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Michael Balsam
Vice President, Products and Services, Onvia
Michael Balsam leads Onvia's product strategy and development effort. Balsam came to Onvia as part of the ProjectGuides acquisition in 2001 with over 10 years of experience in bringing products to market. At ProjectGuides, Balsam was responsible for product design and product marketing. Prior to that, Balsam was founder and general manager of the catalog sales group at Foss Environmental where he grew the new business unit to a recognized national brand. His experience also includes several startups ranging from technology to manufacturing. Balsam teaches business development at the University of Washington and graduated from University of New Hampshire.
"Given the current state of the economy, we all need to ask ourselves how to recession-proof our businesses and drive growth while many sectors contract.
With the continued commoditization of data, the mantra of 'content is king'has taken a back seat to 'content in context' Consider the volume of sources for lead generation and how few services successfully differentiate themselves through smart, proprietary, market-changing methods for providing contextual prequalification. Thought leaders in our industry take a relentless and laser-focused approach to driving this type of value through unique content offers that show demonstrable ROI for clients and advertisers."
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Jeff Bruce
VP, Media Services, Dow Jones
As Vice President of Media Services of Dow Jones' Business and Relationship Intelligence Group, Jeff brings 20 years of technology, media and information sales and senior management experience to the company
Prior to Dow Jones, Jeff was the Executive Vice President of Business Development & Strategy for Generate, Inc. Generate was acquired by Dow Jones in April of 2008. Prior to Generate, Jeff was President of Publishing for Zinio Systems, Inc. where he helped establish the category for digital magazine publishing and position the company as the dominant industry leader with 94% market share. While at Zinio, Jeff helped over 500 magazines launch digital editions of their product and established international sales and distribution channels in over 60 countries.
Prior to Zinio, he served as Vice President of Sales for Epinions (acquired by eBay), and Senior Vice President, Ad Sales & Client Marketing for Women.com Networks (acquired by iVillage and later NBC). He also held sales and marketing management positions for Ziff-Davis. Jeff began his career in technology marketing with Everex Systems, Inc., where he managed corporate and brand advertising before heading up product management and marketing operations.
Jeff has served of the board of the Internet Advertising Bureau and on the advisory board of One Media Place (acquired by Media Passage).
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Diane Burley
President and Founder, Pure Contemporary
Diane Burley is an online publishing specialist who knows how to transition print-centric business structures and brands into multi-channel successes. Fluent in advantages and disadvantages of media delivery channels, she is a rare combination of technologist and journalist -- which means Burley understand the workflow, the cultural speed bumps, and a multitude of ways to leverage great content!
A strategic visionary and online pioneer Burley has put numerous media companies online including daily metros, radio stations and her own site, PureContemporary.com -- a global, "prosumer"-based, web-only luxury vertical media site that offers a compelling mix of highly regarded editorial and monetized content. Through SEO, she has cultivated an international audience of nearly 125,000 monthly unique readers.
An award-winning writer, highly sought after global speaker, and chief confidante to today's highest ranking publishers when it comes to putting digital terms (SEO, the importance of metadata, monetizing content, digital asset management) into plain business parlance, Burley engages her audiences through vivid metaphors - peppering her talks and writings with her own experiences.
"If you are not receiving at least 50% of your traffic from search engines - then there is something wrong with your operations. SEO is like a relationship. You need to make a commitment and work on it all the time. The efforts go way beyond urls and just having content. It's title tags, inline links, off-site link management, file organization. It encompasses your IT staff, your marketing staff and your editorial team. Most importantly it is a commitment that comes from the top. Not understanding SEO is just not an excuse. I roll my eyes when I hear people say they have an SEO guy who does it all or when they say they don't worry about SEO because they buy keywords. I really don't know too many publishers who can sniff at doubling their traffic."
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Steve Boymel
Executive Vice President, Farlex
Steve Boymel co-founded Farlex in 2004. He co-manages all aspects of Farlex's operations, focusing especially on partnerships and business development. Farlex's flagship websites, TheFreeDictionary.com and TheFreeLibrary.com, contain over seven million pages of books, periodicals, and reference information from the world's most respected sources. A prime online vehicle for active information seekers, TheFreeDictionary.com and TheFreeLibrary.com have been accessed by more than 850 million visitors. From 2001 to 2004, he was a Computer Aid, Inc. associate serving as an on-site team leader for the E-Business Application Support Team at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. From 2001 to 2002, he was an independent contractor with SAP America, Inc., and from 1991 to 2001, he served as President Future Graph, Inc. Mr. Boymel holds a B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Philosophy from Temple University and MBA from University of Phoenix.
"Internet users have many choices today and will have even more choices tomorrow about how they access the information that they are looking for. If you listen to your website visitors and give them what they are looking for, they will keep coming back to your website, and they will tell their friends about your website. However, if you choose to ignore them, they will simply go away and never come back."
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Angie Hicks
Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Angie's List
Knowing that the frustrations she and her friends had finding good contractors were not unique, in 1995, Angie Hicks literally set out door-to-door in Columbus, OH, recruiting members and collecting reports from friends and neighbors. Taking the "ask-your-neighbor" approach to a higher level, Angie used the detailed feedback from members as the basis for providing up-to-date, reliable, unbiased ratings and reviews on local services.
After the first year, with more than 1,000 members throughout Columbus, Angie had laid the foundation for what would become one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. Over these last 12 years, she has led the list's expansion from a 100-square-foot-office to an operation that now covers more than 120 major cities across the U.S., serves more than 650,000 consumers and was d for three years in a row - 2002, 2003 and 2004 - among the Inc. 500 by Inc. magazine, a list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the nation. All the while, Angie's keen sense of business and common sense have helped Angie's List remain a locally-focused service that members say they wouldn't live without. Over the years, consumers have come to trust Angie to help make the hiring process easier, as well as raise the level of service they can expect from local companies and contractors. In 2007, Angie's List members directed more than $2.3 billion to contractors found (and/or reported on) through Angie's List.
A working mother herself, Angie has ensured Angie's List continues to evolve to meet the ever-changing, dynamic needs of today's families and homeowners. She knows that Angie's List members are challenged each day to fit work, family and at-home time into already busy schedules. With this in mind, Angie's List puts reliable information and resources at the fingertips of its members, so they can access it anytime they need help finding a good contractor or service company - whether it's for a major home renovation, an emergency car repair, buying or selling a home, or even find a clown for their kid's birthday party.
With more consumers across the U.S. turning to Angie's List each day, Angie regularly contributes to national and local consumer news stories across the country, including for CNN, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Redbook, Real Simple, USA Weekend, Parade magazine, Good Housekeeping, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Home Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
Angie's official title at Angie's List is Founder and Chief Marketing Officer. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor's degree in economics from DePauw University, in Greencastle, IN, which named her a 2007 Distinguished Alumni for Management and Entrepreneurship.
"Angie's List was established in 1995 as a call-in service and a monthly magazine. We had one employee: me. And in the early days, I was the person people called for help to find reliable contractors; I was the one who researched local companies to determine who had the best customer service record; I was the one who went door-to-door recruiting members; I was the one who sold ads; I was the one who talked to the media about what Angie's List was; and I was the one who swept up at night.
Gives you an idea of why it's called "Angie's List" doesn't it?
We've come a long way in 13 years when I was out knocking on doors and on the phone with members. We now serve more than 650,000 members nationwide, and we've expanded from offering member ratings on a handful of home improvement categories to offering ratings on more than 330 categories - including doctors, dentists and hospitals.
While we weren't the first company to embrace the Internet, the addition of a Web site back in 1999 was one of those milestones that stand tall. Some of us at Angie's List remember what the world was like before the digital age, but we're in the minority.
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Philip James
Founder, Snooth
Philip James founded Snooth in 2006. Formerly, he was Executive Vice President at the Wine Messenger, a leading national online wine retailer, where he focused on general management and operational issues.
Philip's background includes three years in Technology Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch, as well as time in the Venture Capital industry. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Masters degree in Computational Chemistry from Oxford University. In 2003 Philip played an instrumental role in the world's highest altitude rescue, on the North Face of Mount Everest.
Philip is a self-confessed data fiend who is obsessed over factual correctness. He has put his obsession to work at Snooth, the world's most comprehensive wine database, which brings together all the disparate sources of information on each and every wine and offers users the tools to make more informed choices.
The idea for Snooth first came to Philip when he began working in the wine industry and realized just how complex wine was. Even customers who were seasoned wine collectors frequently became confused over whether a particular Bordeaux chateau was right bank or left bank. He realized that the wine industry was hopelessly fragmented - with neither a standardized naming system nor a centralized repository of information. Philip decided to change all that. He founded Snooth with a simple goal: to make wine information freely available.
"It's all about the data! Everything we do is built on top of this. Our local search won't work without an accurate list of store addresses, our recommendation algorithms can't function without rich descriptions for each wine, and if each wine profile weren't fleshed out we'd have no traffic.
Snooth tracks daily inventory at over 10,000 stores in 50 countries and has wines coming from over 35,000 wineries. However, the average wine store we deal with isn't large, it's a small family owned company. And the average winery is a farm.
The wine industry is slowly entering the information age. To date there is no universal numbering system, no ISBN equivalent, and for the few products that have barcodes, many of them are recycled or copied off competitor's labels. This is something Snooth needs to change.
In this industry, there's little digital know how, but a lot of willingness to learn. Snooth's greatest challenge, and the key to its success, is making the barriers to adoption low. We can't run out and ask the average winery owner to prepare us an XML feed, but we can invite them to "curate their wines" on our site and to participate in our online community. To us, a winery is a publisher, and teaching and engaging the publishers is how we build a site full of rich data."
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Per Lofving
Senior Product Manager, McGraw-Hill Construction
Per Lofving leads product marketing for McGraw-Hill Construction's manufacturer customer segment and is responsible for the online integration of building product and project information for construction professionals as well as transforming McGraw-Hill's century-old Sweets catalogs into an internet information service. Prior to joining McGraw-Hill Construction, Per created information services and solutions as vice president of product development at Thomas Publishing's ThomasNet, and sales manager for Thomas Register. Per began his career in media at Ziff-Davis Publishing.
"Today, much of the innovation in our industry comes from our customers. Often when I visit manufacturers who advertise in our publications and subscribe to our data I come away learning more about the information and media industry than I do about their business. In construction the key is in making connections - between the projects, the people, and the products. This is what the best marketers have always done on an individual basis, and what the integration of information can yield."
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Marc Lyne
Co-Founder, BrownBook.net
Marc has an extensive directory industry background, having put Scoot (formerly Freepages) on to the web in 1995, rolled out to Belgium, Holland and France and then selling Scoot UK to BT. Marc spent 4 years as the CTO of BT Directories - added the classified business directory to the BT PhoneBook, directory enquiries and BT.com. Marc then headed up a social networking, file sharing, user generated content startup for a group of investors, and then left in February 2008 to start Brownbook.net, the FREE business directory that ANYONE can edit.
"The traditional business directory market creates content at the center and pushes it out to consumers, broadcast style, one size fits all, mass production, mass distribution. New publishing is about peer-production, peer review, mass customization, and network distribution. Its as easy today to be a publishers as it is to be a consumer - power is drifting from the self chosen few to the self appointed masses.
Those familiar with the web2.0 fundamentals are used to seeing smart startups and open-source movements breaking established rules and turning entire industries on their heads. Once-unassailable businesses are routinely turned upside-down, for example: Wikipedia versus Britannica, eBay, Craigs List.
Brownbook applies the concepts of peer-production and wikis to revolutionize the business directory market on a global scale. It is the most disruptive change to that industry since the birth of the Internet. Brownbook is the collision of Web2.0 with traditional directory businesses."
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Jennifer Magee
Co-Founder and CEO, UPWorld
Jennifer Magee is Co-Founder and CEO of UPworld.com, the first cross-industry online networking site for design, construction, and real estate professionals. Launched in 2007, UPworld has now grown to over 10,000 members in 68 countries. The network has been recognized as the leading relational capital-building technology site in the real estate and building industry.
Magee is also an award-winning design architect and social media consultant, speaker, blogger, writer, and entrepreneur. A firm believer in the new medium of social media, she speaks regularly to design, construction, and real estate professionals about the merits of using blogs and online networking to grow their small businesses and enhance their online brand reputation.
Magee holds a M.S. in Real Estate Development from Columbia University, a M.S. in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati, and a B.S. in Environmental Design from Texas A&M University. She has taught Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee and Pratt in New York.
"As professionals recognize the value of on-line networking for business, marketing, and educational purposes, industry-specific professional on-line networking sites will become major avenues for news and data distribution. Both small and large companies utilize professional on-line networking as an equalizing tool that removes geographical and other access barriers to obtaining contracts from clients at virtually any location in the world. The quality change brought about by access to global partners and clients will define the amount of time professionals spend on networking sites and their use of tools and information the networking sites offer."
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George Manthous
Director, Sales & Marketing, Property Portfolio Research
George Manthous is responsible for all sales and marketing- related activity of PPR services globally. Previously, George was responsible for business and product development. Prior to joining the firm, he held a variety of sales, marketing, and business development positions with The McGraw-Hill Companies over a 14-year period. George has a B.A. in Economics from Trinity College.
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Ann Michael
Vice President and General Manager, Really Strategies
Focusing on the information industry, Ann Michael has worked with Wolters Kluwer, Sage Publications, Reed Elsevier, the Massachusetts Medical Society, the American Medical Association, and many other content creators to define and build the flexible product development environments they need to thrive in a changing world. She consults with, and leads, teams that develop products, services, and systems in publishing and information management.
Ann is Vice President and General Manager at Really Strategies where she is responsible for managing the successful completion of all strategic consulting engagements and RSuite CMS implementations.
Her work with clients is tailored to their company culture and designed to assure that they achieve the results they expect. She has proven that successful companies manage to change: they anticipate change, cause it when they can, and use it to motivate growth, flexibility, and innovation.
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Garth Moulton
Co-founder and VP of Community, Jigsaw
Garth Moulton is the Jigsaw ambassador to the community and previously led the business development function. Before he founded Jigsaw, Garth was a successful sales executive at several technology firms. These included Digital Impact (DIGI), Sawyer Media, Personify, Open Environment Corporation and Cambridge Information Network (CIN). In this time, Garth developed and managed accounts ranging from high profile Fortune 500 enterprises to numerous mid-sized businesses and covered a wide swath of industries. Garth graduated magna cum laude from Brown University. You can read his blog on Jigsaw and Sales 2.0 here: http://www.jigsawsblog.com/
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Jim Murray
Director, Commercial Sales, Pictometry International
In Jim Murray's role as Director of Commercial Sales, he is responsible for expanding the application of Pictometry technologies into commercial industries including insurance, utilities, real estate, financial, construction and architecture & engineering.
Murray has more than 25 years of consumer product sales and marketing including leadership roles at Bausch & Lomb and Eastman Kodak Company. He is a graduate of Syracuse University where he earned a Master's of Business Administration.
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John Pearson
Divisional President, SRI Consulting and Chemical Business Media, Access Intelligence
John Pearson joined Access Intelligence in early 2004 as President and CEO of the newly-acquired SRI Consulting Division of the company, which specializes in chemical business information and forecasting. His aim is to make SRI Consulting's research and analysis a flexible, interactive and indispensable part of the life of every executive in the chemical industry.
Besides the SRI Consulting Division, Pearson also heads up the Chemical Business Media Division of Access Intelligence, which includes the Chemical Week and Chemical Engineering web, magazine and face-to-face event portfolios. Over the past four years, he has overseen the acquisitions of Harriman Chemsult, a chemical pricing service, and daratechPLANT, a conference/exhibition for engineers and their software providers.
A key aspect of his role is to create new services that harness the power of both the media and consulting groups.
Prior to joining Access Intelligence, the lion's share of Pearson's career was spent at Miller Freeman, Inc., in San Francisco. As Executive Vice President responsible for a USD100+ million international portfolio of data services, magazines, tradeshows, forecasting and educational products for the forest products, packaging, electronics and healthcare businesses. He was also responsible in the period 1998-2000 for two strategic acquisitions worth a combined USD120 million.
"The loss of confidence of many publishers in their own content is amazing and alarming. The simplest way to make money in the Internet world is to monetize your own content. You'd be surprised how many people in how many industries are willing to pay for the editor's cut of the day's news or access to your archives. So why do so many look for gimmicky cookie-cutter technologies and never think to test whether audiences will buy their content online as they always have offline. Is it something that Google said? If you can start a relationship with your audience that is based on content, the next generation of products will be rooted in real needs, not the latest "big thing", and you'll be generating real money to fund that next round of development."
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Russell Perkins
Founder and Managing Director, InfoCommerce Group
Russell Perkins is the founder and managing director of Infocommerce Group Inc., a Philadelphia-based researcher, consultancy and publisher serving the database information industry. Infocommerce Group is also the sponsor of the annual InfoCommerce Conference.
Widely recognized as the preeminent expert on the business of database directory publishing, Russell has over 20 years direct industry experience. He was most recently President and CEO of Dorland Healthcare Information, a venture capital funded healthcare database publisher. Prior to that, he was a Group President at magazine publisher North American Publishing, and previous to that Vice President of a legal news publisher that is now a subsidiary of American Lawyer Media. Russell has also worked at AT&T, and began his career at Thomas Publishing Company. Russell was also the founder of Morgan-Rand, which became widely known in the industry for its consulting and contract database publishing activities.
In addition, Russell is author of two books, Directory Publishing: A Practical Guide, now in its fifth edition, and InfoCommerce: Internet Strategies for Database Publishers. Russell has also served as a director of the organization that is now the Software Information Industry Association (SIIA), and the Directory and Database Publishers Forum & Network (DPFN).
"Infocommerce is the term we use to describe the evolution of the database publishing business, from one focused on presenting users with a fixed (and invariably large) set of information and saying, in effect, “you figure out what to do with it,” to one that provides users with information specifically designed to help them get to answers and actions.
There is no set path to infocommerce – how a publisher evolves his product is a function of both the information and the market served. The core tenet of this evolution, however, is that it moves database content from a passive, reference orientation, to something that is more useful, more integrated and more active. This works to preserve and even increase the relevance and value of the information to the user."
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Kevin Plexico
Executive Vice President, Operations, INPUT
Kevin Plexico has guided the evolution of INPUT's product offerings, service capabilities, and IT operations over the last 15 years. Mr. Plexico also serves as INPUT's Chief Technology Officer, managing the organization's IT and Internet infrastructure and directing INPUT's use of information and Internet technologies.
Mr. Plexico manages the strategic direction, planning and development of INPUT's government market intelligence products. Mr. Plexico is a recognized industry speaker, frequently sharing his market expertise at industry events around the country and in prominent media publications.
Prior to that, Mr. Plexico managed INPUT's Federal Market Intelligence program, transforming it to become the leading online service providing business development support to sales and marketing organizations in IT companies selling to the government.
Mr. Plexico earned an MBA in Information Systems from the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland and a B.B.A. in Economics from James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.
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Steve Ritchie
VP, Marketing and Business Development, Reed Construction Data
Steve Ritchie is a business strategy and development executive, with over ten years of hands-on experience in the development, planning and execution of marketing and business strategy, mergers and acquisitions, sales and operations improvement.
Steve has led, managed and worked directly with teams to create growth strategies for companies ranging from multi-billion dollar insurance companies to 100 year-old steam turbine manufacturers and is well versed in the needs and role of data businesses. He has led a sales team that won a $12 million contract for database marketing services and has also managed over $250 million in acquisitions and alliances.
Before joining Reed Construction Data, Steve served as senior vice president at Patrick Davis Partners; a brand consulting firm that helps companies develop brand and media strategies. Other prior positions include vice president of business development for ChoicePoint Inc., and a consultant for Diamond Technology Partners and Bain & Company.
"The freedom of data movement that the Internet offers is one of the most exciting and scariest developments in publishing and information services. Data has moved from a scarce commodity to one that has almost unlimited demand and almost unlimited supply. At the same time, content providers must release control of their data assets in order for that value to be realized. The days of careful asset and channel control are over, and the best content strategists are the ones that can seem to be the most reckless."
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Dick Ryan
President and CEO, Zweig-White
Dick Ryan became ZweigWhite's president in 2002, after working for B2BWorks, Financial Communications Co. Inc., Crain Communications, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and The Milwaukee Journal in a variety of management, sales and research positions.
ZweigWhite is the premier information service provider to architects and engineers in the U.S., with 80 associates working from offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago and San Francisco. The company provides its customers with award-winning business magazines CE News and Structural Engineer, proprietary consulting and staffing services, research and business educational materials, newsletters, seminars, conferences and trade expositions.
"Publishers are at the very center of the debate on how content and information can be provided to markets. Magazine and web site content are only the first steps in a process of multi dimensional interaction with end users - articles can be turned into trend pieces supported by proprietary research, which can lead to analytics and then to proprietary dissemination of content through consultative or advisory relationships, and entire body of work rather than just a series or articles. Trade shows, conferences, seminars and training all can be provided live and in person or live online
- then made available off the shelf. Now with the rapid ascension and ubiquity of search and social networks the end users of our published content are becoming publishers and editors themselves - all meaning to me that publishers need to be willing and able to ensure their information is valuable, closer to intelligence than simply static copy, and we need to ensure that we are providing this information in the way our customers want to get at it. And we need to tell our customers things they don't know and can't get anywhere else."
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Frank Russo
Principal, RoughWave Advisory Group
In 20 years of executive leadership in business-to-business media, Frank has always been on the cutting edge of technology and best practices, bringing together deep domain experience in manufacturing and construction, information technology, and hands-on management.
Frank is responsible for generating over $5 million in successful new business launches, at Thomas Publishing and McGraw-Hill Construction, both inside and outside of the US. He played a major role in creating one of the largest e-commerce ventures, operating today as Global Exchange Services, and a successful online marketplace, MFG.com.
Frank is currently the principle of RoughWave Advisory Group (www.roughwave.com),
a business development, web development and marketing services consultancy, helping businesses grow online. He is a partner in Spend Matters Navigator (http://nav.spendmatters.com), a portal for supply chain professionals, and UPWorld (www.upworld.com), a social networking site for professionals in the building industry.
Frank is an active member of the New York Executive Club, an executive networking group focused on developing opportunities and venture funding, and an active participant in the RFID International Business Association, where he serves an several advisory boards.
"Luke 11:9 - "..seek and 'ye shall find.."
Google 2008 - "seek and you shall find..advertising"
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Megan St. John
Managing Director, InfoCommerce Group
A veteran of the publishing and information business, Megan has run operations for both large and small companies across a wide array of industry specialties and formats. At present she is Managing Director at the InfoCommerce Group (ICG) -- www.infocommercegroup.com. While the ICG practice covers the whole range of business information, the company's roots and legacy began in the world of data publishing, a fast growing and high value segment of today's information world. For ICG clients, Megan leads engagements focusing on areas such as product development and evolution, market positioning, due diligence and overall corporate strategy.
Megan is the former president of Simba Information, Inc., once recognized as the leading authority for market intelligence and forecasts in the media and publishing industries. Simba is now a unit of Market Research Group LLC.
Prior to Simba, Megan was publisher of PBI Media's Electronic Commerce Group. PBI Media, now renamed Access Intelligence, publishes magazines, newsletters and directories for the aviation, defense, energy and communications industries.
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Jerome Shaver
Director, Analytics & Intelligence, ThomasNet.com
Jerome Shaver is responsible for managing website activity reporting and analytics for ThomasNet and its properties, focusing on site analysis (usability), marketing (email, search engine, and partnerships), media sales and website operations. These analyses include returns on marketing investments, customer segmentation, user profiling, sales opportunities, revenue risks, and searchability. He also focuses on increasing traffic from all channels and maximizing site conversions.
Prior to joining ThomasNet, Mr. Shaver served in a variety of technical positions, and was most recently a Business/Marketing Analyst at The College Board, where he oversaw general website and marketing analytics for onsite advertising, email and search campaigns.
He holds a BS in Computer Science with a minor in Applied Statistics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
ThomasNet (www.ThomasNet.com) is the leading online destination connecting industrial sellers and buyers worldwide. Buyers from Fortune 500 companies, the government, the military and more depend on ThomasNet to search for and purchase the products and services they need. ThomasNet provides access to over 607,000 industrial companies, indexed by 70,000 product and service categories, and featuring over 20 million CAD drawings that help buyers find products to meet their specifications.
"When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there's no more room for The Lone Ranger. SEO has fast become a competitive necessity as search engine use among the US adult population is now estimated at 70%. With that, the science and art of SEO-efforts undertaken to rank high in search engine organic results-needs to evolve from a set of one-off tricks executed by individual employees and vendors into a systemic endeavor, one that crosses multiple departments and impacts many primary and secondary business processes. The stakes are too high to silo it away. SEO should now be thought of as an integral part of marketing, production, technology management, editorial, and public relations. Proven practices, an eye toward long-term growth, and improving your bottom line should underpin all SEO efforts."
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Erik Sorenson
CEO, Vault.com
Erik Sorenson oversees the strategic direction of Vault.com, a global, New York-based media company. He is widely regarded as an expert on media strategy and industry trends, with experience spanning radio, local and network broadcast television, cable and syndicated TV, and the Internet.
Prior to joining Vault.com, Mr. Sorenson was owner and president of Triple Threat Television, where he produced numerous programs for cable television. From 1998 through 2004, Mr. Sorenson served as president of the MSNBC cable news channel, where he managed more than 100 hours of live programming weekly. While with MSNBC, he received Emmy awards for the network's coverage of the 2000 presidential election and the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
In 1996, Mr. Sorenson joined Court TV as executive vice president, where he supervised all live courtroom coverage and documentary programming. Prior to that, Mr. Sorenson was executive producer at Group W Productions.
From 1991 through 1994, Mr. Sorenson was executive producer for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. During this time he won an Emmy award for the program's coverage of the first Gulf War. From 1989 through 1991, he served as executive producer of CBS This Morning. Prior to that, Mr. Sorenson served as vice president and general manager at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, where he received a Peabody award for investigative news. Previously at the station, he served as the youngest-ever (at that time) major affiliate news director (at the age of 28).
"Technology and the internet have turbo-charged the opportunity and the challenges facing a publisher who also maintains a robust database. That's the situation we grapple with every day at Vault.com as we harvest valuable information and make it available to a variety of audiences. Over 12 years, we have transitioned from off line, to on line, to Web 2.0 and the clear constant is change. Yes, we are in the midst of a storm of innovation, but publishers must stick with the fundamentals of content and audience. These fundamentals may be affected by user experience, but they don't really change."
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Patrick Spain
Founder, Chairman and CEO, HighBeam Research, Inc.
Patrick Spain created HighBeam Research in 2002; it has served as a vehicle for building a diversified group of online information services in the areas of research, reference and news aggregation. Since its founding the company has grown to approximately $10 million of revenues and is growing profitably at a rate of 25% annually. HighBeam operates three web sites: www.highbeam.com, www.encyclopedia.com and www.newser.com
Spain is a cofounder and was former chairman and CEO of Hoover's, a leading online provider of company information headquartered in Austin, Texas. Spain helped found Hoover's in 1990, serving as its CEO from 1993 to 2001 and chairman from 1994 to 2002. During his tenure, Spain led Hoover's from an unprofitable private book publishing company with a few hundred thousand dollars of revenue to a publicly traded profitable media and business information company with $31 million of revenues.
Prior to Hoover's, Spain worked in the telecommunications industry, as a real estate developer and as an economic consultant.
Spain sits on the boards of Stockgroup Information Systems Inc. (OTC: SWEB), a financial information company; SmartAnalyst, a private company specializing in market research for pharmaceutical companies; and Guidestar, a not-for profit enterprise that has created a database about and for the not-for-profit industry. . He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago in Ancient History and a J.D. from Boston University.
"If the Internet is the giant database of all content, then Google effectively owns it because it controls navigation within the database. Those of us with our content in the database are vassals. Some days feudal society seems pretty comfortable. Some days you want to storm the Bastille."
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Jeffrey R. Tarr
Co-President & Co-Chief Operating Officer, IHS Inc.
Jeff Tarr is Co-President and Co-Chief Operating Officer of IHS Inc., a leading global source of critical information and insight to a broad range of industries. IHS products and services span four major domains: Energy, Product Lifecycle, Security and Environment.
Jeff joined IHS as President & COO of the Engineering segment in 2004 and was named Co-President & Co-Chief Operating of IHS Inc. in 2007. During Jeff's tenure he led significant improvement in the financial performance of the Engineering segment. He also led the creation of the Company's leading positions in Security and Environment information and insight with the acquisitions of Jane's Information Group, Lloyd's Register-Fairplay, Dolphin Software, ESP and EnvironMax.
Jeff was previously Chairman and CEO of Hoover's, a publicly traded business information service provider. He joined Hoover's in May 2001, leading the company to profitability and strong double-digit growth. In March 2003, Jeff led the sale of Hoover's to Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). Upon completion of the acquisition, he was retained by D&B as president of the new subsidiary. Jeff began his career with Bain & Company, a leading strategy consulting firm, based in its Paris office. Later he was a VP and GM with US WEST where he served on the executive team of the corporation's $1.5 billion revenue Yellow Pages publishing subsidiary (now Dex Media, a division of R.H. Donnelley) and led the creation of the company's leading Internet yellow pages business. Jeff holds a BA in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University and an MBA from Stanford University.
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Chris Warwick
Vice-President, Product Development and Management, Hoover's Inc.
Chris Warwick was appointed as Hoover's Vice President of Product Development and Management in November 2007. In this role she is responsible for the delivery of new customer-focused products and executing product line strategies for specific market segments. Chris joined Hoover's in 2004 as Vice President of Acquisition Marketing and Site Development. She was responsible for driving the overall performance of Hoover's online and direct marketing efforts to drive qualified leads, unique visitor traffic and brand awareness.
Before joining Hoover's, Chris served as Director of Customer Development for Bath & Body Works, where she was responsible for the development and delivery of customer communications including direct mail, e-mail, in-store and alternative marketing channels. Prior to this, she was Vice President of Consumer Marketing and Merchandising for Travelocity, where she drove the company's CRM and database marketing initiatives, as well as all relationship and customer contact marketing and channel merchandising.
Chris's early career included roles within media mogul Meredith Corporation, including Associate Director of Database Marketing, Business Development Manager for Better Homes and Gardens Brand Licensing, and Promotion Manager for Ladies' Home Journal. She holds a B.A. in Media Arts, Radio and Television, from the University of Arizona.
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