SPEAKERS BIOSMorning General SessionSteve Semelsberger Senior Vice President and General Manager, Pluck Enterprise
Richard Rosenblatt Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO, Demand Media
Richard has built, operated and sold numerous Internet media companies with a combined value of more than $1.3 billion. Most recently, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Intermix Media, Inc., and Chairman of Myspace.com. He joined Intermix in March 2004 and led a successful turnaround of its existing business. Specifically, he helped grow Myspace.com from an unknown website to one of the most popular properties on the Internet and developed a number of new online properties, significantly increasing shareholder value. During his eighteen months as CEO of Intermix, its public market capitalization grew from $70 million to over $650 million, until acquired by News Corporation in October 2005. As Founder, Chairman and CEO, Richard sold iMALL in 1999 to Excite@Home for $565 million. iMALL was one of the first Internet companies to recognize the power of user-generated content. It offered users a suite of tools that enabled them to build their own eCommerce stores and conduct transactions over the Internet. Richard is actively involved in a number of private Internet companies and serves as non-executive chairman of iCrossing, a leading digital and natural search firm. Richard is a Southern California native, with a BA from UCLA and JD from USC Law School. Shiv Singh Vice President and Global Social Media Lead, Razorfish
Shiv has been with Razorfish since 1999. As the company's Global Social Media Lead, Shiv helps the agency introduce its clients – organizations like Carnival Cruise Lines, Microsoft, Citibank, Ford Motor Company, Panasonic, Novartis and Starwood – to social influence marketing, the use of social media and social technologies to support marketing and business objectives. His role also includes capability development, developing strategic partnerships, leading thought leadership efforts and encouraging experimentation with social media across the agency. Shiv has been published widely and he has spoken at numerous conferences, including South by Southwest Interactive, the Direct Marketing Association's Leader's Forum, OMMA Global, O'Reilly Graphing Social Patterns, the ARF Annual Summit and the Social Ad Summit. He has also been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Associated Press, Adweek, Ad Age and several other noted publications discussing digital strategy and social influence marketing. He holds a BS in Information Systems from Babson College, and an MSc (Research) from the London School of Economics & Political Science where he focused on social network theory. He is currently working on a book for the Dummies Series, tentatively titled "Social Influence Marketing for Dummies." Brooke Burke Co-CEO, ModernMom.com
Brooke is deeply involved in the ModernMom community – a destination where women can access a worldwide network of moms who are ready to chat, ask questions and share parenting tips – and is instrumental in shaping the site's social media strategy. She is a poster child for social unification, working multiple channels including the ModernMom site, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and is closely involved with bringing those social experiences all together. Brooke is also known as one of the entertainment industry's most social celebrities, with more than 1 million Twitter followers and a ranking in the top 50 of all people on Twitter. Joel Sucherman Director of Product Innovation, USA Today
Jason Jaynes Director of Product Management, Pluck
Dave Panos Pluck Co-founder and Executive Vice President, Social Media Platforms, Demand Media
Lunch and LearnByron Reese Chief Innovation Officer, Demand Media
Prior to Demand Media, Byron was the founder and CEO of PageWise, Inc., the parent company of ExpertVillage.com, which was acquired by Demand Media in 2007. Byron graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rice University with a degree in Honors Economics. There he gained distinction when he started his first company which orchestrated elaborate practical jokes for its customers. Afternoon SessionsBrett Andrew Vice President of Business Development, Pluck
Gabe Dennison Product Marketing Manager, Pluck
Jason Crickmer Senior Director of Global Implementation Services, Pluck
Alex Jones User Experience Manager, Pluck
Matt Mitchell Senior Solutions Architect, Pluck
Tim Prukop Vice President of Sales, Americas, Pluck
Paul Hyland Executive Producer, Edweek.org
Lauren Lamb Interactive Product Manager of Social Media, Belo Interactive
Charlie Holliday Senior Account Manager, Pluck
Julie Campistron VP of Marketing and Community, Demand Media
Julie spent seven years at Yahoo! prior to joining Demand Media, with her last role heading marketing for Yahoo! Music. Before Yahoo! she held various brand marketing positions at L'Oreal. Julie is a French native and holds a degree from the Toulouse Business School with a major in Marketing. Jason Jaynes Director of Product Management, Pluck
Josh Elman Platform Program Manager, Facebook
Greg Cohn Director of Strategy and Business Development, Yahoo!
Robert Quigley Social Media Editor, Austin American Statesman
Johanna Hoadley Sr. Project Manager, SFGate.com
Beth Yehaskel Senior Account Manager, Pluck
Before her life in technology began, Beth was a field archaeologist who worked all over the US, including Virginia, Ohio, New Mexico and Arizona. She was also a Peace Corps volunteer, living in a small village in the Dominican Republic on the Haitian border for two years. Maz Nadjm Online Community Product Manager, British Sky Broadcasting
Karen Stephen Product Manager, Social Media, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Rory Moulton Online Editorial Director, Colorado Mountain News Media
Keith McSpurren President and Founder, CoveritLive
Previously, Keith co-founded and ran development for Salesdriver starting in 1998 (when web based software was still considered a new idea) which was then acquired by Carlson Marketing in 2001. He has also held leadership roles at Procter & Gamble, Deloitte & Touche and was the CEO of Durham Furniture for the purposes of restructuring the 100 year old company between 2005-2007. He credits his ability to understand user needs because of the countless hours he spent watching focus groups behind one-way glass talk about Mr. Clean and Pantene. Steven Kydd Executive Vice President, Demand Studios
Steven previously held executive positions at eTour.com, a fast-growing start-up in Atlanta. He also worked as a film distribution and marketing executive for 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Jakarta. Steven started his career at a boutique market research and consulting company, Macro International, as a Project Manager in Warsaw and Moscow. Steven earned a degree in Business Administration from the University of Maine. He also attended the Free University in Berlin, Germany, and the Ecole Superieuere Des Affaires in Grenoble, France. Jeff Branc Senior Director of Global Account Services and Support, Pluck
Dean Burris Product Manager, Pluck
Lamont Crook Partner Accreditation Manager, Omniture
Glen Ford Senior Solutions Engineer, Pluck
Closing General SessionJoe Perez Executive Vice President of Product Marketing & Community, Demand Media
Prior to Demand Media, Joe held executive and management positions at iWin.com, Intermix Media, Pulse, Excite@Home and TEN/Pogo.com. Joe was head of Product Strategy and Development at iWin.com, a casual games publisher and community site. At Intermix, Joe was Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Network Operations where he oversaw product and operations for a network of over 35 different websites. Joe also managed the team that developed the social networking platform that powers various online communities, including: Grab.com (casual games), FoxSports.com and AmericanIdol.com. While at TEN/Pogo.com, Joe created the Professional Gamers League (PGL), the first professional league for computer gaming. |
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Steve has P&L responsibility for the Pluck Enterprise division of Demand Media. He has been with Pluck from its earliest days, when he was the company's first business development executive. He subsequently built and ran a global sales team that drove 13 consecutive quarters of on-or-above target bookings growth, facilitating Pluck's 2008 acquisition by Demand Media. Prior to Pluck, Steve spent nearly six years with Motive, helping the firm grow to nearly $100M in revenue and complete an IPO in 2004. Previous experience in his 15+ year career includes product management, marketing and sales positions with iChat (now part of Apple) and NetRatings (now part of Nielsen Media) along with several media and services companies. He holds an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Spain's IESE, along with a BS in management from Binghamton University. A father of two young boys, Steve spends a good deal of his time outdoors with family and friends in his adopted home town of Austin, TX. To learn more, follow Steve on Twitter (@semels) and read his contributions to the Pluck Blog.
As a serial entrepreneur and Internet visionary, Richard co-founded Demand Media in May 2006, and currently serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Through Demand Media, Richard is redefining the next generation of new media companies.
Brooke Burke is Co-CEO of ModernMom.com, a social media site for mothers that features practical advice on topics such as motherhood, parenting, finances, career, health, wellness, and beauty. She has had a distinguished career as a model, actress and entrepreneur and is recognized worldwide for winning season 7 of ABC's Dancing with the Stars and for her roles as the host of E! Wild On, RockStar INXS, and Rockstar Supernova.
Joel Sucherman is director, product innovation for USATODAY. For more than 16 years Sucherman has been a pioneer in the field of new media for USA TODAY. He was the editorial lead on the redesign and re-launch of USATODAY.com in 2007, incorporating social media tools that more closely connect readers with reporters and the reporting. Sucherman helped craft USA TODAY's community strategy, resulting in the launch of more than 13 vertical niche websites over the last 9 months.
Jason oversees Product Management and Product Strategy at Pluck. Jason and his team interact daily with prospects and customers to manage the Pluck product lifecycle, to understand overall market needs, and to create the next generation of Pluck product features. Prior to Pluck, Jason was the Director of Product Management at Credant Technologies, where he oversaw the definition, development, launch, and management of an Enterprise Mobile Security product. Previous experience includes sales and development positions at Entrust, enCommerce, and Accenture. During his tenure at enCommerce and Accenture he worked for numerous clients to architect and build Enterprise web applications. Jason holds an MBA degree from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas and a B.S. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University. Jason loves to spend his free time with his wife and three kids in Austin and the surrounding hill country. Follow Jason's twitter stream at www.twitter.com/sailj.
Dave leads Demand Media's Social Media Platforms group, which includes Pluck Enterprise and Pluck on Demand. Pluck's CEO prior to its acquisition by Demand Media, Dave is a software industry veteran with 20 years of start-up experience. During his career he has helped define new markets across a range of Internet and enterprise sectors. He co-founded Pluck as a Venture Partner at Austin Ventures. He was also a co-founder and executive vice president of collaboration tools provider Question Technologies, which was sold to Motive. For seven years, Dave was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at web collaboration pioneer DataBeam before its successful sale to Lotus/IBM. Previously, he ran product management at Easel Corporation, a popular software development tool company that went public. Dave earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and his undergraduate degree from Furman University. Follow Dave's twitter stream at www.twitter.com/davepanos.
In his role as Chief Innovation Officer for Demand Media, Byron oversees all research and development. Byron and his team are responsible for the creation of new technologies to support the company's core strategic opportunities – including its social publishing ecosystem. The company has filed several patents for the proprietary algorithms that support the selection, distribution and optimization of content. 
Overseeing Pluck's business development practice, Brett establishes and maintains third-party relationships to facilitate the delivery and increase the performance of Pluck's social media applications within customer environments. Prior to joining Pluck, Brett spent four years as co-founder and CEO of a socially-conscious venture delivering ecommerce fundraising applications to the nonprofit community, serving over 20,000 exempt organizations. Previous experience in his 15-year career includes business development, marketing, and sales roles across various consumer Internet and services companies, including Snap.com, NBC Internet, and AdTraffickers. Brett holds an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin, along with a BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.
Since joining Pluck in 2007, Gabe has worked in roles across marketing and business development to move Pluck into new markets within the social media industry. Gabe currently oversees product marketing for Pluck, managing the company's understanding of the social media marketplace and representing the organization to industry analysts, press, partners, prospects and customers. Gabe holds an MBA from Oxford University and a BA in English and History from the University of Texas at Austin.
Jason leads the Implementation Services team at Pluck and has been with Pluck through the 100+ customer deployments of SiteLife since its inception in 2006. Prior to joining Pluck Jason held various management roles in the Professional Services organizations of Authoria, Inc., and Hire.com, leading the technology consulting, enterprise integration, and quality assurance teams. While at Hire.com, Jason also ran Services Sales. Before stepping into Professional Services, he was CTO of an Internet start-up in the real estate CRM space. Jason's career started in Product Development where he played key roles in the development of Software-as-a-Service applications for Hire.com and IntelliQuest. Jason attended the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Southern California.
Responsible for the user experience strategy across Demand Media products, Alex applies a wealth of experience gained from designing, building and integrating Web applications for a wide range of brands including HP, Sony, Motorola and AOL to identify expert solutions to real world usability challenges. A passionate community catalyst, technologist and user advocate, Alex coordinates Refresh Austin, a group of Web professionals and serves on the AIR Interactive Advisory Board in order to make the Web more accessible to people with disabilities.
Matt helps customers use the Pluck platform to achieve their vision in a timely and scalable fashion. In his role as Solutions Architect he reviews information architecture, wireframes and mockups and consults with customers to insure Pluck's platform can achieve the desired behavior with the out of box product or creative use of little known or used features. Having worked in both Operations and Development for 14 years, Matt focuses on software that is simple to maintain operationally and easy develop. Matt has worked across a broad array of Pluck customers and partners, including Rodale, Conde Nast, Gannett, National Public Radio, British Sky Broadcasting, Freedom Interactive, Proximity, National Magazines, Overstock, and many others. Matt has worked at Pluck for over two years and enjoys the challenges that come with each new project.
Tim leads Pluck's sales efforts in the Americas and is responsible for winning new business in Pluck's biggest market. Prior to Pluck, Tim was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at XOS Technologies, the leading provider of sports technologies, where he provided technical solutions to college and professional sports organizations including Major League Baseball, the National Football League and every major Bowl Championship Series team. He also served as Director of Sales in Texas for Exodus Communications, an Internet service provider to emerging technology companies. In addition to his software industry experience, Tim had a twelve-year career as a football coach with such organizations as Arizona State University, the University of Southern California and NFL Europe. He earned a BA from UC Davis and an MA from Arizona State University.
Paul Hyland is Executive Producer of edweek.org, the Web site for Editorial Projects in Education, the home of Education Week, Teacher Sourcebook, Digital Directions, EPE Research Center, Education Week Press, and the TopSchoolJobs.org career site. In that capacity he is responsible for formulating and executing the organization's Web strategy; manages the technology infrastructure, software development and integration with Web services; and oversees content production for the Web sites of EPE's several publications and a growing presence in online community, interactive multimedia, and social media outreach. Paul has spent over twenty years working on computing and Internet technology. Prior to joining EPE in 2005, Paul worked as a web developer, information architect, and web technology manager for such organizations as Network Solutions, NASD, and the DC Government. He also spent several years as a content producer/team leader at AOL and a programmer/analyst at IBM.
Lauren Lamb is the Interactive Product Manager of Social Media at Belo Interactive. Overseeing the social media strategy and products for four newspapers and 15 television sites, she leads station managers across the country to implement social media in the most appropriate manner for their demographic and medium. Belo’s top news sites, including The Dallas Morning News, WFAA in Dallas, King 5 in Seattle, KVUE in Austin, and KHOU in Houston, collectively reach over 17,500,000 users each month. Prior to joining Belo Interactive, Lauren consulted for 7-Eleven’s fresh food campaign, HEB Grocery’s marketing initiatives and strategy, and TexasDigital’s brand marketing. Lauren graduated from Texas A&M University with a Master of Science in Marketing and a BBA in Marketing.
Charlie manages the West Coast customer portfolio within Pluck's publishing, sports and brand verticals; customers include Hearst Newspapers, Fox, FX Networks, NFL.com and Film.com. With over 12 years of online marketing expertise, Charlie provides strategic guidance on over 25 Pluck deployments and works closely with customers to identify social growth trends, improve site engagement and realize monetization opportunities. He also manages the adoption of Pluck tools on Demand Media's 60+ owned and operated sites such as Livestrong.com and eHow.com. Prior to joining Pluck, Charlie spent several years producing online advertising and international sports promotions in the Bay Area.
Julie Campistron is the VP of Marketing and Community at Demand Media. For the past two and a half years she has built and managed a team of marketers and community managers focused on growing the audiences, and user engagement, of Demand Media's network of websites. These websites collectively reach over 70 million unique visitors each month and include recognized brands like LIVESTRONG.COM, eHow and GolfLink.
Josh Elman is a Platform Program Manager at Facebook where he focuses on new initiatives and programs for developers on Facebook Platform. Previously, Josh was Head of Product Management at Zazzle, where he led the development of Zazzle's marketplace and commerce platform. Prior to Zazzle, Josh worked at LinkedIn, where he helped grow the business network from 200,000 to 3 million users. Josh began his career at RealNetworks, where he led the development team through three versions of RealPlayer. Josh holds a bachelor's degree in symbolic systems from Stanford University.
Greg Cohn is Director of Strategy and Business Development for the Yahoo! Open Strategy and the Yahoo! Developer Network, helping drive innovation and open the Yahoo! platform to 3rd-party developers, publishers, and advertisers. He is active in incubating new products, cultivating the startup community, and evangelizing new technologies both internally and externally. He has also been involved in several acquisitions, as well as being responsible for the landmark partnership with MySpace and Google to form the OpenSocial Foundation. In a prior role at Yahoo!, Greg helped successfully launch the Yahoo! Publisher Network, and his history as an entrepreneur includes executive roles at Away.com (now a division of Cendant), Waterfront Media (publishers of the South Beach Diet online), and the Rocky Mountain regional blog network NewWest.Net, among others.
Robert Quigley is the Social Media Editor at the Austin American-Statesman. He was moved into that newly created position in June after spending more than two years as the Statesman's Internet editor. Quigley came up with the Statesman's Twitter strategy in June 2008, and he has tweeted as the @statesman since then. He also is the project manager for all Pluck-related tools and is a blogger for OldMediaNewTricks.com, Media Bullseye and Knight Pulse. He has been with the Statesman since May 1998, and has been assistant news editor, page one designer and a copy editor.
Johanna Hoadley is the Senior Project Manager for SFGate.com where she leads the site's social media strategy and oversees reader content tools and policies. She has worked in online news media for more than a decade in various roles, including content producer, managing editor, blogger and more. Social media was central to her career even before the phrase was coined (remember "interactivity"?). Johanna has previously worked at the Bay Area News Group, MercuryNews.com (San Jose Mercury News) and Cleveland.com (The Plain Dealer).
Beth Yehaskel has been a Senior Account Manager at Pluck for nearly three years. She also leads the Pluck Community Services team which offers moderation and community management to clients. Prior to that, she was an Account Manager at Powered, another online media company. Beth also brings years of technical writing and project management, working for technology companies all over the Austin area. Her interest and knowledge around online community growth and management has always been a focal point for her, and she loves the opportunity to help Pluck clients figure out how to maximize their online experience and stimulate community.
Maz Nadjm is responsible for Sky Portal's social media strategy and implementation. The Sky Portal has over 1 billion monthly page impressions and many millions of unique visitors. Maz works closely with each Sky site, providing on-going technology and strategy assessment within the context of the competitive landscape and Site needs. In addition to his role at Sky, Maz is currently helping Times Online setting up their commenting system. Prior to Sky, Maz co-founded Rareface and InfieldParking.com, a social networking site and growing online community of NASCAR racing fans in commercial partnership with its most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Prior to Rareface and Infieldparking, Maz was in charge of setting up the social networking department at iConcertina, an interactive media agency. In his spare time he is a geek, mentor, video blogs for Sky News TechTalk and can be found on Twitter: @Mazi.
Karen is the Social Media Product Manager for CBC, Canada's public broadcaster. Karen supports CBC Digital Programming in strategic planning and implementation of social media initiatives, as well as email marketing and contest integration. She specializes in email best practices, community engagement, moderation demands and many more areas of expertise. Part innovator, part referee, part hostage negotiator.
Rory Moulton is the Online Content Manager for Colorado Mountain News Media. He oversees all editorial and marketing operations for six daily and three weekly news websites located in the heart of the Colorado Rockies. His primary focus is using social media to grow audiences, implementing new-media tools, SEO writing, fostering and managing communities of interest and developing new online revenue streams. He snowboards over 100 days a year, never answers his phone on a chairlift and believes the key to good salsa is roasted sweet corn.
Keith McSpurren is the Founder & President of CoveritLive, a company whose motto is “Live is Better”. By providing easy to use, web based software, CiL has quickly gained use around the world by mainstream media companies looking to improve their coverage of breaking news, interact with readers and create engaging events for audiences both large and niche.
Steven oversees all original content production, distribution and syndication of Demand Media's video, text and animation library. Steven joined Demand Media as part of the founding team and helped establish the company as a market leader in made-for-Internet content. Prior to Demand Media, Steven worked as Vice President of Business Development & Strategy for the Yahoo Media Group based in Los Angeles. There, his responsibilities included managing content and advertising relationships with major television networks and movie studios.
Jeff oversees the Account Management and Technical Support teams for Pluck, and is responsible for overall customer satisfaction in the US and Europe. Prior to joining Pluck, Jeff managed the Enterprise Services team for SupportSoft, a provider of support automation, helpdesk and knowledge management software, where he oversaw customer engagements for Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Bank of America, Hilton Hotels, GM and HP. Prior to SupportSoft, Jeff held development, architecture and services management positions for Avicon, a supply chain strategy and technology firm, and C-bridge, a rapid application Internet solutions provider. He has a BSE in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Dean Burris is a Sr. Product Manager at Pluck. He joined Pluck after serving as Director of Web Analytics and Usability at BioSpace, a leading life sciences job board and Pluck customer. Dean has over 13 years of product management experience at leading companies such as Yahoo, AOL, HP/Compaq and The Generations Network. He is passionate about creating products which exceed customer and user expectations.
Lamont has worked at Omniture for over two years, beginning as a Consultant in the retail vertical and now serving as the Partner Accreditation Manager for the Genesis Solutions team. In this role, Lamont is responsible for delivering measurable customer value by defining and developing best practices around integrating with the Omniture platform, and by working with Partners to ensure that their integrations meet strict accredited standards. He brings more than ten years of analytics and development experience to leading this program. Before moving to the Genesis Solutions team, he was the technical lead for a group of consultants responsible for delivering solutions to major retailers including Best Buy, Nike, Wal-Mart and Toys”R”Us.
Glen started with Internet programming in 1995 and has extensive experience across the entire stack, from databases to the middle-tier to advanced JavaScript. With Pluck for over 2 years, he educates and assists clients as varied as Kraft, Crain, Swift, The San Francisco Chronicle, Southwest Airlines and Thomson-Reuters to succeed with Pluck implementations. He is the lead solutions engineer on social bridging and Pluck's technical integration with Facebook and Twitter, as well as Omniture and Google Analytics.
As part of the founding team, Joe drives strategy for each of Demand Media's products as well as marketing and communities. He draws from more than 15 years of Internet-specific marketing, product management, operations and business development experience, with a specialization in creating, developing and managing online communities and social networks.