Connie Bensen is recognized as a leader in the community management space. A decade of experience in public library administration provided Connie with experience in marketing, PR & community building. These skills transferred to the online environment as she worked first a product evangelist & then as a community manager for ACD Systems. During this time Connie & her sister created a vibrant community. Connie provides leadership & mentorship to those interested in building community. Her approach to marketing is based on communicating, connecting & building relationships with customers (both externally & internally).

David Berkowitz is Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy for 360i, the search-centric digital marketing agency. He helps 360i’s leading brands in media & entertainment, retail, and other verticals leverage marketing opportunities at the nexus of search engine marketing and social media. Additionally, every Tuesday, he pens the Search Insider column for MediaPost, with over 175 articles published to date. Prior to 360i, he served as director of marketing for Viewpoint’s rich media advertising group Unicast and search engine marketing firm iCrossing. Previously, with research firm eMarketer, he interviewed 175 executives, authors, and analysts on the cutting edge of technology and business. His writing has also appeared in Ad Age, DM News, MarketingProfs, iMedia Connection, and other publications. Mr. Berkowitz has spoken at the Consumer Electronics Show, the Magazine Publishers of America, Google’s Vertical Industry speaker series, The Wall Street Transcript’s gaming conference, Frost & Sullivan’s Internet Marketing Symposium, Digital Hollywood’s Games & Mobile Forum, and eComXpo, among other conferences and client events. He has also served as a programming chair for MediaPost’s Search Insider Summits and OMMA events, while presenting at those events as well.

Renee Hopkins Callahan is editor of publications at Innosight LLC, a Boston-Area consulting firm founded by Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution. She edits the firm’s bimonthly print newsletter, Strategy & Innovation, and is lead editor of Innosight’s InnoBlog: The Insider’s Guide to Innovation. Prior to joining Innosight, Renee was a consultant for marketing firms in Austin, Texas, and in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where she consulted with Fortune 500 companies in the consumer packaged goods, retail, publishing, and technology industries around consumer insights and new product development. She has had training in creativity skills and idea generation methods, and has led many ideation sessions and creativity training workshops with consumers and with clients. Previously Renee had a 15-year career in print journalism, including stints as a reporter and editor for The Dallas Morning News and the Nashville Tennessean, and managing editor at D Magazine in Dallas. Additionally, her articles have appeared in various print publications (Dallas Observer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, FWWeekly, Austin American-Statesman, American Way), as well as online publications such as BusinessWeek.com and Forbes.com. In 2002, Renee founded IdeaFlow, one of the first blogs about innovation and creativity. She has also contributed to live-conference blogs for Business Innovation Factory’s BIF conference and for Supernova 2007.

Paul Dunay has spent more than 20 years in marketing, creating buzz for leading technology companies such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Avaya and Cisco. Paul currently is Global Director of Integrated Marketing for BearingPoint. His unique approach to integrated marketing has been recognized as 2006 finalist and 2005 winner of the Driving New Demand award of the Information Technology Services Marketing Association (ITSMA) and also as a winner of BearingPoint’s Best Overall Marketing Campaign award in 2004. Dunay holds an Executive Education degree from MIT in Strategy and Innovation and a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and computer science from Ithaca College.

Francois Gossieaux is a lifelong technical marketing and media veteran. He led marketing, product management and strategy at eRoom Technology, is President of Corante, is a president and founding partner of Beeline Labs, founded Synopia, advises numerous companies in the technical marketing space, has developed and chaired industry events, and more. Francois has a long history with online media, having implemented an intranet for a large multinational company in the early 90’s, and was the organizer of the first large scale virtual event - “InterAct96″ -with Time Magazine and Infoworld. He has used blogs for grassroots political and environmental activities, and also blogs at emergencemarketing.com.

Lois Kelly is the author of Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing and a founding partner of Beeline Labs, a social media marketing services firm. She’s dedicated her career to helping companies talk about their companies and issues in ways that get people to buy, believe and change, no matter how complex the topic or how competitive the market. Clients have included SAP, Sun Microsystems, Intuit, Sapient, FedEx, The Business Innovation Factory, Hyperion, eRoom, Copernicus, Orange, and SAS Institute. Lois’ articles have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, Advertising Age, and Adweek, and she frequently speaks at conferences on marketing and communications throughout the world. Lois is a board member of the Tony-award winning theater, Trinity Repertory Company, and is an advisor to Northeastern University’s fast-growing Communications Studies program.

Valeria Maltoni has been called a communicator, a marketer, and a Renaissance person. Using her experience in communications, customer dialogue, and brand management, Valeria has come to define modern business as a long and open conversation. ConversationAgent.com is recognized among the world’s top online marketing blogs. Valeria is a Fast Company Expert blogger and a contributor to The Blog Herald and Marketing Profs Daily Fix. She is a co-author of The Age of Conversation, a groundbreaking ebook collaboration by 103 of today’s top marketing writers. Valeria is a frequent public speaker on brand marketing, customer service, and integrating social media tools in marketing programs to serve business strategy. She publishes in both English and Italian. Educated at the University of Bologna and Villanova University, Valeria combines New World sensibilities with Italian style. She’s an active member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the American Marketing Association (AMA), the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia (WACA), and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Peter Mahoney has been a marketing executive for Boston area technology companies for the last 20 years and is currently the vice president of worldwide marketing for Nuance Communications, a leading provider of speech applications.

Steve Mann lives in New York City and leads the Total Customer Experience, Competitive Marketing and Services Marketing functions for SAP. I am in love with New York and all that it has to offer (the picture here is me sitting on the East Side drive before the July 4th Fireworks)… loves: food, cooking, sci-fi, tech, biotech, entrepreneurial environments. Dislikes: bad food, extensive travel, people who aren’t fun.

Johnnie Moore works as a facilitator and marketing consultant. I’ve a strong background in marketing and am interested in the human aspects of organisations. Some call what I do the “soft” skills… or the “touchy feely” stuff. I prefer to think I can combine a certain amount of business logic with an appreciation of the ability of humans to surprise and amaze us.

David Rogers is Director of the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School, where he develops new branding research, curriculum, and conferences. He is the organizer of the BRITE conference and CMO summit on branding, innovation, and technology. Rogers has worked on strategic projects for brands in the IT, telecom, pharmaceutical, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, and media industries, addressing issues such as brand positioning, market strategy, and customer experience. He speaks on marketing at conferences in the US, Europe, and Asia, and has been interviewed on CNNfn and national radio. He is the author of blogs, articles, and case studies on marketing in new media, and is the co-author, with Bernd Schmitt, of There’s No Business That’s Not Show Business: Marketing in an Experience Culture, and co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook on Brand and Experience Management (Elgar, 2008). Rogers is also a composer and musician whose music (”Rhythmically vital!” - The New York Times) is heard from jazz clubs to Carnegie Hall.

Constantine von Hoffman is a journalist, social media consultant, award-winning science fiction writer, stand-up comedian and sometime marketer. A veteran journalist with more than 20 years professional experience, he is one of the few people to have worked for both the devil (AKA Rupert Murdoch when I was city editor at the Boston Herald) and The Deep Blue Sea (associate producer for National Public Radio’s environmental news show Living on Earth). I have covered everything from fires to sewer committee meetings to science to the arts and A LOT of business stories. Prior to BrandWeek, I was senior writer for CMO magazine and before that I was a freelance writer. My work has appeared in a whole bunch of magazines, including the Harvard Business Review, Sierra, Boston Magazine and CIO.