and CS Finnegan’s Irish House in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle.

Before he went on television, John Hodgman was a simple writer, humorist, expert, and Former Professional Literary Agent living in New York City. In this capacity, he has served as the Humor Editor for the New York Times Magazine, frequent contributor to “This American Life,” advice columnist for McSweeney’s, comic book reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, and a freelance journalist specializing in food, culture, non-wine alcohol, “Battlestar Galactica,” and most other subjects.

This was enough of a career for any human.

But then he wrote a book of invented trivia and completely fake facts entitled THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE and was asked to appear on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", where he continues to provide commentary as the show’s Resident Expert. Since then, he has unexpectedly become a comedian and famous minor television personality, appearing as the “PC” in a series of television ads for Apple brand computers, and guest roles as “the person wearing glasses” in a variety of films and TV shows, including “Coraline,” “Community,” “Battlestar Galactica” (a show he once wrote about as a journalist). Additionally, he appeared as Jason Schwartzan’s nemesis, Louis Greene on all three seasons of HBO’s “Bored to Death.”

Two bestselling books followed THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE, concluding his “COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE” trilogy in 2012 with the apocalyptic THAT IS ALL. As a comedian, he has headlined at clubs and theaters around the country, including the San Francisco Sketchfest. He is a two-time main stage speaker at the TED conference, the former color commentator at the Emmys, and, most surreally, he grilled the President of the United States on his nerd credentials at the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in 2009.

From time to time, he is asked to explain his professional life, and in particular, the effect of this dramatic and surprising change of fortune, and typically, he finds he cannot do it.

Jonathan Coulton is from the Internet. While a struggling music industry fell to pieces over file sharing and shifting business models, he quietly and independently amassed a small army of techies, nerds, and dedicated superfans.

Featured in the New York Times, NPR and slashdot, his songs cover an eclectic range of subjects, from zombies and mad scientists to marriage and parenthood. In concert he moves fluidly between pathos and ridiculous fun. Seeing your first Coulton show is like walking into an insider club meeting, but one that gleefully welcomes and indoctrinates you in short order.

Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster based in San Francisco.

Merlin created 43 Folders, co-hosts You Look Nice Today, Back to Work, and Roderick on the Line, and speaks and consults about things like email, time & attention, and creative work.

Sure, Merlin also makes and does other stuff, including kinda-famous things like Inbox Zero, the Hipster PDA, the Procrastination Dash, 5ives, That Phone Guy, and, of course, his personal favorite, “Cranking.” Merlin strongly discourages you from following him on Twitter.

Nick’s approach to design reflects both a storyteller’s eye and an engineer’s mindset, appropriate for someone who grew up in LA but cut his teeth in Seattle. The belief that great design is great business drives his never-ending search for that branded sweet spot between experiential magic and hardcore performance.
 
Nick has a decade of experience poking the pixels in a variety of mixed-discipline initiatives that range from websites to mobile applications to social media and beyond, but he believes that a user-centered approach to problem solving should not be exclusive to digital mediums. After all, the best “Social Media” interaction is still a face-to-face conversation.
 
As Design Director at Hornall Anderson, Nick is a big picture thinker who still likes to play in the sandbox. He leads teams that blur the lines between brand experience and digital design. His portfolio includes industry titans like Target, Starbucks, HTC, and Amazon, as well as local favorites like Trophy Cupcakes, Dunn Lumber and BlackRapid.

Jamie Monberg is Chief Experience Officer at Hornall Anderson, where he quietly (and not so quietly) espouses the belief that defining interactive solely in terms of “digital” technology is an outdated way of thinking.

Jamie cut his teeth in Redmond, where he worked in interactive product development and advanced research, winning several technology patents, serving as a consultant for numerous startups, and guiding the successful launch of Sidewalk.com (a.k.a. CitySearch 1.0). Since joining HA in 2005, Jamie’s focus has been on dissolving the dividing lines of print/digital, interactive/environmental, helping the firm create great interactive experiences that transcend the limitations of any one medium.

Chris Savage is the co-founder and CEO of Wistia. Wistia provides video marketing that let you host, promote, and track your online videos. Chris was named a Top Young Entrepreneur by BusinessWeek in 2009. In an era before Wistia, Chris worked in video production where he helped produce and bring to theaters an Emmy award winning feature length documentary. Chris gets amped up while talking about entrepreneurship, marketing, video, analytics, evolutionary health, and behavioral economics.

Ben Fox is Executive Vice President at Adconion Media Group, one of the fastest-growing digital advertising companies in the world, where he is responsible for product strategy and innovation. He ensures that Adconion remains relevant and strategic, to its partners, in such a dynamic and fast paced industry. His research and insights are also a cornerstone to the Adconion Institute, which is paving the way in digital media thought leadership.

As a seasoned media technology veteran, FOX previously served as Vice President of Global Product Development at Adconion, where he built a product team that set strategy, specified features, and delivered a robust end-to-end ad platform that presently serves more than 10 billion monthly impressions.

FOX brought to Adconion product management, enterprise skills, and marketing skills from Yahoo!/Overture [YHOO], where for nearly four years he contributed to launches on the Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Publisher Networks. Fox launched several search, contextual, behavioral, and RSS-based advertising products as well as supported corporate development with the analysis of several acquisitions in emerging areas of social media advertising.

Prior to his work at Yahoo!, FOX worked on several roles at angel and venture-funded internet startups including profit evangelist, co-founder, and interim CEO. He also worked at Trilogy Software, based in Austin, TX and helped launch the VAR business channel as part of TU98.

Arun Jacob is Director of Data Solutions for Disney Technology Solutions & Services, where he is leading the effort to build a Data-as-a-Service offering that leverages a blend of NoSQL technologies to provide a storage, analytics and runtime facing data platform for Disney's next generation of consumer facing applications. Previous to Disney, he held various engineering roles at Richrelevance, Evri.com, Vulcan Inc, F5 Networks, and Microsoft.

Jon Nolz is General Manager at Hipcricket and leads their Mobile Advertising Network, a premium mobile ad network that taps into the buying power of the mass market with industry-leading capabilities to target customers via location, ambient criteria and highly-specific demographic information.

He previously led product management at HipCricket, where he was responsible for product strategy, product pipeline and product development. Jon has a deep rooted background in product strategy, new media, digital advertising and direct response marketing with executive positions at drugstore.com and InfoSpace.

While at drugstore.com and Infospace, he was instrumental in the development of ad serving, ad sales and ad management capabilities to help both companies effectively monetize their online and mobile customers. He also worked at TBWA/Chiat Day where he led an account team focused on advertising plans for the Pathfinder, Quest, Frontier, Xterra model lines and Nissan Parts & Services.  Jon also spent time working on Nissan’s luxury division, Infiniti and agency new business.

Mandar heads Mobile Monetization for AOL, and is responsible for driving mobile revenue from AOL properties. He also plays key roles in ad formats, products and standards, as well as mobile ad sales.

Mandar came to AOL from Yahoo!, where he had a similar job with Y! mobile monetization. Overall has spent 10+ years working on mobile software – both as an engineer and as a product contributor – at companies like Seven, Peek, and Smith Micro.

Mandar has an MBA from UC-Berkeley, a Masters in Computer Science from University of Delaware, and a Bachelors in Computer Engineering from University of Mumbai.

Anil Batra, Sr. Director of Analytics at KBM, has over 18 years of experience in digital analytics, online advertising and behavioral targeting. He helps companies use digital data to improve online business results. He has helped several fortune 500 customers effectively use analytics to increase their ROI on the web. Some of his past and present clients include: Microsoft, Starbucks, Dow Jones, ESPN, Real Networks, Smart Money.  Anil writes ones of the top blogs in Digital Analytics, http://www.anilbatra.com/analytics and is a frequent speaker at various online marketing conferences. He has also served on the board of Digital Analytics Association and also teaches at University of Washington and tutors for University of British Columbia. He is an avid tweeter and was named by SAP as one of the top 50 analytics influencers on Twitter.

Julie Rezek is a passionate and driven leader with over 15 years' experience driving revenue growth for Fortune 500 B2B and consumer-oriented companies. In her current role as General Manager of Wunderman Seattle, Julie oversees data-driven marketing programs for leading brands that include Microsoft, T-Mobile, Group Health Cooperative, Regus, Hawaiian Airlines, the Seattle Storm, and others. She is responsible for the agency's account management, strategy, emerging media, project management, and communication teams, and she also manages the Seattle agency's creative output as well as its media and data engagements.

Working with an array of specialist partner agencies to draw on the vast resources of WPP, Young & Rubicam Group, and the Wunderman network, Julie's focus is driving cutting-edge campaigns and producing best-in-class creative work all while making sure her team delivers hard-core business results. Julie's distinguished leadership and focus on results has garnered industry recognition, and she has been invited to speak at marketing conferences and events hosted by the Direct Marketing Association, American Advertising Federation, and American Marketing Association.

Julie has been with Wunderman for over 12 years, most recently in the role of VP-Global Client Services Director for the Seattle agency's Microsoft account. Prior to her move to the Pacific Northwest, Julie was VP-Director of E-marketing in Wunderman's Toronto office, where she was a key contributor in developing Wunderman's digital marketing practice. The tier-one accounts that have benefited from Julie's leadership include IBM, Kraft, The Loyalty Group, Citibank, AT&T, and Ford Motor Company.

In her spare time, Julie enjoys traveling the far corners of the world (she counts Vietnam and Peru among her favorite destinations) and walking the mountains of Washington state with her husband and two sons.

Vickie Nauman specializes in digital media and content strategy, the intersection of technology and music, and international business development. Nauman is President - North America for 7digital, leading all strategy and business partnerships for the innovative London-based media company. Prior to 7digital, Nauman served as the global content lead at Sonos, the wireless digital music system for the home. Previous experience includes principal of CrossBorderWorks consulting, developing KEXP Radio's online music service in Seattle, and content at Real Networks/MusicNet. She earned an international MBA from TRIUM, a collaborative program at the London School of Economics, NYU, and HEC-Paris... and loves music!

Chris Carter, Group Strategy Director, Wunderman. With a global perspective and proven expertise, Chris is passionate about creating innovative strategies that foster bold ideas and drive bottom line business results. He thrives taking in multiple points of view to explain complex strategies in a simple, straightforward manner. Chris loves discovering the best way to get inside the mind of a consumer and developing strong client partnerships.

Motivating his team to think creatively, take informed risks, learn and always see bigger picture helps them and our client’s succeed. For 15 years he’s enjoyed delivering strategic plans and thought leadership for diverse global brands such as T-Mobile, Windows Live, MSN, Bing, Windows Phone, Xbox, Zune, Microsoft Advertising, Intel, BBC, Peugeot, OKI, Historic Scotland, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Sheryl Tullis is Senior Vice President, Client Services at Iconmobile. Sheryl leads client services for North America and runs the Seattle iconmobile office. She is responsible for the client relationships with brands such as Colgate, Ford, Kimberly Clark, Kraft, Mercedes, Nokia, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, and T-Mobile. Sheryl believes mobile isn’t a device or a technology – it’s a context. She partners with clients to design & build personal, local, relevant experiences that understand customer context and needs, as well as meet client business goals.

Sheryl has been working in the mobile, digital communications and marketing communications for more than 23 years. As an Army officer she led a high-tech unit of 120 soldiers, U.S. & German civilians which provided information management systems and telecommunications to military communities across central Germany, finding inventive ways to provide services during the armed forces reductions.

Sheryl transitioned from military campaigns to marketing campaigns as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble. She led the innovation factory in Food & Beverage division for new/upstream products, where she built and ran P&G’s first e-commerce business.

During her 9+ years at Microsoft in product management and global marketing she launched successful e-commerce, digital and CRM campaigns to over 250 million customers in 38 countries. She served as chief of staff, business manager and speech writer for the Chief Marketing Officer, and then as head of the marketing profession, developed capability, leadership programs, and emerging marketing skills for 7000+ marketers.

Most recently she held the position of vice president of client services at an award-winning mobile advertising and media agency, Point Reach, whose clients include AT&T, Bing, Disney, eBay, ESPN, Levi’s, MSN, StubHub, Walgreens, and Windows Phone.

Sheryl holds an M.S. in Information Systems Management from the University of Southern California and a B.S. in Engineering + Public Affairs from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY.

She keeps busy cycling, SCUBA diving, playing piano, snarking via social media, and letting the best dog in the world take her on runs.

Stephen leads Catalyst’s Seattle SEO team, driving alignment of campaign strategy and execution to meet client goals.  Stephen is the global SEO lead on the Microsoft SEO business, and is a key SEO decision maker for Catalyst Online.  He has been working in the online space for over 14 years, with ten years invested specifically in the search industry.  His career within GroupM began in 2002 in London as a Search Marketing Strategist with the Outrider brand, before moving to Seattle to build a team there and grow the Microsoft business.

Gregg Hamilton, SVP/Research, Analytics & Business Development, AdGooroo. Gregg leads the custom reporting and research practice at AdGooroo, the leading supplier of competitive intelligence in the global paid search space.  He loves to coax information out of raw data and then convert that information into actionable marketing insights.  Gregg spent many years designing, implementing and measuring database marketing programs on behalf of clients and is now focused on helping clients maximize the impact and effectiveness of their paid search spend.   He was the global data strategist on the agency team that helped Microsoft launch adCenter, now Bing, and that campaign earned adCenter the DMA’s Marketer of the Year Award in 2007.  He shares provocative paid search research findings and thoughts at @adgoogoog. Gregg has been published in Target Marketing and DM News.

Nika is a Senior User Experience Researcher at Blink Interactive. For the past 12 years, Nika has extensively researched the needs and habits of technology users across a range of domains and tasks. For the past 4 years at Blink, Nika has focused her research on understanding and improving the user experience of mobile devices, especially smartphones and tablets for the consumer market.

Prior to Blink Nika served as a user experience researcher for Google, where she led research efforts for the Gmail, Calendar, and Reader teams. Specifically, she studied how people use socially-mediated technology to communicate, express their personalities, and manage personal information and privacy settings. Nika has also served as an information architecture and interface design consultant for organizations including Ford Motor Company, the US Department of Education, the American Society for Information Science & Technology, and Intel. Nika holds a Master of Science in Information from University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from RIT.

Karen is President and founder of Blink Interactive, a Seattle based User Experience firm. At Blink she is focused on operations, processes, and systems, along with company vision and strategy. She manages a variety of client engagements and loves to spend time learning about each client’s unique business.

Karen began her career in 1986 studying Fine Arts in Vancouver, BC at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. She later moved to high-tech as a multimedia graphic designer working on cultural and educational CD Roms. Karen holds a degree in Art History & Visual Arts from the University of Victoria, and is a graduate of Information Technology & Multimedia from Capilano College, Vancouver.

Karen was born and raised in Victoria, BC, loves to ski and kiteboard, has a daughter, husband, and lots of animals. Karen is a member of the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO), Women Business Owners (WBO), IADAS (Webby Awards judge), Puget Sound SigChi and TED Community. She is also a former board member for the Seattle Youth In Focus organization.

Mark Briggs is the author of Entrepreneurial Journalism, a book about the rise of journalism startups and how to start your own journalism business. It was published by CQPress and released in October 2011 (Amazon link).

Briggs is also the author of Journalism 2.0: How to survive and thrive in the digital age which was published by J-Lab and the Knight Citizen News Network in 2007 and downloaded as a PDF more than 200,000 times in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

An updated version of the book, Journalism Next, was published by CQPress in December 2009. A revised edition will be published in Oct. 2012.

He is currently director of digital media for King 5 Television in Seattle and a Ford Fellow in Entrepreneurial Journalism at The Poynter Institute. Previously, he co-founded Serra Media, a Seattle-based technology company, and spent nine years running newspaper websites in Everett and Tacoma, Wash.

As part of his mission to help journalists transform in the digital age and leverage the power of digital/social/mobile media, Mark has served as a speaker, trainer and consultant for various projects around the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East. He spoke at SXSW Interactive in Austin in 2010, 2011 and 2012. In May 2010 he was named one of 20 Journalists to Follow by Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists.

As a member of the global Creative Research team at Getty Images, Pam has unique insight into the meaning, application and impact of imagery – photographs, illustration and film -- around the world today. Using the information derived from researchers around the world and custom-designed forecasting methods, plus the wealth of data generated by Getty Images, Pam is able to identify -- and perhaps even helps to shape -- the visual language of tomorrow.  The current and future trends identified in turn supplying advertising, marketing and publishing professionals with imagery that will resonate strongly with target audiences and sway purchase decisions.

Pam first joined Getty Images in November 2003 and has frequently been invited as a guest speaker and consultant on visual trends at Fortune 500 companies and conferences, including Google’s in-house global creative team, Bank of America, Kraft Foods, MetLife, Fidelity, HOW Design Conference, and The American Marketing Association. Pam is a graduate of N.Y.U. with a degree in Cultural Anthropology.

Marissa is the Digital Media Manager and is responsible for all social media for glassybaby, a Seattle company with a loyal online community and mission to give back to charities helping people heal.

glassybaby are handmade votive holders with a unique back story.  The company was founded by a three time cancer survivor who found great healing in the color and light of a handmade votive holder when she was sick.  The founder wanted to share that light and help others heal.  She opened a glassblowing studio and from the beginning gave back money from sales to charities helping cancer patients with basic costs, like groceries, needed to heal but not covered by health insurance.   The company has donated almost a million dollars to charities.

Also from the beginning, glassybaby customers have shared their own stories of healing, love, loss and celebration.  Social media has given the glassybaby community a place to share those stories with a very engaged audience.

Marissa’s background in visual arts and design helps her use beautiful images and messaging to bring the glassybaby community together on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

Yoli Chisholm is a veteran in the online space working in the digital arena since ’95 and has been an active participant wearing many hats publisher, advertiser, content creator and marketer. She has enjoyed being a front line participant seeing capabilities like online commerce, display Ads,  email marketing, affiliate marketing, SEM transition from emerging capabilities into “traditional” digital tactics. A business model junkie who has worked for the likes of Microsoft, eBay. Lavalife.com, Points.com and a few startups along the way never losing her fascination with technology and user behavior.

Currently, Digital Innovation Lead at Microsoft working with marketers to maximize existing practices and test, learn and understand emerging marketing opportunities.

As the Director of Emerging Media for Wunderman Seattle, Karen O’Brien leads social media and mobile initiatives for Wunderman clients through the creation and implementation of strategies that build brands and drive results. An emerging media enthusiast, Karen enjoys working on the cutting edge of technology and exploring its ability to help brands engage with their customers. Her brand experience includes: Microsoft, T-Mobile, Cisco, HP, Oracle, Sun, VMware, Verizon, Seagate, Symantec, Disney and Xbox.

Karen has been in digital marketing since ’95 and been on the front lines in many roles: entrepreneur, strategist, content curator, thought leader and marketer. Previously she was Managing Director of Interactive Services for Crimson Consulting and Director of eBusiness Strategy for Hitachi Consulting. During the dot com boom, Karen was a cofounder of Roundpeg, a leading web and mobile design agency in San Francisco. Additionally Karen has been a Guest Professor of eBusiness and High-Tech Entrepreneurship at the University of Ottawa’s EMBA program in Hong Kong, and winner of the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association's Thought Leadership Award.

Oscar E. Murillo is Kinect for Windows’s User Experience Architect. Since 2004, Oscar has been designing Natural User Interfaces for Microsoft. These experiences include Windows Speech Recognition, Kinect for XBOX, the Microsoft Home of the Future, and a suite of applications scheduled to be released with Windows 8.

From 2006 to 2009, Oscar was tasked with creating futuristic demonstrations for Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer. These demos were used by Microsoft’s Senior Leadership team to help illustrate the company’s long-term vision for how technology can enable positive global change in healthcare, education, manufacturing, retail, public safety, and productivity.

Before joining Microsoft , Oscar was an Art Director at AT&T, InfoSpace Mobile and Clique.com, where he created mobile and online experiences for Renault, U2, T-Mobile, Orange, Sprint, Cingular, Forbes, People, Cosmopolitan , Wallpaper Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal.

Oscar has been awarded 8 patents (25 pending), is an active member of IxDA, IDSA, AIGA, SIGCHI and DMI, and served as Design Director for the Computer Human Interaction conference (CHI) from 2008-2011.

Oscar studied Industrial Design at the National University of Colombia, Visual Communications at Taller Cinco, and Multimedia at the Vancouver Film School.

Ana Pinto da Silva leads design for Microsoft’s Strategic Prototyping and Advanced Strategies Group (StratPro). Her work synthesizes her interests in storytelling, architecture and emerging technologies and her deep passion for creative collaboration and the development of creative culture. Her previous experience includes game development, architecture, and interactive media. Her work has garnered several awards including the Al Falah Grant from U.C. Berkeley in 2002 and a Webby Worthy Award in 2003.

In addition to her media work, she has been an instructor at San Francisco State’s Multimedia Studies Program developing and teaching courses on interactive media history and development. She has extensive non-profit board experience including her current work as a board member for Artist Trust and is the founder of Seattle’s Pecha Kucha chapter. Ana received her bachelor’s in architecture from U.C. Berkeley and her MDesS from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. She is a graduate of Seattle’s Leadership Tomorrow program, serving as class valedictorian in 2009.

A proven global games industry entrepreneur, James has been in the online games industry for over ten years with a focus on infrastructure, technology and operations. His career in the game industry began in Asia working with an early incarnation of Nexon Japan. He moved to the US in June of 2004 to set up Online Game Services Inc. (OGSi), and established it as a premier infrastructure provider to the online games industry. OGSi was acquired in 2008.

James is currently the CEO and co-founder of Roadhouse Interactive Ltd., a Vancouver-based online game production company founded in December 2009. Major projects include Family Guy Online for 20th Century Fox and MechWarrior Tactics, for Infinite Game Publishing. James is responsible for driving Roadhouse strategy and maintains an extensive network of contacts in the global online game development, publishing and technology sectors. Passionate about the positive impact of games and their potential for societal change, Roadhouse recently formed a division to focus on blending expertise in online games with education.  James is a UK national and now lives in Vancouver, BC. He is fluent in Japanese.

James was previously Chairman of the Advisory Board for the LOGIN Game Conference and Chairman of the IGDA’s Online Games SIG. He is currently on the advisory board for Casual Connect Asia. Prior to the games industry, his career included stints in digital media production / localization as CEO/Founder of TCi Japan Ltd., Internet Media as VP of Sales and Marketing at eigoTown.com, and educational publishing as Japan Manager for Cambridge University Press.

CEO and Loose Cannon, Mark Long is a transmedia producer of 31 video games, three graphic novels and two feature films. Prior to founding Meteor, Long was founder and Co-CEO of Zombie Studios for 18 years. Long serves on the University of Washington Games advisory panel and is a member of the Producer’s Guild in Hollywood. Long has also served on a number of technical advisory boards and government committees including the Serious Games Summit, the National Science Foundation and the University of Washington Human Interface Laboratory. Long had a Research and Development career that spanned three laboratories: the Sarnoff Research Center, the Institute for Advanced Technology, and General Dynamics' Combined Arms Systems Engineering Laboratory. Long received his BS at the University of Texas, where he also received his commission in the US Army. He retired from the US Army with the rank of Major and is the recipient of the Army's Meritorious Service Medal.

Michael King is an SEO Engineer by trade and Inbound Marketer by evolution. He works as Director of Inbound Marketing for leading content marketing agency iAcquire. Affectionately referred to "SEO's Don Draper" Mr. King is also leading the expansion of iAcquire’s offering into on-page optimization and digital brand strategy.

Michael King (bka @iPullRank on Twitter) has an extensive background in software, web development and a proclivity for creative solutions. That experience has afforded him a track record of successfully coordinating the efforts of Creative, Strategy, Technical and Paid Media Teams to achieve synergistic solutions in harmony with long-term client campaign goals for several Fortune 500 brands. Previously, Mr. King was responsible for the SEO campaigns of LG, Citi, Sanofi Pasteur, Cartier, and General Mills as the SEO lead at Publicis Modem. Before that, he was member of the SEO team at Razorfish where he contributed to many wins for Ralph Lauren, ABC, ADT, State Farm, and several of Johnson & Johnson and Genentech brands.

As a contributor to leading industry blogs such as SEOmoz, Unbounce and Distilled, Mike continues to usher in ideas that shift the paradigm of SEO and Inbound Marketing as a whole. This is best illustrated by the Keyword-Level Demographics methodology Mr. King developed in 2011 that allows marketers to perfectly measure and target persona types. Mike has simultaneously made the transition to sought-after speaker delivering memorable talks at such conferences as SMX East, SearchLove NYC, Seattle Interactive, SMX Israel, SMX West, SES New York, LinkLove London, SMX Advanced and MozCon.

Kate Morris is a Senior SEO Consultant for Distilled, an online marketing consultancy in London, New York and Seattle. Kate has spent the past 9 years working in a variety of roles from in-house to agency to independent. Her expertise is in understanding the searcher intent and how that translates to keyword research, content idea generation, link development and paid search execution. Kate has an MBA from Texas State University and a BBA in Marketing and Advertising from The University of Texas at Austin.

Konrad Feldman cofounded Quantcast, a leading audience measurement and targeting company, with the aim of transforming the consistency and performance of online advertising through science and scalable computing. The pioneer of direct audience measurement, Quantcast offers the industry’s most in-depth understanding of digital audiences to help marketers and publishers buy and sell the most effective targeted advertising. Today, the company directly measures more than 100 million web destinations, collects well in excess of 500 billion new data records each 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, including banking, insurance, telecommunications, utilities and retail. Prior to Quantcast, Feldman cofounded 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), where he subsequently spent three years as a Research Fellow investigating the use of Artificial Intelligence in the Financial Services industry before founding Searchspace.

Mark Griffith is the Sr. Director, Product Management for NASCAR.COM at Turner Sports. In this role, he leads all digital product initiatives for the league website including the TrackPass subscription service, fantasy games, mobile web and applications, social media initiatives, and other content experiences. While also at Turner Broadcasting, Mark was the business lead for CNN Pipeline, a cutting-edge premium video subscription service and led the CNN.com Product Development group that focused on desktop consumer applications.

Prior to joining Turner Broadcasting, Mark led the Product Marketing efforts for EarthLink’s value-added suite of products. Mark holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, and an undergraduate degree from Bucknell University.

Scilla Andreen, the CEO & Co-Founder of IndieFlix, is an award winning producer, Emmy nominated costume designer, founder of IndieFlix Foundation, creator of the movie game Film Festival in a Box and the Tag Now, Watch Later Indieflix audience building tool.

Scilla Andreen (CEO & Co-Founder IndieFlix.com) is an award winning producer, Emmy nominated costume designer, founder of IndieFlix Foundation, creator of the movie game Film Festival in a Box and the Tag Now, Watch Later IndieFlix app. Scilla has deep roots in the entertainment industry and is a popular speaker, juror and tireless champion of independent film. In 2004 Scilla co-founded IndieFlix.com an independent film distribution and discovery site founded on the principles of community, promotion, syndication and transparency. IndieFlix filmmakers keep their rights and participate in multiple revenue streams direct from IndieFlix.com and via third party platforms including Cable VOD, iTunes, Hulu and Netflix. The IndieFlix library of film festival titles stands at 4,000+ titles and growing.

IndieFlix, connecting people through movies by bringing the film festival experience home.

Alissa is the Vice President and General Manager for the Consumer Products division of Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America with Sales & Marketing responsibility for a portfolio of skincare and healthcare brands including CeraVe®, Kinerase®, AcneFree® and Ocean® Saline Nasal products.  She is also the founder of the Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) at Valeant.  Alissa has over 15 years of business experience, having spent the majority of her Marketing career at Johnson & Johnson, building iconic brands such as Johnson’s® Baby, Aveeno®, Neutrogena and Clean & Clear® in global, emerging markets and U.S. roles.  While at J&J, Alissa was recognized with numerous awards for innovation and marketing excellence and was selected to attend the J&J Google Talent Exchange in 2011.  She also holds a patent for the invention of Johnson’s® Safety Swabs. 
Before starting her career in business, Alissa toured internationally as a professional modern dancer, performing in venues including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center, and the Cannes Dance Festival.  In addition to dancing, Alissa previously dabbled in inline speed-skating and placed 4th at the 2006 National Championships.   She received her A.B. in English from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.  Alissa lives in Rocky Hill, New Jersey with her husband Hugh, a software engineer at Google, and their two teenage sons.

Lesley is the CEO of Razoo, a social fundraising platform.  She is a seasoned CEO, marketer and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in interactive entertainment with companies like Electronic Arts.

She was also co-founder and COO of pogo.com, the largest online casual games community which was acquired by EA in 2001. Currently she is on the board of the Leadership Institute for the Ecology and the Economy, on the board of advisors for Smart Gardener and is an active volunteer for The Women's Initiative. Lesley graduated from Bristol
University, England and lives in Sonoma County.

Tom Gallagher has more than a decade of experience as a copywriter, brand strategist, and utility marketeer. As Brand Strategist and Senior Writer at LiveAreaLabs, he supports the agency’s offerings in brand development, digital platforms, and campaigns for organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest and across North America.

Having worked with local and global brands, Tom knows the advantages of clear, authentic brand articulation first hand. Well aware that brand rests in the gut of the beholder, he still believes that organizations are responsible for driving that ultimate perception. Tom works with clients to develop honest, compelling, and singular brand strategies—as well as branding, communications, and experiences—they can use to guide their actions and ensure reality lives up to their promises.

Pete Gade is a creative director, brand strategist, and a Society of Professional Journalists award-winning writer with more than 20 years of professional experience in the creation of both traditional and digital experiences. As the Senior Brand Strategist at LiveAreaLabs, he supports the agency’s offerings in brand development, digital platforms, and campaigns for brands throughout the Pacific Northwest and across North America.

Drawing on his experiences as both a strategist and a journalist, Pete believes that the foundation of a lasting brand begins with two things: focus and attribution. He works with clients to develop a clear and easily shared identity that sets their brand apart—and, most importantly, ensure that it all maps back to their unmistakable ability to back it up. Because after all, a brand’s actions are what shapes a brand’s perception.

Pete’s honored to present on this very topic at SIC 2012 alongside fellow LiveAreaLabs brand strategist Tom Gallagher.

Susie drives the company’s vision, strategy and growth. Prior to OfficeSpace.com, Susie was a Senior Executive and founding team member at WhitePages.com. Based on her experiences as a start-up, she was amazed at how difficult and confusing it was to find office space every time the company grew. What should have been an exciting process (yay, we’re growing!) was hampered by a slow and arduous process of getting information. The idea for a tenant-centric site and transparency of information was born.

Susie also serves on the Board of Trustees for Rainier Scholars, a Seattle non-profit serving students of colors with the most barriers to a college education. Susie enjoys healthy living, running, pilates, skiing and spending time with her family. She has a Bachelors of Arts from the University of British Columbia in International Relations.

Eric Stowe believes that every child has a right to clean water—and he has built an innovative, scalable approach to act on that belief. Since founding Splash in 2006, Stowe has developed a highly effective model to ensure safe water for urban children living at the intersection of these two streets: 'greatest degrees of poverty' and 'worst water quality conditions.' Leveraging world-class water purification technology, sustainable monitoring and maintenance, excellent people, and a rigorous commitment to transparency, Splash will soon announce that every orphanage in China has safe drinking water. Stowe's team will then demonstrate how they are customizing their approach for 15 more countries in Asia and East Africa. Stowe is a 2012 AmericanExpress NGen Fellow, 2012 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, and a Puget Sound Business Journal '40 Under 40' honoree.

Kate Matsudaira has worked as the VP Engineering/CTO at several technology startups  - including her current role at Decide, and past roles at SEOmoz, and Delve Networks (acquired by Limelight).  Prior to joining the startup world she spent time as a software engineer, and technical lead/manager at Amazon and Microsoft. Kate has hands-on knowledge and experience with building large scale distributed web systems, big data, cloud computing and technical leadership.  She maintains a blog covering technical leadership at and also helps curate the Technology & Leadership Newsletter.

Selina Petosa is the founder and Chief Creative Strategist at Rational, a full service digital agency focused on creating brand connections across every medium imaginable.

Rational began as a two-person start-up in 2009, but has rapidly matured into a full-service creative agency with a team of over 35 designers, technologists and strategic consultants. Selina’s vision and leadership has shaped Rational into a people-centered product in its own right—a company people want to work for and clients love to work with.

Selina began her career working in product design, with experience spanning product planning, user interface design, product packaging and beyond. From there her career focuses have ranged from worldwide brand management, to global product launches – all the while building out creative teams to support those efforts within corporations and agencies. Selina has directed the creative strategy and design for some of the world's largest brands: Amazon, Microsoft, AT&T, Fluke Networks, Cisco, and Sony Electronics, to name a few.

Selina received her BFA in Visual Communication from the highly competitive and prestigious program at the University of Washington.

An advocate for small and woman owned businesses, Selina comes from a family of entrepreneurs. A Seattle native, Selina currently resides in the Queen Anne neighborhood.

Jeremy leads the emerging media practice at Razorfish.  The team is responsible for scouting opportunities in new channels like mobile, tablet, converged television, game consoles, digital out of home and more. It’s a group also known as Advanced Media Specialists (AMS) that functions as filter, consultant, evangelist and big idea generator. It fuels innovation across the agency and helps clients navigate an increasingly fragmented media landscape with breakthrough strategic thinking that makes sense of the noise and separates the wheat from the chaff.

Jeremy is a 15-year advertising industry veteran, having spent time at offline and direct marketing agencies before joining Philadelphia-based digital agency startup i-FRONTIER in 1997 as it’s first employee. He teamed with founder Brad Aronson to grow the business and ultimately join forces with Razorfish. During his tenure at the agency, he has served many roles, but they share a common theme - the intersection of media, creative and technology. He’s been a trusted advisor to a wide range of top marketers including Best Buy, Weight Watchers, Mercedes Benz, Expedia, Miller Coors, and more.

He is a frequent speaker on emerging media, having presented at Cannes Lions, OMMA, CES, Digital Hollywood, Digital Signage Expo, iMedia, Internet Retailer, the AAAA Media Conference and many more. Jeremy also writes a monthly column for online magazine ClickZ (http://www.clickz.com/author/profile/935/jeremy-lockhorn) and regularly publishes whitepapers on a broad range of emerging media topics (http://www.razorfish.com/#/ideas/reports-and-papers/white-papers/view-all/).

Jeremy holds a BSJ in Advertising Management from Ohio University’s Scripps School of Journalism, and is currently based in Seattle, WA.

John SanGiovanni has more than 13 years of experience as a wireless strategist and mobile user interface designer. As the co-founder and Vice President of Product Design, John coordinates the product design strategy and manages Zumobi’s in-house creative studio. Prior to Zumobi, John was Program Manager and Technical Evangelist for Microsoft Research, where he managed external academic research funding in the areas of mobile technologies and user interfaces. During his career, John has authored or co-authored more than 12 patents in the areas of mobile advertising, hardware interfaces, and interaction techniques for next-generation mobile devices. Before joining Microsoft, John worked on the Advanced Technology Learning Solutions team at PPI/Knowledge Universe and worked in Studio Entertainment for Walt Disney Company. John has a Bachelor of Science in Advertising with a concentration on Computing from the University of Florida.

Kelly Clay is a contributor to Forbes, where she covers technology news and trends emerging from Seattle and the surrounding area. With nearly a decade of experience, Kelly is exceptionally familiar with the evolution of new media and its impact on society. In addition to writing for Forbes, she assists with content development for several other leading publications and provides social media consulting for both local and national businesses.

Ross Reynolds has hosted KUOW’s local news/talk program ‘The Conversation’ since 2000. In that time he’s interviewed a president (Jimmy Carter), a former next president (Al Gore), a king, poets, artists, politicians, musicians and more. His favorite interview was novelist John Barth. His least favorite was musician Jonathan Richman.  The Conversation came in First Place in the 2012 Public Radio News Directors awards. In 2009 Seattle Weekly readers chose ‘The Conversation’ as the best local talk show.

Prior to hosting ‘The Conversation’ Ross was KUOW’s News Director, Program Director, and host of the weekly KCTS interview program ‘Upon Reflection’.  He is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Communication Masters in Digital Media program.

Chanel Summers has achieved success and renown in both the Seattle music scene and the video game industry, a unique perspective she brings to every Syndicate 17 program. Chanel began her career as a pioneering female game designer and producer, creating innovative products at early industry leading companies ranging from Mindscape, to Velocity (makers of the first networked video game) to Mattel Media, where she designed and developed everything from high-performance 3D vehicle simulations, to action/arcade platform games, to hardware peripherals. Recruited to Microsoft in the late '90s, Chanel was responsible for the release of that company's first multiplayer Internet game, Fighter Ace, an air combat simulation that prefigured the rise of mass online gaming.

While working on Fighter Ace, Chanel became enamored of the company's transformative interactive audio technologies, and transitioned into a role as the company's first Audio Technical Evangelist, in which capacity she was responsible for launching DirectMusic, a revolutionary method of creating and delivering interactive music and sound design, and establishing programs to get audio professionals more involved in the design of Microsoft technologies. As a result, Chanel became a widely recognized figure in leading industry organizations, as well as the published author of a number of articles and technical white papers.

With the inception of Microsoft's Xbox video game system in 2000, Chanel was tapped to help design and promote the audio capabilities of the new hardware platform and was instrumental in defining hardware capabilities and programming libraries, evaluating and selecting external vendors, and managing the creation of audio-specific demos that would showcase the console. As a result, Chanel discovered an untapped opportunity to secure video game industry mindshare by creating the industry's first support team for content creators: a team of graphic artists, sound designers, composers and game designers who would work with the development community, coaching game creators to take advantage of the capabilities presented by Xbox. The Content and Design Team's goal, and Chanel's mandate as its Worldwide Creative Manager, was to help game creators around the world apply technology and features into design in order to help usher in an era of future-generation games.

After leaving Microsoft in 2002, Chanel focused her creative passions into drumming -- a lifelong aspiration -- and quickly established herself as a mainstay in the Seattle music community. Known for her energetic stage presence, impeccable timing, and extremely creative, musical drum parts, Chanel is a highly sought after performer, recording frequently and performing professionally in a number of nationally touring bands, working alongside such bands as Missing Persons, The Dreaming, Smile Empty Soul, The Last Vegas, Endless Hallway, and Vast, and showcasing in festivals ranging from CMJ to SXSW.

Most recently, Chanel has been invited to develop and teach a new course at the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Division in the School of Cinematic Arts which will focus on the art and aesthetics of creating audio for videogames, and also to work with the USC faculty to explore the eventual creation of a dedicated minor in interactive audio for students looking to specialize in that area.

Paul Peterman works in Global Marketing Solutions at Facebook, where he focuses on strategic partnerships that connect people to some of the world¹s most recognized brands. In this role, Paul helps spearhead creative marketing strategy, including successful projects that leverage the entire Facebook ecosystem to help companies grow their business.

Paul also serves on Facebook's Product Council for Pages and Insights.  Prior to joining Facebook, Paul was Regional Sales Director for the West at About.com, which is part of the New York Times Company.  Paul recently relocated back to Seattle and works out of Facebook's South Lake Union office.  Paul has over a decade of digital media and strategy experience.

Leigh George is passionate about finding new ways technology can help companies and organizations connect with the audiences they are trying to reach. As Director, Digital Strategy at R2integrated, Leigh helps clients develop, implement and track strategic plans for brand awareness, customer and member acquisition, relationship management, online engagement and community management. Leigh is a frequent speaker on branding and digital marketing and has a Ph.D. in branding history and theory from Binghamton University—one of only a handful of people in the country with that distinction.

Scott Willoughby brings over six years of experience developing, building, and marketing some of the most exciting brands and communities online. As Director of Business Development and Director of Marketing, he helped grow search tools powerhouse, SEOmoz, from a small consulting shop into a major provider of SaaS organic search marketing solutions. At PopCap Games, Scott serves as Franchise Marketing Manager, spearheading social, community, and online marketing design and innovation for multiple PopCap
Games brands, including their latest: Solitaire Blitz.

During his time with ADTECH Richard Bush has been responsible for product, customer relations, as well and more recently focusing on strategic activities related to partners and business development globally, Having been part of the team that moved from EU to start US operations in 2007, Richard has a good understanding of both the US and European markets. His primary role today focuses on overall development of the ADTECH business, strategic and tactical planning, managing relations with IAB and other industry organizations, as well as oversight of ADTECH’s Partner program, Richard Bush joined ADTECH in 2006, bringing a deep range of experience to the ADTECH team. He has worked in the internet- and computing-related industries since 1996, gaining a high level of expertise in a number of fields including development of commercial websites, relationship management and marketing technology.

Alex Algard founded WhitePages in 1997 to provide consumers a free, accurate, and fast online alternative to directory assistance. Incorporated in 2000, WhitePages has been profitable since its inception. In 2007 Alex was selected as the Software Entrepreneur of the Year, Pacific Northwest by Ernst & Young and as a finalist for Inc. magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year.

He is also founder of CarDomain Network, the leading online community for car enthusiasts. He began his career in investment banking with the Goldman Sachs High Technology Group. Alex holds a BA in economics and a MS in engineering, both from Stanford University.

Joanna Lord is the VP of Growth Marketing at SEOmoz.org, a leading SEO software company in Seattle. While she currently heads up SEOmoz's lifecycle marketing efforts for Moz's 16,000 member customer base, she is also a well-known social media enthusiast and frequent conference speaker. Her diverse experience in data analysis, performance marketing, inbound marketing and retention programs enables her to provide tactical strategies that work.

Matt Lawson is Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships for Marin Software, provider of the leading platform used by advertisers and agencies to manage search, display, and social advertising.  At Marin Software, Matt is responsible for worldwide branding, demand generation, and product marketing. Previously, Matt was an executive at Spock Networks, a venture-backed people search engine. Prior to Spock Networks, Matt held marketing and product leadership positions at Coremetrics, an early innovator in web analytics and paid search marketing.

Matt has spoken at SES San Francisco, SES Chicago, SES New York, AllFacebook Expo, Ad:Tech San Francisco, OMMA Global, SMX East, SMX West, SMX London, Search Insider Summit Captiva and Park City, and Seattle Interactive. He writes a regular column for Search Engine Land, and has contributed articles to Search Engine Watch, MediaPost, Adotas, and other publications.

Devin Coldewey is a writer and photographer based in Seattle. He wrote, shot, and designed for four years at TechCrunch, and has the dubious distinction of having written that site's longest and most esoteric articles. He continues to cover the fields of tech, science, and innovation at NBC Digital (formerly msnbc.com), and collects scraps of art and literature at coldewey.cc.

Richard "Koci" Hernandez is a national Emmy® award-winning video and multimedia producer who worked as a photographer at the San Jose Mercury News for 15 years. His work for the Mercury News has earned him two Pulitzer Prize nominations and was awarded a national Emmy® award for the New Approaches to Documentary category for his work on the film,Uprooted. His work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times and international magazines, including Stern, and he has worked with lynda.com to produce a course on iPhoneography, iPhone Photography, from Shooting to Storytelling.

In 2007 after taking his first mobile photograph, he was hooked on the medium's potential and immediacy. Recently, he joined the faculty at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism where he teaches various New Media courses, including Mobile Reporting. In 2010, Koci organized a mobile photography workshop during the world's first conference about mobile photography, 1197.is. in 2011 he presented a mobile photography Master Class at the TED2012 conference. Koci's mobile photography and insights have been featured in The New York Times, CNN, Slate, The Atlanic, and Phototech Magazine. His recent iPhoneography is being published in a book by National Geographic.

To learn more about Koci Hernandez, please visit:

Professional: www.journalism.berkeley.edu/faculty/richard_hernandez/
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/koci/

Brian Best is the Corporate Vice President of E-Commerce for the Boyd Gaming Corporation, which owns and operates 17 destination casinos and resorts across the United States.  Brian leads the development and execution of all online, mobile, and social strategies for the company.  He and his team are responsible for the integration of offline and online marketing programs; focusing on driving online room and retail ticket sales, developing multi-channel loyalty communications, and promoting brand awareness for the Boyd Gaming portfolio.

Brian led the development of Boyd Gaming’s two award winning digital products: B Connected Online and B Connected Mobile.  These products have received numerous industry awards, and were recently recognized by the American Gaming Association (AGA) as the Best Website and Best Mobile Application in the gaming industry. In 2012, B Connected Online and B Connected Mobile were named finalists in the travel category for the American Business Awards.

Brian is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound’s School of Business, and has worked in the gaming and hospitality industry for over 20 years.  Prior to his tenure at Boyd Gaming, he managed digital marketing teams and developed award winning programs for American Casino & Entertainment Properties, Caesars Entertainment, and The Wellbridge Company.  Brian was recently named to Las Vegas’ 40 under 40, and is a recognized industry expert and regular presenter at gaming and hospitality conferences.

Leigh McMillan is the Vice President of Marketing for Avvo (www.avvo.com), overseeing the company’s marketing, communications and business unit management.  For the past decade, Leigh has been at the forefront of digital marketing and analytics for both consumer and B2B companies.  Prior to joining Avvo, she spent several years at Marchex, a leading call advertising provider, most recently as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s Call Analytics business.  Before Marchex, Leigh held leadership positions at WildTangent, where she helped establish the company as a top online game publisher, and RealNetworks where she led the launch of several flagship products.  Leigh also led public affairs for Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners during their campaign for a new ballpark, which is now Safeco Field.  She has spoken at a number of marketing and technology conferences including ad:tech, SMX and Search Engine Strategies.

Leigh is a graduate of the University of Washington.  She also has a Certificate of Enology (winemaking) from Washington State University Extension, which she puts to good use in her spare time.

Brier Dudley offers a critical look at technology and business issues affecting the Northwest in a weekly Seattle Times column published on Mondays and a blog appearing throughout the week at SeattleTimes.com.

Brier previously covered Microsoft for five years. A third-generation Seattleite, he received a BA in English from Whitman College and studied film production in Italy before starting a career in newspapers. He has won numerous journalism awards and several oyster-eating competitions.

Previous to founding Tether, Stanley was VP Global Creative of Starbucks where he oversaw all creative aspects of Starbucks - new products, packaging systems, seasonal promotions, brand campaigns, advertising and collateral materials.

Stanley spent twelve years at Nike as a Creative Director working on everything from product launches to Niketowns to the Olympics. After Nike, he moved to Denmark to join the Lego Company as their Global Creative Director. There he directed a total visual overhaul of the Lego brand from top to bottom, including packaging, the web, retail and brand stores.

Stanley is a national board member of AIGA, a featured speaker on Creativity worldwide and the recipient of awards from ID Magazine, Communication Arts, The Library of Congress, Graphis, Type Directors Club, HOW International, HOW Regional, NW Design Awards, PRINT International, AIGA National, AIGA Regional, Rosie’s, POP Times, and Communication Arts Illustration, Retail Interiors (Best International Store and Best Retail Theater) and MAPIC (Best Retail Store).

Todd Bishop is co-founder of GeekWire, the independent technology news site and community based in Seattle. He covers Amazon.com, Microsoft, Apple, Google, video games, personal computers, mobile trends, national technology news and many other stories for GeekWire. He has covered the technology industry for more than eight years in Seattle, starting as a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper.

Tim Schmuckal is CEO of DIGITALKITCHEN, an agency at the crossroads of content and marketing.  Tim provides strategic direction for DIGITALKITCHEN and oversees management of the agency’s offices in Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles.  The agency’s roster of brand and entertainment clients includes The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, HBO, AT&T’s U-verse group, TNT, and Microsoft.  Last year, the agency was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix Lion at Cannes and One Show Gold Design Pencil.

Prior to joining DIGITALKITCHEN in 2005, Tim spent ten years in the e-commerce, online advertising, and technology industries, working at Expedia, Inc. and the national law firms of Cooley Godward and Kirkland & Ellis.  Tim graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in December 1996.  He is proud to be an English major and former high school teacher.  He serves on the advisory board of the Seattle Interactive Conference.

Eric Duerr is a founding partner of Extreme Arts + Sciences. Trained as a jazz musician, with degrees in philosophy and business, he brings a fresh perspective to today’s digital landscape. Eric carries the firm’s mission of fusing media, business, and creative to develop deeply researched, deeply understood narratives.

For the past decade, Eric has been at the forefront of the convergence of media and technology – putting into words and strategy its long term effects for businesses and consumers. He’s worked extensively with large organizations such as Microsoft, Adobe, and Amazon.com as well as small companies that didn’t have a trademark a few months ago. He has also advised numerous agencies including WPP, IPG, and Publicis.

An avid runner and connoisseur of northwest microbrews, Eric makes his home in Seattle with his family.

Richard Tom serves as Hulu's senior vice president and chief technology officer where he is responsible for all aspects of the company's core technology and infrastructure. Richard joined Hulu in 2007 after spending eight years at Microsoft in a variety of software development roles, from building database replication engines on the SQL server team to leading a team of engineers architecting the business application platform for Office Live, one of Microsoft's first entries into software as a service. Most recently he served as Hulu's vice president of advertising technology and operations overseeing the development of Hulu's advertising platforms and leading the sales operations strategy. Richard holds a BS in computer science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jon is Vice President, Product at Rhapsody. In his role, Jon Maples oversees the design, creation and improvement of the Rhapsody product and service. Jon's career spans over 20 years, and includes developing digital audiences, building great user experience and content programming. Under Maples' direction, Rhapsody's products have driven significant business growth and increased customer engagement.

Jon brings a deep journalism background to Rhapsody, where he also oversees the company's editorial practice. Previously, Jon managed online properties for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Netscape and Real Networks.  He was a senior writer and managing editor at Red Herring covering digital media with an emphasis on  music, at the time the magazine was the tech industry zeitgeist.  Jon is a native of Chicago and resides in San Francisco and Seattle.

Kim is the Executive Creative Director, Vice President, Digital Services at Filter. She leads the digital services division at  with a unique combination of branding and marketing expertise, cutting-edge design abilities, and an in-depth understanding of technology and digital media.

An accomplished web strategist, Kim has helped companies achieve their business goals through technology-based solutions and user-centered design. She is widely recognized as a leader in interactive marketing and interface design, with almost two decades of experience building upon some of the world's most trusted and recognizable global brands, including Sony, Microsoft, Xbox, MSN, EMI Records, BMG, Elton John, Dole, and Boeing.

A seasoned entrepreneur, in 1996, she founded the award-winning interactive agency Tattoo Media, Inc. The company was then successfully acquired by Ascentium Corporation in 2004, where she was a managing partner and led the company's growing Interactive Marketing division. Earlier in her career, Obbink spent seven years at Microsoft. There, as a creative director, she designed and launched several consumer software products and also marketed the full range of Microsoft's brand portfolio as a senior art director in the central Corporate Communications group. Most notably, Kim drove the company to break new ground in consumer packaging to achieve critical presence at retail and online.

Kim is an accomplished public speaker and is considered a thought leader and marketing pioneer in online and interactive media. In 2003, Puget Sound Business Journal recognized her as a "40 Under 40" honoree. Kim earned a B.A. in Communications Design and Art History from California State University and a B.F.A. in Graphics and Packaging Design from the world renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Greg Coomer is a designer at Valve. He has been part of the software industry for 20 years, working both in-house for companies like Nintendo and Microsoft and for a host of clients as principal of a Seattle UX design studio. He designs products, services, identities, experiences, and everything in-between, and he’s an expert in designing companies and cultures in which design can thrive.

Since helping Valve get off the ground, Greg has contributed significantly to most of the company’s products and to Steam, the massively popular online gaming platform. Greg is a champion of what he calls a new kind of design for innovation, in which design is radically redefined to include nearly all parts of the entrepreneurial creative process. He’ll tell anyone who will listen about why we’ll soon look back at the early part of this century as an era of quaint, artificial limits that we imposed on our own creativity. And as an era of fried food and incandescent light bulbs–two beautiful things which obviously will soon be illegal.

Greg has a degree in Visual Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His secret dream is to create a game called Akzidenz-Grotesk. You know, for kids.

Ben Huh is the CEO and founder of Cheezburger. He's a former journalist turned dot com entrepreneur who has a knack for nailing the zeitgeist and has been credited with bringing Internet memes to the mainstream and popularizing Internet culture. The success of Cheezburger is attributed to Ben’s knowledge of memes, viral content, and crowd sourcing. Ben graduated with a BSJ from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Mike Reeder is Group Director, Global Strategy and Planning for the Wunderman Network.  Working with Strategists in the USA, Asia, Europe, and Latin America, Reeder and team combine the best parts of traditional MBA training with account planning, analytics, and storytelling in an effort to place Wunderman strategy at the very intersection of business acumen and critical consumer insight.  In prior lives Reeder has worked at Publicis, Avenue A, DDB and Razorfish.  During these periods he was lucky enough to lead digital strategy for brands including NIKE, Microsoft, Levi's, Best Buy, Miller Coors, REI and Disney.  He has been invited to speak on subjects such as Connected Global Culture, The Consumerization of IT, Digital Youth Behaviors and Moving from Ads to Experiences to audiences including the Executive Briefing Center at Microsoft, Seattle Ad Club, Ad Tech, University of Washington and the full student body of Captain John Wilkes Elementary School, Bainbridge Island, WA.  An art school dropout and failed novelist, Reeder salvaged his life by graduating from the University of Washington where he majored in Marketing with concentrations in Consumer Behavior and Entrepreneurship.

Andy Liu is CEO of BuddyTV, the largest independently held TV site on the Internet. Prior to BuddyTV, Mr. Liu served as President and CEO of NetConversions from 1999-2004 prior to its sale to aQuantive and served as VP and GM of its Site Optimization unit from 2004-2005. He is also a founder of a non-profit that is focused on technology in developing countries and is very passionate about entrepreneurship.

Mr. Liu brings deep experience in building companies, site optimization, viral marketing, SEO, community building and product development. In 2003, he was named to Puget Sound Business Journal’s “40 Under 40.” In 2010, he was named Best Angel Investor by Seattle 2.0 in 2010 having invested in over 42 early stage deals including Cheezburger Network, BizXchange, Judy's Book, and Evo Gear.  Mr. Liu received his MBA from Wharton.

Ross Hudgens is Founder of Siege Media and frequent speaker at SEO industry events such as Distilled's Linklove, SMX Advanced, and the Blueglass conference. He is regularly referenced as a thought leader in the SEO space and runs a popular SEO blog at RossHudgens.com. Ross has also been featured on AOL,  Search Engine Land, Hacker News, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Watch, and many other top media outlets in the world of search.

Laura Porto Stockwell is the VP, Experience Strategy at POP, where she leads a team of Interaction Designers, Content Strategists, Digital Strategists and Analysts to create innovative digital solutions based on client goals and consumer insights. Prior to joining POP, Laura worked at agencies in the US and Italy including Razorish, Publicis and marchFIRST, and she has had the pleasure of working with clients including Ford, Nike, Microsoft and T-Mobile. Laura holds a Master of Arts in Media Studies with a concentration in social media from The New School in New York City and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Susan Moskwa works with Google's Webmaster Central and Search Quality teams as a Webmaster Trends Analyst. She follows industry trends in search engine optimization and web development in order to help Google build better tools for webmasters and improve search quality. Susan also participates in webmaster blogs and forums, helping site owners troubleshoot search-related problems and get the most out of Google Webmaster Tools. Susan has a degree in Linguistics from Cornell University.

Eric directs the imaginative output for VML around the world. As the agency’s Chief Innovation Officer, he is focused on making VML one of the world’s most inventive digital marketing networks available.

Eric joined VML in 1994, and designed and implemented many top companies’ first-ever online presence. Additionally, for more than 15 years, he has helped guide the evolution of many brands to the online space. Eric’s past clients include Diageo, Ernst & Young, WPP and T-Mobile, where he led creative strategy and development.

Eric continues to deliver global innovation for some of the world's most distinguished brands. He currently serves as the Global Creative Lead for Team Microsoft, which consists of five companies and more than 300 Creative team members in 50 countries.

His works has won numerous awards from W3 to the International Academy of Visual Arts, ADDYs, CA, Print, Webbys and more.

Eric continues to stretch the boundaries of digital engagement, design, innovation and communication technology in the business-to-business and consumer space, as well as application development, mobile and social marketing. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and workshops around the world.

As the Chief Technology Officer at Smashing Ideas, Victor Allen brings more than fifteen years experience providing technical leadership to creative agencies. Previous to joining Smashing Ideas he led award-winning teams at The Buddy Group and Juxt Interactive. At Smashing Ideas, Victor oversees the web development group, working on content and community sites, mobile web applications, game servers and APIs. In his role as CTO, he works to maintain the engineering culture at SI and builds relationships with clients, their technical teams and vendors, providing critical insight during substantial back-end architecture and front-end implementations of consumer and enterprise sites and apps.

In his free time, Victor maintains his geek credibility through the traditional pursuits of comics, games (video and otherwise), and taking cat photos. He also hikes, bikes and practices yoga.

Jason Lajeunesse was born in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada and moved to Seattle, WA in Oct. 2001, via Vancouver, BC.

Jason moved to Seattle to become the talent buyer at Graceland where he worked from Oct. 2011 to Feb. 2004. During this time, Jason also started Sealed With A Kiss Presents, a concert promotion company based out of Vancouver, BC with a Seattle division, that has produced Western Canadian tours for bands like Death Cab For Cutie, Bright Eyes, Silversun Pickups, Peaches, and TV On The Radio. Sealed With A Kiss grew from a fairly small company to a mid size concert promotion company producing as much as 140 events in a year.

Jason left Graceland to become the talent buyer for Neumos Crystal Ball Reading Room when it opened. In 2006, he became an owner of Neumos. Since then Jason, with his business partners, has opened Moe Bar, Big Marios Pizza, and Barboza, the new 200 cap venue located in the Neumos complex.

In 2005, Jason became the program director for the Capitol Hill Block Party. A few years later in 2011, he became the co-producer and in 2012, the sole producer in addition to programming director.

He has played in NW bands Juno, Hint Hint, Lovesick Empire and did a stint with IQU in Japan in 2006.

Norman is a Principal Developer at BVision, a web development consultancy based out of San Francisco and Buenos Aires. At BVision he manages a small team of highly talented developers, and works with startups to help them quickly develop their ideas into scalable, reliable software.

Prior to joining BVision, Norman was a cofounder and partner at Add Three, an online advertising and marketing agency based in Seattle.

Norman grew up in New York's Hudson Valley and studied theoretical linguistics at UMass Boston and The University of Connecticut prior to moving to Seattle to start a career in technology. After 10 years in Seattle, he relocated to drier pastures in Buenos Aires, where he currently makes his home.

Fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese, he is a well-known in the South American developer community as the author of several widely used open source libraries for the Ruby and Lua programming languages. In 2009 he organized "Locos Por Rails," at the time the largest Ruby conference in Spanish-speaking Latin America, and has spoken at major Ruby-related events in Brazil and Argentina.

Drory Ben-Menachem is a Creative Director at Smashing Ideas, focused on next-gen mobile and connected experiences.  Part problem-solver, part storyteller, he loves helping clients bring their big ideas to life.

Since moving to Seattle in 1991, his career path has meandered through agencies, B2B organizations, professional service firms, high-tech companies, independent consulting, catalog marketers and dot-com startups. Most recently, he was Filter's Digital Services Creative Director, and prior to that he had a ten-year run at Microsoft where he was an award-winning contributor to numerous digital marketing campaigns, including Internet Explorer, LiveSearch/Bing and Windows.

Ian Lurie is CEO at Portent, an internet marketing agency he started in 1995 on the belief that great marketing helps people make good decisions. At Portent, he leads and trains a team that covers SEO, PPC, social media and marketing strategy. Ian writes on the Portent Blog and speaks at various conferences, including MozCon, SMX, SES, Ad::Tech and Pubcon. He recently co-authored the 2nd Edition of the Web Marketing All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies.

Brian brings over 15 years of experience in product management, marketing and digital media to the Smashing Ideas team as the Director of Strategy. He is passionate about working with Smashing Ideas’ clients to create the strategies that drive their customers to engage with a brand in deeper and more meaningful ways. He has been fortunate to work for several great companies, including HP and Microsoft, in roles focused on new product introductions, transmedia storytelling and social media. Prior to joining Smashing Ideas, Marr was Director of Digital Strategy at the Wexley School for Girls advertising agency where he worked with clients including Microsoft, Pepsico, Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Seahawks, Wilson and TBS.

In his spare time he is an adjunct lecturer for the Master of Communications in Digital Media (MCDM) Program at the University of Washington and is an avid cyclist.

Mark is currently Head of Creative and Partner at Digital Kitchen, a content creation agency with offices in Seattle, Chicago and Los Angeles. Mark joined DIGITALKITCHEN more than ten years ago as a creative director and executive producer. As the senior creative with the longest length of service with DK, Mark has helped lead the agency's transformation from design and production company to full service digital agency.
One time businessman, handyman, food service professional, zookeeper, and film editor, his life course has helped form his beliefs toward the commercial arts, as well as inform and articulate his own documentary and experimental works. Growing up in the woods of Wisconsin with a pet lion and raccoon, the world of animals, AM Radio, television soul music of the 1970’s were hugely influential to his imagination and sense of the universe as a child.

In addition to providing overall artistic and strategic direction for the company, Mark originated and leads Digital Kitchen’s Experiential Design offering, working with a multidisciplinary team of 2D and 3D artists, filmmakers, editors, copywriters, and interactive designers. The team’s work for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas was recognized with the Cannes Lion Design Grand Prix and a Gold Lion in 2011. His work has also been recognized with 11 Emmy nominations and two Emmy wins for main title work.
Mark has directed his own film projects and pursues his interests in documentary film, radio, and children's literature outside of DIGITALKITCHEN.

Dave Rosencrans serves as a client partner for DIGITALKITCHEN, specializing in the environmental/experiential category, where he draws on a three-decade career in the art, exhibition and entertainment industries. Projects at DK include LAX Bradley West Int'l Terminal and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

Prior to joining DK, Mr. Rosencrans worked with artist Dale Chihuly to realize architecture-scale glass sculptures at the Salk Institute and the Amir of Kuwait’s VIP Air Terminal. As a curator for Experience Music Project, he helped launch one of the world’s most digitally innovative exhibition spaces. Mr. Rosencrans was also a senior marketing executive in the recording industry, as well as an arts reporter for NPR.

Joe Rodriguez is the product and operations manager for DIY Media Inc, a social marketing and e-commerce company based in Seattle. DIY Media Inc. works with entertainment companies, big brands, and digital agencies to create interactive social apps that increase engagement metrics and amplify earned media reach on marketing campaigns.

In one way or another, Joe’s career has always involved music. Joe got his start in the music business as an intern at various record labels including the indie label Sub Pop and major label MCA records. As an intern, he garnered an immense knowledge of marketing and radio promotions. During the dot-com boom, Joe worked for two cutting edge digital music companies – Loudeye Technologies and DiscoverMusic. Prior to working at DIY Media, Joe was the manager of programming and label relations at MN Digital. He worked with a variety of independent labels and distributors and was responsible for negotiating license deals and coordinating the programming for MN's various music service clients.

While obtaining his bachelor’s degree in Political Science at the University of Washington, Joe was the first music director at the student internet radio station, Rainydawg Radio.  Joe has also received a music business degree from the Art Institute of Seattle

Tom Kelly, Regional Sales Director Western US for Advertising.com:

As Regional Sales Director for the West Coast, Tom Kelly is responsible for finding innovative and optimal solutions for top clients at Advertising.com, the display network, technology, data and insights arm of AOL Advertising.

Kelly trains regional sales teams on techniques and strategies, and works with more than 25 national account directors and 4 network sales directors.  Kelly and his team has established and continues to maintain relationships with clients and agencies such as eBay, Amazon, Experian, T-Mobile, Intuit, Initiative, RazorFish, OMD and many others.

Kelly started his tenure at Advertising.com in January 2006.  Hiss previous roles, including Sales Strategist for Los Angeles, Sales Strategist for Atlanta and Account Management in Baltimore, have provided him with unique insight and a complete understanding of the sales process and product management at AOL.

Kelly holds a Bachelor of Business Administration, with a specialization in marketing, from Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Lori DeBortoli was born in Massachusetts and was shaped by the music of the
Pixies, Dinosaur Jr. and Sebadoh. That, coupled with a deep-seated fear of a “regular,
stable life with a dentist or something” led her around the country on a quest of
learning, listening and creating with all kinds of savory and unsavory characters.
Lori came to Wieden+Kennedy as an Executive Interactive Producer in 2011, doing
award-winning work for Nike on the Back for the Future campaign. In addition to
Nike, she recently added the Kraft account as the Interactive Executive Producer to
her roster.
Lori earned her degree in information architecture and usability from the University
of Massachusetts Amherst program “University Without Walls.” She designed her
own area of study while working full time. During that time she was the senior web
development manager for the President’s Office with a team of internal developers
and designers reporting to her.
Lori brings an unusual combination of print, broadcast and interactive production
knowledge to her position. She wants to make things that have never been made
and that have a good amount of risk. She appreciates the W+K mantra “Fail Harder”
and often reminds herself of it.
Lori’s heart was won by her husband, James, and the two of them now live in
Portland. He is not a dentist.

Tom is a Program Manager at Razorfish where he oversees the project management team on the Bing account.  He specializes in overseeing digitally-led integrated campaigns, developing consistent processes and leading indirectly-managed creative and technology teams.  With condensed timelines and project ambiguity becoming more common, Tom recognizes the need for digital agencies to adjust their internal processes to improve responsiveness and increase project clarity.

Tom has worked in digital marketing for over 15 years on both the client- and agency-side. On the agency side he worked on campaigns for global brands Best Buy, Intel, Windows, Office, Bing, MSN, and Toyota. He worked client-side for Seagate Technology and SCO, Inc.

Kyle Roozen is a Senior Manager for ACME Business Consulting, a boutique consulting firm that helps its clients complete critical projects that advance, improve, and streamline an organization’s ability to do business.  He joined the firm in March 2011.

Kyle became as Certified ScrumMaster in October 2011.  He’s been leading and mentoring Scrum projects for his clients and consulting firm since then.  Kyle believes that the value of Scrum, especially when utilized in the right scenarios, speaks for itself.  He helped a recent client deliver their first ever on time, under budget project by utilizing the Scrum approach.

Prior to joining ACME, Kyle spent 10 years in the energy industry holding a variety of project management and leadership roles on both coasts.  He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Santa Clara University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.  He was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, is a huge fan of the Seahawks, Mariners, Blazers, & Timbers, and loves running 10Ks, half marathons, and the Hood to Coast Relay.

Todd Ames is the NIKEiD Experience Director for NIKEiD, specializing in delivering robust, interactive, and engaging solutions to consumers wanting to customize Nike's best products. He has been a part of the NIKEiD team since August 2008.

Todd's past work with NIKEiD includes developing the strategy and experience for the NIKEiD mobile (tablet and phone) experience. He has also worked to develop marketing programs that connect consumers to products and professional athletes by partnering with a variety of teams at Nike.  Most recently, Todd has led NIKEiD's Social Media Strategy, connecting with fans across the most popular social networks around the globe.

Prior to joining Nike, Todd spent 10 years in the interactive and development industry in New York City.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Media Studies from Fordham University.  He was born and raised in New Jersey, is a huge fan of the Jets, Yankees, Nets, & Timbers. He loves the Pacific Northwest and enjoys skiing and biking.

Dave is the Global Director of Digital Brand Technology for Nike.

He joined Nike in April 2010 and has been building, leading, and mentoring teams since then.  Before Dave’s role in Digital Brand Technology, he lead Nike’s Mobile and Customization Products group, and was responsible for launching a series of mobile and web-based initiatives.

Prior to joining Nike, Dave spent more than 10 years in the information technology, financial services, and retail industries holding a variety of roles.  He began his career with a passion for application engineering and has steadily progressed into executive leadership positions over the past five years.  Dave holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Master of Science from the University of Delaware.  He was born and raised in New Jersey, is a huge fan of the Yankees, and enjoys hiking, camping, and golfing in the Pacific Northwest.

Charlie Wilke is the Director of Digital Production at Mattel. He leads a dedicated team of producers responsible for creating and developing Mattel's vast family of websites and digital content worldwide.

Prior to joining Mattel, Charlie worked at NBC Universal and Fox crafting digital strategy for major entertainment brands including Star Wars, X-Men, Ice Age, The Simpsons, Family Guy, 24, James Bond, The Office and many more.

You may have seen him on the original Late Night With Conan O'Brien where he worked as the Graphics Producer and occasionally ended up on the air in such memorable roles as the Stanley Cup and a penguin wrangler.

Charlie is originally from outside Chicago and is a big fan of the Bears, Bulls, Cubs and Blackhawks.

Charlie Wilke is the Director of Digital Production at Mattel. He leads a dedicated team of producers responsible for creating and developing Mattel's vast family of websites and digital content worldwide.

Prior to joining Mattel, Charlie worked at NBC Universal and Fox crafting digital strategy for major entertainment brands including Star Wars, X-Men, Ice Age, The Simpsons, Family Guy, 24, James Bond, The Office and many more.

You may have seen him on the original Late Night With Conan O'Brien where he worked as the Graphics Producer and occasionally ended up on the air in such memorable roles as the Stanley Cup and a penguin wrangler.

Charlie is originally from outside Chicago and is a big fan of the Bears, Bulls, Cubs and Blackhawks.

Kevin Shawver is a Sr. Account Director at Point Reach, a full service mobile advertising agency based in Bellevue, WA. Kevin has been with Point Reach for almost 2 years, managing key mobile accounts for eBay, Walgreens, and Bing as well as contributing towards the company’s business development efforts.

Kevin has a unique blend of agency and client side experience – all with a focus on digital and mobile. Kevin started his digital career in Seattle in 2003 with DDB as on online account manager. Kevin then spent 2 years at Razorfish in various account management roles, including moving San Francisco to help open up the media side of the San Francisco office with a small team. Moving client side, Kevin spent the next 5 years at Starbucks Corp. working in the global marketing organization launching digital campaigns. Notable accomplishments at Starbucks are launching Starbucks Facebook presence, Free Wi-Fi and the Starbucks Digital Network. Kevin has a B.S. in Marketing from the University of Idaho and a Masters in Public Administration from Seattle University.

:\Program> Data: Conscript LisaWeeks.exe includes 18 years marketing experience in retail/entertainment/digital media industries
:\Program> Data: Conscript LisaWeeks.exe current version: Marketing Director, Filter, Digital Solutions Agency; previous marketing versions include Nordstrom, Lucas Arts, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, Disney, Mattel and Microsoft
:\Program> Data: Conscript LisaWeeks.exe combines interest features _v0.0.1: digital/gaming/tech with experience features _v0.0.2: creative marketing/design/sales  
:\Program> Data: Conscript LisaWeeks.exe includes award-winning product development, merchandising and costume design; work has been featured in Vogue, Lucky, InStyle, NewType magazines
:\Program> Data: Conscript LisaWeeks.exe named as by GeekWire, June 2011

_End Of Line

Jan Drake is a technologist and entrepreneur with a track record of dreaming up and delivering creative business and technology solutions that accelerate and enable new directions for businesses.  His extensive experience in systems and scale covers everything from mainframes to the latest big data solutions and comes with a proven and creative business background as an entrepreneur which has enabled him to imagine and design unique opportunities in marketing, process control, aquaculture, healthcare, Geo-location, media, mobile, and other industries.

Most recently, Jan was the Principal Cloud Architect for The Walt Disney Company where he designed and delivered a next generation enterprise private cloud platform solution targeted at increasing Disney's competitive ability by enabling a dramatically decreased time to market for media properties, providing increased reliability and resiliency, and delivering a big data platform used to analyze customer behavior and marketing effectiveness across business segments with a direct impact to profitability.

In his spare time, Jan is a pianist, glider pilot, diver, snowboarder, and avid world traveler, bon vivant, and of course, Gentleman Adventurer.