2012 presenters

Terry is a native Midwesterner now living on the East Coast, spreading ìrealistic optimismî through a philosophy he calls “Half-Fullism.” He’s been in the business world for over 25 years in various leadership positions, most recently as a senior operations executive for a service business based in the Rocky Mountain west. Terry is a constantly learning student of leadership and personal development, and shares his ideas, experiences and knowledge through his blog, Ramblings from A Glass Half Full.

Liz Strauss is a brand strategist and social web community builder and is perhaps the most influential “real-ebrity” on the Internet. Liz has over 20 years in print, software, and online publishing, and has strategized with publishers in Europe, Australia, the UK, and Ireland. She was recently a featured speaker at the Cass Business School of City University in London and teaches a Master’s Level class at the CityU School of Publishing. She has been named to the Top 100 Social Media & Internet Marketing Bloggers, The Invesp Top 100 Most Influential Marketers of 2008 and again in 2009, the 50 of the Most Powerful and Influential Women of Social Media, and NxE’s Fifty Most Influential ‘Female’ Bloggers. The WordPress Plugin Liz Comment Counter by Ozh was named in her honor to celebrate her dedication to responding to the readers of her blog.

Born in Bulgaria, Angel Djambazov has spent his professional career in the fields of journalism and online marketing. In his journalistic career he worked as an editor on several newspapers and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of Wyoming Homes and Living Magazine. Later his career path led to online marketing where while working at OnlineShoes he earned the Affiliate Manager of the Year (2006) award at the Affiliate Summit, and In-house Manager of the Year (2006) award by ABestWeb.

For four years Angel served as OPM for Jones Soda for which he won his second Affiliate Manger of the Year (2009) award at Affiliate Summit.

Currently Angel serves as OPM for KEEN Footwear, Graphicly.com, Thomas Dean, and VitaminAngels.com. He is also one of the founding members and evangelist for PopShops.com which was awarded Best Affiliate Tool (2007) award by ABestWeb.

Chris Brogan is president of Human Business Works, a media and education company. He consults and speaks professionally with Fortune 100 and 500 companies like PepsiCo, General Motors, Microsoft, and more, about the intersection of business, technology and media. He is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Trust Agents, and a featured monthly columnist at Entrepreneur Magazine. Chris’s blog, [chrisbrogan.com], is in the Top 5 of the Advertising Age Power150. He has over 12 years experience in online community, social media, and related technologies.

Tim Sanders is a rare hybrid of business expert and keynote speaker. Coupled with his passion, insight and research ability, Tim is able to move audiences to action when he speaks, give clients innovative solutions when he consults, and share knowledge when he writes. Through Tim’s significant business expertise and people skills, his work is frequently featured in the media where he has earned the reputation as a people-centric business expert.

Steve Farber is the president of Extreme Leadership, Incorporated, an organization devoted to the cultivation and development of Extreme Leaders in the business community. His latest book, Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson In Leadership, was a Wall Street JournalÆ and USA TodayÆ bestseller. His second book, The Radical Edge: Stoke Your Business, Amp Your Life, and Change the World, was hailed as “a playbook for harnessing the power of the human spirit.” And his first book, The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership, is already considered a classic in the leadership field. It received Fast Company magazine’s Reader’s Choice Award and was recently named one of the 100 Best Business Books of All Time.

Gary W. Goldstein has produced some of Hollywood’s biggest box-office hits, generating well over a billion dollars in worldwide revenue, receiving multiple Academy Award nominations, People’s Choice Awards, a Golden Globe and various other awards. But that really doesn’t tell the whole story. Gary Goldstein would tell you that the story behind those films (which include Pretty Woman, Under Siege and a long list of other acclaimed works) is the people. It’s the cast of hundreds that come together and produce a work so compelling that millions of people choose to participate once the curtain is pulled back.

The world at large, however, would say that the story behind those successes is the leader. The guy who pulls it all together with grace and a keen talent for the golden thread that connects projects, people and success. That is Gary W. Goldstein.

Gary’s experience, strategies and powerful collaborations, developed over three decades of success stories in entertainment and in the business world, have empowered him to consistently and successfully reinvent and energize other people’s messages, offerings, businesses and their bottom line.

Called by some Twitter’s original Cinderella story and the Queen of Twitter, Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton is credited with explaining Twitter’s value to Guy Kawasaki and dozens of other tech leaders. She has been speaking professionally about the business use of Twitter since October 2007, and by popular demand launched Pistachio Consulting, the first Twitter for Business consultancy, in September 2008. In 2009, Laura founded oneforty.com to help people understand Twitter and the exploding ecosystem of applications and services built on it. Called “the app store for Twitter” by TechCrunch, oneforty is the place to find, rate, collect and share the best ways to use Twitter. In 2011, oneforty.com was acquired by Hubspot, a leading social media marketing firm, where Laura has taken on the role of Inbound Marketing Evangelist. She is also the co-author of Twitter for Dummies.

She’s lectured on the topic at Harvard Business School, for Cornell’s Entrepreneurs’ Network (she is an alum) and at numerous conferences and other universities. Consulting clients include Ford and Johnson & Johnson and she’s been quoted in more than 50 national publications including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes,Fortune, Newsweek, and BusinessWeek.

Even closer to her heart, Laura believes that everyone can benefit – dramatically – from what Twitter has to offer, and shares her own ‘isolated mom to sought-after author’ story as an example of its power to overcome isolation. The people you meet on Twitter can remove obstacles that hold us back in our everyday lives. In December 2008 she showed how Twitter can bring thousands together to achieve big change with very small donations, building five wells in the developing world with her @WellWishes holiday wish campaign for Charity:Water.

Rick Calvert is the CEO & Co-founder of BlogWorld & New Media Expo and it happened completely by accident. He’s been a news and politics junkie since grade school.

The 2000 elections and September 11, 2001 led him to the blogosphere. He was hooked immediately and finally started my own blog in 2005. A year later he started searching for the “Blogging Industry Tradeshow”. Stunned that it didn’t exist and having attended, exhibited and organized some of the largest events in the world Rick knew he could put it together but thought he might be the only blogger geeky enough to want to go to such a thing.

Turns out lots of other bloggers, podcasters, internet radio and TV broadcasters were looking for the same thing. If you have read this bio this far you are probably one of them.

The blogosphere and social media has changed Rick’s life forever. It has been and continues to be an amazing journey.

Carol Roth is a business strategist, recovering investment banker and author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Entrepreneur Equation. She has helped her clients, ranging from solopreneurs to multinational corporations, raise more than $1 billion in capital, complete more than $750 million worth of M&A transactions, secure high-profile licensing and partnership deals and create million dollar brand loyalty programs.Carol is a frequent radio, television and print media contributor on the topics of business and entrepreneurship, appearing regularly on Fox Business, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and more. Additionally, Carol’s blog at CarolRoth.com was recently named as one of the Top 10 small business blogs online and she was named a 2011 Top 100 Small Business Influencer.  Carol is a contributing blogger to outlets like The Huffington Post and Crain’s Chicago Business/Enterprise City and is the only business strategist with a fashion doll made in her likeness.

Some people have a hard time understanding who Charlie Gilkey is because he seems to be a mixture of contradictory traits. He’s philosophical yet pragmatic; compassionate yet disciplined; creative yet analytical; driven yet laid back; happy but calm. These complexities come through in the content Charlie shares, so if it throws you off, you wouldn’t be the first to wonder what’s going on.

Charlie is out to help people thrive by using their creativity and energy in ways that help themselves, those around them, and the world at large. While that seems fairly ambitious, the way we do this is by continually making small steps in the right direction – at a certain point, we look up and the thousand miles are behind us. We build a better future step by step and day by day, and it turns out that it’s possible to enjoy the building of that future in the present.

Kathy Burdick has spent thirty years in education in teaching, school administration, and educational publishing. The last six years she has worked as the Director of Development for Learning A-Z directing and creating content for the K-6 market that is delivered to teachers and students over the Internet. Accessible through notebook computers and desktop alike, it is the mobility of our product that sparked an interest in mobile learning.

Kathy was also the co-organizer of Mobile 2011, a premier mobile learning conference for teachers and educators, and is currently co-organizing Mobile 2012. She is infatuated with the seemingly limitless (well, OK, it can’t make coffee) possibilities of the iPod Touches, iPhone and iPad. This blog is where Kathy tries to find the time to write about all the fun, educational things teachers can do with these wonderful tools.

Les McKeown is the President & CEO of Predictable Success. In this role, he advises CEOs and senior leaders of organizations on how to achieve scalable, sustainable growth and speaks to Fortune 500 companies about his breakthrough strategies.

Prior to founding Predictable Success, Les established himself as a serial founder/owner in the global business spectrum, starting more than 40 companies, in addition to being the founding partner of an incubation consulting company that advised on the creation and growth of hundreds more organizations worldwide. It is through this experience that he aids businesses in different size and scope as an in-demand speaker, sought-after advisor and bestselling author.

Les delivers keynotes to various organizations and businesses around the world. He has presented his ‘Predictable Success’ and ‘Synergist’ model to the likes of Harvard University, Microsoft, United Technologies Corporation, Overture, Pella Corporation, the US Army and many more. In these engagements, he aims to empower every level of the workforce by educating every individual on the stages of the business lifecycle, their business’ current stance and steps leading to this outcome, and the adopted practices needed to prosper for the future of the company.

As the President & CEO of Predictable Success, Les offers consulting services to fast-growth SMEs as well as Fortune 1000 companies. He has amassed a proven track record of improving leadership effectiveness and organizational performance to deliver significant business growth. It’s this intuitive understanding of why businesses grow and succeed that prompted clients including: T-Mobile, American Express Chiron Corporation, The Canadian Defence Department, MI-SWACO, St Vincent Health and Verisign to seek out his advice.

Rick Turoczy is the editor at @siliconflorist and is the co-founder of @PIEpdx. Rick is more than mildly obsessed with Portland, open source, mobile, and startups.

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Shashi Bellamkonda currently oversees all social media activities at Network Solutions (A web.com company), a firm that helps small businesses start and market their businesses on the Web. In this role, he has compiled an impressive record of achievements that includes transforming the company’s Web presence, creating and executing a comprehensive social media strategy and brand presence, orchestrating a Super Bowl viral video campaign and dramatically increasing coverage in national media , and establishing the company as a valuable SMB resource. In earlier positions at Network Solutions, he oversaw development and go-to-market strategies to drive growth for a suite of Web technology products.

Sammy Haroon is the COO of Accurate Electronics, a wireless products and services company he has grown by 600% in revenue in FY2011. He developed and executed the company strategy for operations, client services, and business development capturing GE and Toshiba as marquee customers.

Sammy is also the founder and Director of The RBR Group, a business and technology innovation company. For GE Energy, he has developed and is operationalizing a process for continuous innovation. Using his copyrighted methods, Sammy created first one of its kind multidisciplinary GE Energy Innovation Summit. The Summit has delivered two new product solutions while capturing funding to develop the proofs-of-concepts and creating new IP.

Lisa Horner works for Citrix Online driving global demand generation. Key initiatives she works on include media, campaign mangement & global events. Areas of focus include lead management, campaign development, content strategy & social strategy.

Emily Harris, Journalism Accelerator editorial director, has gathered stories all over the world. She reported for NPR from Europe, Afghanistan, Iraq and Washington DC and shared in NPR’s 2005 Peabody award for coverage of Iraq. She grew up in Oregon, and returned in 2007 to help start Think Out Loud, an award-winning public affairs program on OPB, which she hosted for several years. Emily studied Russian at Lincoln High School in Portland and at Yale. Her current projects include developing a parenting stories app, honing a twisted tale from the battlefields of Iraq, and exploring the places journalism and other ways of life intersect.

About Diane Brogan: Sunshine makes me happy. Enjoys people. Seeker, Wonderer, Reader, Wire Artist Brogan-Arts.com, Blogger, Wife, Mother.

About Steve Brogan: Husband, father, Social Media guy, poker dealer/player.