Speaker Information

Morning Session

In order of appearance

Dr. Matthew Dunn
CEO, SayItVisually.com

Matthew is chief explainer at SayItVisually!, the company that explains complex topics  – like social media – with compelling visual stories.  Launched in 2008, Say It Visually! is already the largest creator of private-label explanatory media, with clients worldwide.

Matthew is a serial parallel start-up guy, having worked in business, technology, arts, academia and non-profits – often simultaneously.  Prior titles and roles include CEO at MusicIP (tech + arts, cool!), CIO and Senior VP at Intrawest (okay, not a start-up), and 13 titles in 54 dog years at Microsoft (which ran like a start-up back then.)  He also acted, directed and taught theater (a start-up school – really!) for a decade. Matthew holds a PhD in Digital Media, an MFA in Directing, nine U.S. patents, and writes and speaks frequently.

Matthew serves on the boards of TAG NW, the NW Economic Council, the Whatcom Museum, and several private companies.  His two favorite start-ups are his sons, and his favorite story is how he met his wife, Claire.

Derek Johnson
Principal, DerekMedia and CEO, Tatango

Derek Johnson is the 24 year old CEO of group text messaging website Tatango.com and the principal of Derek Media, an agency that helps companies build and manage their brands on various social networks. Recently Derek and Tatango were featured in BusinessWeek as one of the “Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25.” Derek and his companies have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Seattle Times, Mashable, TechCrunch and other national publications.

Blog: www.thederekjohnson.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thederekjohnson
Twitter: www.twitter.com/thederekjohnson
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/derekjohnson

Anne-Marie Faiola
CEO, Brambleberry and Otion Soap

Anne-Marie Faiola is the founder of a variety of companies: www.brambleberry.com, www.otionsoap.com, and www.soapmolds.com. Faiola is passionate about business having started her first business in high school breeding angry Russian Dwarf Hamsters. After a brief stint as a correctional officer, she founded Bramble Berry at the age of 20, and is as jazzed about it now as she was the day she started.

With 12 years of double digit, profitable growth, she’s learned many lessons along the way including how to bootstrap a social marketing plan. If you’re curious how to find time in the day to blog, tweet, facebook and still run a thriving business, you’ll want to attend her presentation.

Anne-Marie has her MBA and was voted “Business Woman for Washington State for 2009″ by the Women President’s Organization.

Blog: www.soapqueen.com
YouTube Station: www.soapqueen.tv
Twitter: www.twitter.com/brambleberry

Aaron Booker
Founder and President, Varvid

Aaron Booker is the founder and president of Varvid, a Live Webcasting and an outsourced IT company. The business also provides internet delivered video to organizations that run the gamut from the Fortune 500 to nonprofits, and even down to high school graduations and basketball games. Aaron helps to create video content for the Internet, whether live streaming or delivering content via sites like YouTube. He also serves as chair of the Whatcom Community College Foundation.

Matt Barnhart
Principal, PivotLab

Matt has over 20 years experience with branding and graphic design, owning his own firm for over 11 years before starting PivotLab. His understanding of entrepreneurial needs is the reason he has a long history of exceeding client’s business goals. He believes every investment should yield the highest return possible, including hiring an outside strategy or design firm.

He has had great success with large to small companies including Buick, Chevrolet, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Seimens, Alcoa, SPIE, Seattle Opera, Zand, Botanical Laboratories, NatraBio, Symtec, Easton, Ocean Kayak, Erin Baker’s Wholesome Baked Goods, Tony’s Coffee, Sodexho, and Labor Ready just to name a few.

Shari Burk
Senior Strategist, PivotLab

Shari Burk cut her teeth into this business implementing and refining strategy as a creative for national and international brands. This gives her an unfair advantage. She can quickly separate useful strategy from the usual superficial blather.

Shari has worked as an award winning art director, creative director, and brand strategist on many accounts: JanSport, Nordstrom, Holland America Cruise line, Boeing, Attachmate software, Seagate software, Microstaq, SPIE, St. Michelle Winery, Columbia Crest Winery, Top Food & Drug, McDonald’s, Xbox 360, Leatherman Tool, and many others.

James Burnes
Founder & Principal, Project Brilliant

James Burnes is Founder & Principal, Project Brilliant, Indianapolis, IN an idea consultancy and business incubator James established in 2009 to provide new venture development for companies and entrepreneurs. He is based in the Indianapolis, IN with clients and business interests around the United States. (View resume)

James brings a unique mix of talents interfacing Internet solutions with a business minded, entrepreneurial background. For more than 10 years, James has been a leader in Internet consulting, web strategy and new business ventures. He founded Project Brilliant in December 2009 as an idea factory, business consultancy, creative agency and business incubator to launch and develop new digital business ventures.  The firm is launching several new enterprises in 2010 including a mobile-web and social media company. James is former Vice President of Strategy at MediaSauce.

His leadership and vision help organizations embrace new and emerging technologies like Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter, YouTube and other Web 2.0 platforms to transform their organization to succeed in our highly connected, 24/7 economy. His expertise in business development, sales, innovation, product ideation, and revenue-centric thinking makes him a regular resource to corporate executives around the country to conduct business online.

James is a board member of the advisory board of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation’s Small Business Development Centers. He is a contributing editor to The Social Media Bible (J.W. Wiley Publishing, May 2009). He is a guest lecturer to several university programs and speaks regularly for corporations, associations and seminars on how to transform your business for the Digital Age.

Prior to his current endeavors, James led high profile initiatives for publicly traded broadcast and publishing groups directing Internet strategy, sales, marketing, product development and social media initiatives including Gannett and LIN Television.

Learn more about Project Brilliant at www.projectbrilliant.com.

Afternoon Session

In order of appearance.

Clay McDaniel
Principal and Co-Founder, Spring Creek Group

Clay is a principal and a co-founder of Spring Creek Group, an interactive marketing agency focused on social media brand analytics and marketing campaign services located in Seattle, Washington.  Clay is an experienced online marketer whose areas of focus include guiding clients through the process of benchmarking and tracking brand engagement online as well as designing and implementing social media channel strategies for established and emerging consumer brands.

Prior to co-founding Spring Creek Group, Clay was the senior director of product management for RealArcade at RealNetworks, Inc., a consumer product manager for Windows XP at Microsoft Corporation,  and worked at Vitria Technology, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Deloitte Consulting.  Clay holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he graduated with Beta Gamma Sigma academic honors as a triple-major in Marketing, Operations, and Technology Management, and he holds an AB in Economics from Princeton University.

Clay has been profiled in SmartMoney’s online small business website, has presented at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s annual Small Business Conference, and has contributed by-line articles on social media marketing topics to Adotas, DMNews, iMedia, MarketingProfs, MediaPost and Mashable.  Clay is a professional member of the Social Media Club, and he presently serves as a director and local board member of the Social Media Club Seattle. He also represents his company within the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, of which Spring Creek Group is an agency member.

Clay lives in Seattle with his family, and enjoys fly fishing, trail running, sampling Seattle’s arts and music scene, and writing the occasional blog post, highlighting recent wins by Arsenal and the Sounders FC amongst other random observations and musings.

Blog: www.claymcdaniel.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/claymcdaniel
Facebook: www.facebook.com/claymcdaniel

Warren Sukernek
Partner and Vice President of Strategies, lift9

Presently Warren Sukernek is a partner and vice-president of strategies at Lift9.  Lift9 – Social Media Solutions is a social media services firm specializing in social media analytics and research.  With its research staff in Vietnam, Lift 9 provides its clients with actionable insights based on listening to the social web. Warren develops monitoring programs for marketers and implements listening best practices.

Prior to joining Lift9, Warren was director of content marketing at Radian6, one of the leading social media monitoring tools vendors. Warren got his start in social media at Wunderman, where he developed social media campaigns for Microsoft. Known as a marketer focused on social media, he has spoken at many events including Word of Mouth Marketing, Internet Marketing Conference, Seattle Direct Marketing Association, and the Catalog Conference.

Blog: www.twittermaven.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/warrenss

Bonnie Southcott
Senior Interactive Producer, Toolhouse

Bonnie Southcott is the Senior Interactive Producer and Director for Toolhouse, a Bellingham-based digital marketing agency. Bonnie helps meet the needs of her company’s Fortune 500 clients by guiding them to think strategically about today’s digital communication ecosystem. She combines her experience in digital healthcare communication with the powerful tools of social medial, mobile and content strategy. Her work with Toolhouse has been recognized with a 2008 MM&M gold award for best website, and a Telly for online video.

A former radio broadcaster, Bonnie has a BA in Communication from WWU, and is currently earning her Master of Communication in Digital Media at the University of Washington.

Portfolio: CFvoice – Cystic Fibrosis Community

Marty Yaskowich
Business and Strategy Director, Tribal DDB

Marty Yaskowich is an accomplished strategist and integrated marketer with experience leading some of Canada’s local marketing ‘powerhouses’ and the world’s largest brands.  For the last four years, Marty has led the interactive strategy and digital marketing programs for the Canadian Tourism Commission, Vancouver Convention Centre, Tourism Kelowna, the BC Dairy Foundation, TELUS Business Solutions (one of Canada’s three largest telecommunication companies), and Intuit.

Before joining Tribal in 2005, Marty directed online and offline marketing programs for clients that included Starbucks, Amazon, ADT Security and DaimlerChrysler’s US Product and Sales division.

An accomplished journalist and broadcaster before joining the marketing field, Marty was the keynote speaker at the New Media BC professional training workshop, Open Dialogue’s Social Media Marketing Conference in Toronto and the annual conference of the Washington Association of Water and Sewer District Managers. In May, he is scheduled to speak at Economic Development Alberta’s annual conference on the impact of digital and social trends on small and medium enterprises in tourism and economic development.

Under Marty’s leadership, his DDB clients have won regional, national and international awards including Applied Arts, the Canadian Digital Marketing Awards, and the Webbys.

Marty is a graduate of the University of British Columbia Internet Marketing program, is a Certified Internet Marketing strategist and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Regina. He is member of the International Interactive Marketing Association and the BC Chapter of the American Marketing Association.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/martyyaskowich
Facebook: www.facebook.com/martyyaskowich

Ethan Yarbrough
President and Co-Founder, Allyis

As President and Co-Founder of Allyis, Inc., a consultancy focused on the development and adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and practices within the Enterprise, Ethan is a social computing thought leader and active participant in the Enterprise 2.0 conversation. Via the Allyis blog, his Twitter account, white papers, and speaking engagements, Ethan actively drives conversations around how organizations can leverage and prosper from the use of social tools, platforms and cultures to foster knowledge management, collaboration, and innovation, while contributing to employee morale and retention.

In 2007, Ethan was recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of the region’s top 40 Under 40, a prestigious award celebrating young entrepreneurs and rising stars in the local business community. That same year, Western Washington University honored Ethan, along with Allyis co-founders Ken Efta and Richard Law, with the inaugural Young Alumnus of the Year Award. Ethan holds an M.A. in English Literature from Western Washington University and enjoys spending his free time in creative pursuits such as writing and photography.

Brad Nelson
Online Strategy, Starbucks

Brad is the the voice of the @Starbucks twitter account. As a former barista, he uses the account to converse with coffee drinkers, much in the same way he used to in a store, but on a global scale. Previously, he worked in the team that developed in store media systems for Starbucks in the Entertainment group. In his spare time, he plays trumpet and keyboard in his band, The Preons, and enjoys spending time with his wife and two cats. His favorite coffee currently is Guatemala Antigua.

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bradnelson