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Van Andrews,CEO, Rhinotek Computer Products
Van Andrews is a corporate leader and strategic mover in the technology industry. He has more than twenty-five years of top-level executive sales, marketing and management experience. Mr. Andrews has successfully established and managed numerous large marketing and sales divisions, taking products to market with revenues in billions of dollars. He has headed up U.S. Robotics (USR) as president and CEO, where he spun-off the company from 3Com and built it into a thriving, independent entity. Previously, he was the Senior Vice President of Gateway Computers, Interim President of Admor Memory, and General Manager/Corporate Vice President at Toshiba America.
Leonard Apcar,Editor in Chief, New York Times Digital
Leonard M. Apcar became editor in chief of NYTimes.com in June 2002. As editor he directs a Web news staff of 35 producers and editors and plays a leading role in the strategic management of the Web site. Apcar was previously assistant editor of foreign news at The New York Times since February 1998 and responsible for feature stories, projects and investigative stories. He joined The New York Times in January 1991 as assistant business and financial editor. Since then he has also served as an enterprise editor, assignment editor and chief of correspondents. Prior to joining the Times, Apcar was business editor for The St. Petersburg Times where he launched the paper's first daily business section. From 1976 until 1989, he was a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. During that period, he covered the automobile industry in Detroit; Congress, tax and budget, labor issues in Washington, D.C.; and banking, savings and loans and the Southwest economy in Dallas, Texas. Apcar earned a B.A. degree, cum laude, with honors in political science, from Claremont McKenna College in California in 1975, and received an M.S. degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1976. Apcar is married, has two children and lives in Scarsdale, New York. He serves on the advisory board of The Media Center at the American Press Institute, the board of directors of the Online News Association, and the board of trustees of the Scarsdale Library.
Gilberto Arias,Vice President, Editora Panama America SA
Gilberto Arias has been the vice president of the Editora Panama America S.A since 2001, having been the vice president of planning and control since 1998 and a member of the board since 1990. The Editora publishes three daily newspapers: El Panamá América, Crítica and Día a Día. Before coming full time to the Editora, Arias practiced law with a Panamanian firm, managing its London office for seven years as well as practicing at its head office. At present, apart from normal responsibilities at the Editora, Arias sits on the editorial board of TVN, a local open-air television group. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia and read law at Cambridge University in England. He has attended various courses in relation to media and management at Northwestern University and the University of London.
MJ Bear,Principal, mjbear.com
MJ Bear is an assistant professor of journalism at American University’s School of Communication. She teaches broadcast journalism and online media courses. Bear is also principal and founder of mjbear.com, an Internet consulting firm specializing in online communication, strategic planning and training for media companies, nonprofits and other enterprises interested in leveraging the Internet and broadcast media. She founded her firm in 2001 after leaving her position as vice president for online at National Public Radio. She created and ran NPR’s Internet operation for five years, developing the more than 36 award-winning Web sites comprising NPR.org. She also created and ran NPR’s online initiatives with its 700 member stations, providing syndicated programming and services to help enhance local Web sites. Bear created NPR’s strategic online presence by negotiating partnerships with AOL, Yahoo!, Real Networks, Microsoft and Apple. Under Bear’s leadership, NPR won two Webby awards in successive years. Bear began her Internet career in Seattle as a consultant for Microsoft. She previously spent 10 years in television news as an executive producer and producer. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University and a Master of Arts in U.S. foreign policy and Mideast governments from the University of Virginia. She is a founding director of the Online News Association and an advisory board member for The Media Center at the American Press Institute. She is also on the board of directors for the DCJCC and is a former member of the United Jewish Communities Young Leadership Cabinet. She speaks frequently on media coverage of the Middle East as well as on online and wireless issues and how media organizations can more effectively handle convergence. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Ralph Biesemeyer,Manager, Intel Corporation
Ralph Biesemeyer runs worldwide communications and media solutions development for digital production, media management and digital distribution. His group assembles, proves and helps solutions go to market for mobile and broadband service providers, digital publishers, music, video and games. Biesemeyer has held management positions at a leading broadcast network and at global equipment vendors. He is a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and has spoken at numerous media and communications industry conferences.
Mike Bloxham,Director/Testing & Assessment, Ctr. for Media Dsn., Ball State University
Mike Bloxham has worked in media research and consulting for fifteen years, advising multinational corporations, media owners and government agencies on strategic marketing and communications issues on an international basis. His clients have included Microsoft, Cablevision, BSkyB, Le Monde, Procter & Gamble, MTVEurope and Endemol. His focus has been the delivery and exploitation of consumer insight gained through attitudinal and behavioral research with an emphasis on interactive media. Bloxham has extensive research experience working with interactive platforms among end users in content and proposition development, interactive marketing and advertising, user segmentation, usability and media-lifestyle profiling. He has been a featured speaker at marketing, new media and research conferences in the United States, the UK and Europe. He also writes a regular column in the UK media trade press and has contributed to The Journal of Brand Management and The International Journal of Advertising. Bloxham became director of testing and assessment at Ball State University’s Center for Media Design in 2003. He is involved in interactive TV, wireless communications, new content and distribution models, convergent news, the opportunities created by “very broadband” (up to 30mps to the home) and is a member of the team that produced the Middletown Media Studies, recently released research into media consumption and its measurement.
David Bohrman,Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief, Cable News Network
David Bohrman is CNN’s vice president of news and production and its Washington, D.C., bureau chief. In that position, Bohrman leads all newsgathering and programming for the D.C. bureau. He has served as senior executive producer of NewsNight with Aaron Brown, a position he assumed when he returned to CNN in summer 2001. After taking that position, Bohrman quickly crafted the program after Brown’s effective anchor work following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, launching the show months before scheduled. Bohrman previously served as executive vice president of CNNfn, overseeing production of the network’s 18 hours of weekday business programming until November 2000, when he left to be the CEO of Pseudo Inc., the world’s first interactive Internet-television network. Bohrman joined CNN in February 1998 as the executive in charge of the Moneyline News Hour. He was responsible for expanding the program to an hour-long format, which resulted in a ratings increase of 20 percent in its first six months. Before joining CNN, Bohrman was executive producer of NBC News’ specials from 1993 to 1997. For MSNBC, Bohrman was responsible for creating two critically acclaimed programs, The Site and Imus in the Morning. Prior to working at NBC, Bohrman spent 13 years at ABC News. From 1991 to 1993, he was the executive producer of World News Now, the network’s first foray into overnight news coverage. Bohrman continued his role as executive producer when World News Now merged with World News This Morning and Good Morning America News in 1992. He was also a principal creator and executive producer of ABC News Interactive from 1988 to 1991. For several years, he served as senior producer of ABC News special events, playing key roles in coverage of the Persian Gulf War, political conventions and coverage of most major breaking stories. From 1982 to 1984, Bohrman was broadcast producer and senior producer of World News Tonight. As part of Nightline’s original production team and senior producer, Bohrman managed the program’s staff and coordinated most of the live remotes. During his 20-year career in broadcasting, Bohrman’s excellence in journalism has been recognized many times by Emmy awards and nominations, the Christopher award, computer-industry new-media awards, and by Dupont, Polk and Peabody Awards. Bohrman simultaneously earned a Bachelor of Arts in French and a Bachelor of Science in physical science from Stanford University and later earned a Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University.
Shayne Bowman,Principal, Hypergene Media Solutions
Shayne Bowman, who’s been working in the media business for 15 years, is a principal of Hypergene Media Solutions, a media consulting and design firm. Previously he was chief of development for Belo Interactive, establishing practices of design, content and production for a national network of the 25 local Web sites under the Belo umbrella. Bowman was a co-founder and art director of Hour Detroit Magazine, an award-winning city magazine in Michigan. In addition, he worked for The Detroit News, the Los Angeles Times and The Burlington (VT) Free Press. Bowman is a graduate of the journalism program at Auburn University and a fellow of The Poynter Institute’s news design program. He co-authored several white papers on participatory journalism: “We Media: How Audiences Are Shaping the Future of News and Information,” “Amazoning The News” and “Playing the News.” He writes regularly about participatory journalism on Hypergene MediaBlog (www.hypergene.net/blog). He is also the co-author of “Designing Web Sites That Sell” (Peachpit Press, 2002).
Thomas Brandenborg,Research Analyst, CCI Europe
Thomas Brandenborg is a market research analyst with CCI Europe in Denmark, a vendor of editorial, pagination and advertising systems for news publishers. Since 1996, he has led CCI’s editorial research and studies in tomorrow’s newsrooms and, among other things, been a driving force behind the development of CCI NewsGate, a next-generation system for newsroom content management, collaboration and cross-media publishing. Brandenborg started his career in 1982 as a programmer and software designer in what was then Denmark’s first (and now largest) PC retailer and solution center. In 1987, he started his own consultancy and R&D house, specializing in prepress and graphic arts, which has since expanded with a typesetting and imaging service bureau. His company also developed and sold prepress productivity software, such as the XCaliber automated image-processing system, which came to be used at many newspaper photo departments and at yellow page, yearbook, catalog and prepress firms. After selling his company in 1996, Brandenborg joined CCI to head a market research function dedicated to advising CCI management on future developments in news publishing and to providing recommendations on the long-term direction of CCI solutions. Beyond technology itself, his main focus at CCI (as well as in his previous lives) is the research and in-depth understanding of the fundamental tasks, processes, problems and challenges of a particular business or industry and how to provide ideal technology solutions to these.
Florian Brody,Director of Business Development, Red Herring, Inc.
Florian Brody is director of business development at Red Herring, responsible for business and audience development for the site, as well as managing the publication’s marketing and public relations efforts. Prior to joining Red Herring in 2003, he served as senior director of product marketing at InterTrust Technologies, where he led the company’s publishing strategy. He was also CEO and co-founder of AlcheMe Inc., a start-up offering users a lifestyle personalization solution on the Internet. Brody has more than 20 years of experience in electronic publishing in Europe and the United States and is an expert in the dynamics between new and old media. He is particularly interested in the technical and social impact of new and old media. Brody frequently keynotes at international industry events and is published in the fields of digital media and electronic publishing. In 1995, Brody brought the first German language newspaper, Der Standard, to the Internet. In 1991, he co-invented Voyager Expanded Books, the first electronic books designed to be read on a laptop. Brody studied computer science and linguistics at the University of Vienna and worked as a researcher in computer linguistics and film theory. He has been a member of the graduate faculty of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
John Burke,Executive Vice President & General Manager, Motorola, Inc.
John Burke is corporate vice president and general manager of Consumer Solutions Business for Motorola Broadband. In this role, Burke is responsible for driving Motorola Broadband’s focus on retail and consumer-direct distribution channels, and for expanding the company’s product portfolio that enables Motorola Broadband to bring new and innovative products into consumers’ homes. Burke previously served as corporate vice president and general manager of the IP Communication Gateways Group for Motorola Broadband. In this role, Burke was responsible for the business, which enabled operators to meet consumer demand for new IP applications such as wireless home networking and streaming audio. Prior to that, Burke served as vice president and general manager of the Cable Modem Group within the IP Network Systems business unit of Motorola Broadband. Motorola is the cable-modem market leader with approximately 16 million modems shipped to date. Burke has been with the Motorola for over 15 years, serving in positions of increasing responsibility in marketing, business development, product management and finance. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from St. Joseph's University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from The Ohio State University.
Daniel Burrus,CEO, Burrus Research Associates, Inc.
Daniel Burrus is one of the world’s leading technology forecasters and business strategists. He is the author of six books, including the highly acclaimed “Technotrends,” published in thirteen languages. Over the past two decades, he has established a worldwide reputation for his exceptional record in accurately predicting the future of technological change and its direct impact on the business world. The New York Times has referred to him as one of America’s top three business “gurus,” in the highest demand as a speaker; he has delivered over 2,200 keynote speeches to corporations, associations and professional organizations worldwide. Burrus is founder and CEO of Burrus Research Associates, Inc., a research and consulting firm that specializes in global innovations in science and technology. He is a strategic advisor to government and Fortune 100 companies at the highest level, helping clients develop successful strategies based on creative application of leading-edge technologies. Burrus publishes Technotrends newsletter and is finalizing a major new book that focuses on using technology to create and sustain competitive advantage. He has had hundreds of articles published in magazines and newspapers worldwide, and has appeared on programs such as Larry King, PBS, CNNfn, and Bloomberg. He has been quoted in a variety of publications, including USA Today, Fortune, Forbes and Industry Week. In his third year of college, Burrus became one of the first undergraduates in the nation to direct a federal research grant. He went on to found and manage five businesses, two of which became national leaders their first year.
Marta Buscaglia,President and Publisher, Duluth News Tribune
Marti Buscaglia has been publisher of the Duluth (MN) News Tribune since February 2002. Prior to that, she served as vice president of marketing and communications at The Baltimore Sun, vice president of marketing at the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minnesota, president and publisher of FFLive.com, and in various marketing positions with La Opinion, Gannett and Knight Ridder. She was publisher of the Spanish-language weekly El Economico in Long Beach, California. Prior to her newspaper years, Buscaglia ran her own ad agency for five years after working in various capacities for several Southern California-based agencies. Born in Lima, Peru, Buscaglia holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in advertising and communications from the University of Lima. She serves on several boards in the Duluth area, including those of the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra, the Alworth Institute for International Studies and the Local Initiative Support Corporation (as vice-chair). She chairs the Knight Foundation Community Advisory Committee and is a member of Rotary. In addition to local community involvement, Buscaglia serves on the board of the International Newspaper Marketing Association, the advisory board of The Media Center at the American Press Institute and the editorial board of Women’s Business Minnesota magazine. She is a member of the National Association of Minority Media Executives. Buscaglia has three grown sons, Ryan, a physician, Michael, a medical devices sales manager, and Aaron, a college student, all California residents. She shares her Duluth home with her mother, Marina, and their two dogs.
Chad Capellman,Managing Editor, The Media Center at API
Joined API in 2000 after a thrilling ride on the new-economy virtual roller coaster that included turns at AltaVista, CBS SportsLine, washingtonpost.com and a little web site that could be called PDA Mart, where he covered the fast-growing handheld computer industry. Got his start in daily journalism at the Diamondback at the University of Maryland and then covered high school and college sports for The Washington Post. Has freelanced or worked part-time for the Associated Press, St. Petersburg Times and CNN and America Online. Lets journalistic integrity slip occasionally when referring to Maryland's men's basketball team as "we" or "us".
Jennifer Carroll,Director, News Development, Gannett Company, Inc.
Jennifer Carroll works with Gannett newspapers in developing strategy, readership and content initiatives for print and online operations. She assumed her position in January 2000. Carroll co-wrote and produced the “X Manual,” an extensive guide to targeting 25- to 34-year-old readers with examples drawn from throughout Gannett. She coordinated the recent launch of eight free weeklies for young adults, along with companion Web sites. She also co-chairs Gannett’s Shared Content Strategy Team, which leverages content across print, online and broadcast divisions. Previously, she was managing editor of The Detroit News from 1997 to 2000. She served as executive editor of the Burlington (VT) Free Press from 1994 to 1997. She began her journalism career as a reporter for the Port Huron (MI) Times Herald in 1981, then moved to the Lansing (MI) State Journal, where she held a variety of writing and news desk positions before being named managing editor in 1990. She has a bachelor’s degree and did master’s work at Michigan State University, where she was also an adjunct journalism professor. Carroll serves on the Media Center Advisory Board and is on the Associated Press Managing Editors Multimedia Committee. She has served on the boards of APME, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Mid-American Press Institute and the University of Michigan Press Club.
Wayne Cerullo,Partner, The Sonar Group
Wayne Cerullo approaches the business of communications from a business communications perspective – advertising. He has been helping companies understand their audiences and find engaging ways to bond with them for more than 20 years. For the past decade, Cerullo has been providing business insights for companies with important product news to deliver globally – Microsoft, Intel and IBM, among others. Prior to completing the “tech trifecta,” he held strategic positions at Citibank and E.F. Hutton. Cerullo has been investigating what makes consumers tick for several major ad agencies, including McCann-Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam and Messner Vetere. Although he never turned his education into a “real job” his parents could understand, Cerullo has an M.B.A. from New York University and a B.A. from Princeton University in the (oxymoronic) history of modernization. Seeing the need for a new kind of insight-based marketing consultancy, Cerullo joined The Sonar Group to help organizations understand market drivers and then align themselves to exploit those opportunities. Now he lives in the San Francisco area with his wife, two children, a duck and a hamster. He loves the challenge of figuring things out, such as how he can make a living from cycling around the countryside.
Gerald Chamales,Chairman, Rhinotek Computer Products
Many entrepreneurs have stories of facing adversity on the way to success. But few can match the challenges that Jerry Chamales has overcome. Through childhood in a foster home, brushes with the law and victory over substance abuse, Jerry's belief in himself and in his untapped abilities never wavered. In the early '80's, he astutely observed how the widespread adoption of computer technology was paralleling the awareness of recycling and environmental stewardship. He reasoned that market demand for remanufactured computer consumerables wouldn't be far behind. As history shows, Jerry was right. With a commitment to marketing and service, Jerry and his team have positioned Rhinotek for long-term growth and success. Mindful of the environment, Jerry and Rhinotek donate a percentage of annual profits to the Lewa Conservancy in Kenya - a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving African Rhinos.
Neil Chase,Managing Editor, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Neil Chase is managing editor at CBS MarketWatch.com in San Francisco. MarketWatch's 75 journalists in nine bureaus worldwide produce breaking financial news around the clock, delivered on the Web, television and radio, and in print. Chase is a member of the board of directors of the Online News Association and the API Media Center's advisory board. He spent five years as a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where he launched the graduate and undergraduate new-media journalism programs and was the school's director of technology. He also served as executive director of the Computer Press Association, directing its annual Computer Press Awards contest, and ran the traveling SND Quick Course for the Society of News Design. Before joining the Northwestern faculty, Chase worked as an editor at The San Francisco Examiner and The Arizona Republic and helped to launch a Russian-American newspaper that was a joint effort of Hearst and Izvestia. He has consulted for dozens of news and technology companies and written for magazines ranging from Time and Digital Chicago to Nightclub and Bar Journal.
Laura Chiappetta,GM New Media, Colorado Mountain News Media
Laura Chiappetta has been with the Vail Daily for 18 years. Recently, in addition to her Internet duties, she was named publisher of the weekly newspaper, The Vail Trail. She started her career selling display advertising, then became advertising sales manager, online sales manager and general manager of CMNM.com. The online division is comprised of five Web sites within the central Colorado region. Chiappetta has full P&L responsibility for the $1-million-a-year Internet business and will have the same responsibility for the newspaper. She is responsible for the conception of the division through its current profitability. Last summer, she joined the board of the Eagle River Valley United Way, the Web site of which she designed and launched. She also serves as vice president of the local United Way. She collaborated with the Vail Valley Chamber and Tourism Bureau and several other nonprofit groups on a community-wide online calendar of events. She has been involved in the Women’s Foundation of Colorado, writing grants for local implementation to help women and girls in the community. Her other volunteer efforts over the years have been in outdoor-related activities that benefit the community. She is a graduate of Arizona State University where she received a Bachelor of Science from the business college.
Bruce Christensen,President, KSL-TV
Bruce Christensen was named president of KSL Television on November 21, 2002. He had been Bonneville International’s senior vice president of new media and technology. He went to Bonneville after a seven-year assignment as dean of Brigham Young University’s College of Fine Arts and Communications. Christensen served for nearly 10 years as president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining PBS, he was president and CEO of the National Association of Public Televisions. He began his broadcasting career in 1965 as a reporter for KSL television and radio. Christensen holds an M.S.J. degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and a B.A. degree, cum laude, from the University of Utah, where he majored in journalism and minored in economics, Portuguese and history.
Steven Cistulli,
Portfolio Manager, Smartphone Platform, Panasonic Mobile Communications
Sandy Close,Executive Editor, Pacific News Service
Sandy Close received a B.A. from the University of California-Berkeley in 1964, then moved to Hong Kong where she worked as the China editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Upon her return to the U.S., she founded The Flatlands newspaper, a raw voice of the inner city communities of Oakland, California. In 1974, she became executive director of the Bay Area Institute/Pacific News Service, helping to develop it into one of the most diverse sources of literary voices and analytical ideas in the U.S. news media. In 1991, she founded YO! (Youth Outlook), a collaboration of writers and young people, and in 1996 she co-founded The Beat Within, a weekly newsletter of writing and art by incarcerated youth. In 1996, she also co-founded New California Media, a nationwide association of over 600 ethnic media organizations, an awards program, and an inter-ethnic media exchange and Web site. In 1995, Close received a MacArthur Foundation “genius award” for her work in communications. In 1997, a film she co-produced, "Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien," won the Academy Award for best short documentary.
Sabrina Crow,Vice President, Reed Business
Sabrina Crow is the vice president for Reed Business with operating responsibility for Reed Business magazines in the following sectors: manufacturing, pharmaceutical, processing, chemical, plants and design. She joined Reed Elsevier, the $8-billion British-Dutch global publisher, in 2003. Prior to that, Crow spent her career at Freedom Communications and Knight Ridder, where she held a variety of executive operating roles, including CEO of the international magazine group, publisher, editor, ad director and production manager. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the College of William and Mary and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, respectively. Crow enjoys quirky movies, talking politics and lifelong learning.
Chuck D,Rap Artist, Social Commentator
As the principal lyricist of Public Enemy, Chuck D. can lay claim to having written some of the highest-impact lines in the history of rock 'n' roll. His first solo album, Autobiography Of Mistachuck, released in 1996, reinforced his credentials as rap music's most eloquent commentator. As he stressed on "Free Big Willie": "There once was a time we fought the power with a rhyme, Now the attitude goin' round, no use tryin'." In fact, much of the album offered a critique on the rise of gangsta rap, its glamorization of violence and misogyny, and the rise of the car and clothes as consumer status symbols. One of the most effective tracks was "But Can You Kill The Nigger In You?" a collaboration with Isaac Hayes that asked pertinent questions about the end result for those who invest in their own mythology rather than their own community. Media work and a book followed before Chuck D. rejoined the original line-up of Public Enemy to provide the soundtrack for Spike Lee's He Got Game. The singer subsequently crossed swords with Def Jam Records when he posted new Public Enemy material on the Internet, including the single "Swindler's Lust," a blatant attack on the music industry. The group then signed up with an Internet record company, Atomic Pop, and became the first mainstream artists to release an album online. His albums and his current lecture tour titled "Rap, Race, Reality and Technology," touch on the current events and issues endemic to an election year.
Frank Daniels,
President and CEO, Vital Source Technologies, Inc.
Andrew Davis,President & Executive Director, American Press Institute
Andrew B. Davis took over as president and executive director of API in December 2003. He was previously director of innovation and business development for the Media Management Center at Northwestern University. A brigadier general in the Marine Corps Reserve, Davis took leave from the Media Management Center between July 2001 and July 2003 to serve as director of Marine Corps Public Affairs at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Prior to joining the Media Management Center, Davis was president of Chicago Sun-Times Features, Inc., a division of The Sun-Times Company, and of Performance Media, a custom publishing division he conceived and developed into a multimillion-dollar venture. He also was vice president of The Sun-Times Company. He holds a bachelor's degree cum laude in English literature from Princeton University and a master's degree with distinction in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School. For 10 years he was group publisher and newspaper operations vice president of Pioneer Newspapers, a 41-newspaper group based in suburban Chicago. He is married to Margaret Bergan Davis, a consultant to nonprofit organizations in fundraising and strategy. They have two daughters.
Carin Dessauer,Senior Fellow, The Media Center and Principal , mc2
Carin Dessauer, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and media executive across multi-platforms (print, broadcast and the Internet) for over 18 years, is a senior fellow with The Media Center at the American Press Institute. In addition, Dessauer is a principal with mc2, a media and business strategic consulting firm, where she works on a mix of projects ranging from consulting to speaking and writing. She was a contributing editor for the newly released book, “Society Online: The Internet in Context,” for which she wrote the chapter on news. Prior to her current work, Dessauer was Shapiro Fellow at The George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, taking the baton from Helen Thomas, her immediate predecessor in the fellowship. At George Washington, Dessauer was a professor of Internet news and convergence, and planned and moderated a university-wide discussion, “News in Crisis: Covering Terrorism in an Integrated Multi-Media World.” Before that, Dessauer spent over 10 years at CNN where she covered and led coverage of a wide range of stories spanning three presidencies and numerous subjects that resulted in increased viewers and users and in numerous awards, including several Webbys. She was the CNN executive in charge of the Washington Bureau and the CNN.com executive responsible for political coverage, including all aspects of the record-setting and award-winning coverage of Election 2000. She initiated, secured and produced the first-ever online news interview with a sitting president, President Bill Clinton, and the first and only online/on-air news interview with President George W. Bush, then the Republican presidential nominee. Dessauer first moved into the interactive arena in 1996 when, as CNN deputy political director, she joined the original four-person CNN/Time allpolitics.com board (prior to the CNN and Time Warner merger). She became one of executives responsible for CNN’s early convergence efforts. As a member since 1990 of CNN’s first dedicated political team, she was instrumental in establishing CNN as a political coverage leader. Dessauer started her journalism career as a reporter for the Rothenberg Political Report. She has worked for ABC News, Campaigns & Elections magazine and Congressional Quarterly. Dessauer regularly speaks at national and Internet conferences as well as at various universities. Dessauer is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bucknell University; she currently serves on Bucknell’s Board of Trustee Advisory Committee on Communications and Marketing. She is also a member of the American Press Institute’s Media Center advisory board.
Justen Dyche,
News Director, BBC News
Justen Dyche joined the BBC 14 years ago as a science graduate. He worked for four years in World Service Radio before becoming a director for BBC Presentation. Dyche has assumed various editorial and management roles at the BBC, most recently with BBC News. As well as directing and producing output, he is currently managing a project of his own conception for BBC News Technology and Newsgathering to deliver video reports using mobile technology.
Esther Dyson,Chairman, EDventure Holdings, Inc.
Esther Dyson spends her time discovering the inevitable and promoting the possible. As an active investor and commentator, she focuses on emerging technologies and business models, and emerging companies. In 1994, she had already explored the impact of the Net on intellectual property. In 1997, she wrote a book on the impact of the Net on individuals' lives, “Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age.” She remains an active player in discussions and policy-making concerning the Internet and society. Dyson is chairman of EDventure Holdings (www.edventure.com), which publishes the influential monthly technology-industry newsletter, Release 1.0, and sponsors the industry's premier annual conference, PC (Platforms for Communication) Forum in the U.S. (March 21 to 23 this year). In addition to writing several issues of Release 1.0 each year and overseeing the rest, Dyson also writes a fortnightly column for the New York Times syndicate, Release 3.0, which also appears in EDventure's online newsletter, The Conversation Continues. She has just started a blog, Release 4.0 (http://release4.blogspot.com/). For several years in the 1990s, Dyson was chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She recently finished a two-year term as founding chairman of ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the international agency charged with setting policy for the Internet's core infrastructure (technical standards and the Domain Name System) independent of government control. Now she sits on its "reform" committee, dedicated to defining a role for individuals in ICANN's decision-making and governance structures. After graduating from Harvard in economics, Dyson began her serious career in 1974 as a fact checker for Forbes and quickly rose to reporter. In 1977 she joined New Court Securities, following Federal Express and other start-ups. After a stint at Oppenheimer covering software companies, she moved to Rosen Research and in 1983 bought the company from her employer, Ben Rosen, and renamed it EDventure Holdings. The daughter of an English physicist and a Swiss mathematician, Dyson started traveling in Eastern Europe in 1989 and eventually helped to fill the small but vital vacuum at the intersection of Eastern Europe, high-tech and venture capital, even as she remains active in the U.S. and Western Europe.
Robert Enderle,President, The Enderle Group
Rob Enderle is identified by firms like Sage Circle and the Kensington Group, Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey, and publications like Technology Marketing as one of the most influential technology analysts in the world. As president and principle analyst of the Enderle Group, a forward-looking technology advisory firm, he provides regional and global companies with guidance on how to better target customer needs, create new business opportunities, anticipate technology changes, select vendors and products, and practice zero-dollar marketing. For over 20 years, Enderle has worked for and with companies like Microsoft, HP, IBM, Dell, Toshiba and Siemens. Enderle has been ranked #1 in worldwide press coverage since 1995. He writes a regular column for Internet Week and has been a co-host on CNET radio. He has appeared on special segments for United Airlines, Silicon Valley This Week, Computer Currents and TechTV. Enderle has shared his unique insights and knowledge at worldwide product launches, executive events and national employee conferences for multi-national companies. His presentations include: “Looking Ahead to the Future of Personal Technology,” “Developing and Managing Analyst Relations,” “Over the Technology Rainbow: Looking Ahead to 2010,” “The Future of Mobile Technology,” “Knowing your Customer” and “Comparing The Technology Vendors.” Throughout his career, Enderle has been credited with a number of impressive accomplishments: In the mid-1980s, he specified, deployed and audited one of the first large-scale CRM applications. In the late-1980s, he was instrumental in the successful acquisition by ROLM systems of its channel partners and was placed in IBM’s executive resource program as a result of his work on their divestiture of ROLM. In the nineties, he accurately forecast the decline of Apple and the failure of Netscape months in advance of the actual events. In the 2000s, he is credited with forecasting the decline in the personal technology segment and identifying the key causes driving that decline. As Enderle became better known and traditional research firms fell into decline, his clients urged him to go out on his own and form a company to better address their emerging needs. Thus, the Enderle Group, which was designed with the assistance and guidance of The Promar Group. The Enderle Group is part of the Promar consortium. Enderle’s hobbies include digital photography and building and modifying personal computers. He often advises young companies like OQO to help them get off the ground.
Judy Faber,Executive Producer, Spanish Broadcasting System
Millions of Latin music fans from around the world have logged on regularly for years to Judy Faber’s successful Web site, LaMusica.com. In 1995, Faber noticed there were no existing Web sites covering the sizzling Latin music scene. Combining her artistic and technical talents, she launched Little Judy's Juepa! Page. The site quickly grew into Latin Music Online (LMOL) and set the standard for Latin music coverage on the Internet. Faber hosted Ricky Martin’s and Marc Anthony's first online chats with America Online. She made sure that LMOL was one of the first music sites to be licensed by BMI and ASCAP. She also pioneered live-event coverage among Latin sites, hosting online events at the ASCAP and BMI awards. Faber formed JuJu Media, Inc. with her business partner in 1998. Then, in February 1999, Latin radio powerhouse, Spanish Broadcasting System, acquired 80 percent of JuJu Media, Inc. LaMusica.com is now the hub of a network of SBS radio station sites in the U.S. and Puerto Rico created by JuJu Media, Inc. Faber is the executive producer of LaMusica.com, overseeing all content production for its network of Web sites, including special event coverage and Web casts. As part of her work at the Spanish Broadcasting System, Faber is heard regularly on El Vacilón de la Mañana; she provides information and fun facts as the show’s “official nerd” and is Web mistress of the show’s site, www.elvacilon.com. Faber has appeared on VH1, ABC, Galavision and New York 1 News as an expert on the Latin music scene. She’s been featured in The New York Times, Wired and Billboard, and has written articles for Nuestra Gente, The New York Daily News/Viva, New York Latino, El Globo and Bochinchat. Faber is an experienced public speaker and corporate trainer, and has been invited to speak on panels such as The Billboard Latin Music Awards and Conference.
Clive Ferguson,
Assistant Editor, BBC News
Clive Ferguson has been with the BBC since leaving university. He began his career with the corporation as a radio reporter with Radio Ulster in Belfast. He then moved into the local TV newsroom. Since 1981, he has worked for the BBC in London as a reporter, Scotland correspondent, duty desk editor, deputy home editor and assignment editor. Over that time, he has reported on or been involved in such coverage as Northern Ireland, the Iranian embassy siege, the Libyan embassy siege, Piper Alpha, the Chinook crash, the Falklands War, the first Gulf War, Kosovo, earthquakes in Iran and Japan, coups in Africa, solo treks to the North Pole, hijackings at Stansted and the death of the Princess of Wales, to name but a few. Ferguson now works in the newsgathering department of BBC News, which plans news coverage, deploys correspondents, camera crews and satellite trucks, and ensures the news gets back to the News Centre in West London for radio, TV and the BBCi (online), and to the World Service at Bush House in Central London. His specific responsibility at present is the management of staff on the BBC News’s Satellite Bookings desk, which is responsible for bookings for all BBC News output across its four TV channels and its News Interactive services.
Roger Fidler,Director & Professor, Institute for CyberInformation
Roger Fidler worked in the newspaper business for more than 34 years as a journalist, designer, technologist and executive, and has been actively involved in new-media development since 1979. Prior to joining the Kent State faculty in 1996, he served as director of new media for Knight Ridder Inc. and headed its Information Design Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. He founded and headed two successful companies: Knight Ridder Graphics Network from 1983 to1987 (now Knight Ridder/Tribune Graphics), and PressLink from1985 to 1991 (now merged with NewsCom). He also was a key member of Knight Ridder’s videotex development team and served from 1979 to 1983 as the first director of design for Viewtron, the company’s consumer online service. In 1981, Fidler began developing the idea of using portable flat-panel reader devices, called tablets, to display newspapers, books and other electronic documents. Ten years later, as a Freedom Forum Media Studies Fellow at Columbia University, he created the first prototype electronic newspaper designed specifically for viewing on magazine-sized tablets. For his pioneering work in electronic publishing, he was a 2003 finalist for the prestigious World Technology Award and inducted as a World Technology Network Fellow. Fidler is the author of “Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media” (Pine Forge Press, 1997) and numerous articles and book chapters. In 1999, the Freedom Forum Newseum honored him as an electronic news pioneer and one of history’s “Most Intriguing Newspeople” in its book, “Crusaders, Scoundrels, Journalists” (Eric Newton, ed., Times Books/Random House). He is a frequent speaker at conferences worldwide on topics related to electronic publishing, new media and the future of print media.
Howard Finberg,
Faculty/Interactive Learning, Poynter Institute for Media Studies
Howard I. Finberg has been in journalism for 30 years. He was the Presidental Scholar at The Poynter Institute in 2002, then joined Poynter full-time in 2003 to direct Poynter's e-learning project. He founded and was managing director of Finberg-Gentry, the Digital Futurist Consultancy. Finberg was named a "New Media Pioneer" by the Newspaper Association of America. He has held management roles in newsrooms, technology, interactive media and corporate strategy with such media companies as the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and The Arizona Republic.
Dennis Flynn,CEO/Founder, The Sonar Group
Dennis Flynn is the founder of The Sonar Group, a management consulting firm whose core competencies are in business and brand strategy, marketing and communications. Their efforts are focused on generating profitable growth and value optimization for the firms they represent. Flynn has experience in client, agency, academic and entrepreneurial environments. He has held senior level positions with major firms such as Saatchi & Saatchi, J.Walter Thompson and Beatrice Foods/Swift & Co., helping these firms as well as their clients create, develop and sustain successful branding and communication strategies. He has also led brand and marketing efforts for clients such as Steelcase Inc., Sanrio, Chevron, Toshiba, Enron, Gateway, Ericsson Wireless, Qualcomm and U.S. Robotics. Flynn has participated as an advisor in the IBM Mobil Computing Conference. He has been involved with investor groups (Sjunnesson & Krook) and start-ups out of Sweden (MobilStart) as well as out of the U.S. With McKinsey & Company, he has evaluated start-up opportunities for investors and businesses within the mobile Internet space in Scandinavia. Flynn serves on various advisory boards with emerging growth companies, helping them define, design and execute corporate and brand strategies that are geared to driving revenue, profitability and success. As a result of his experience and expertise, he developed a strategic-planning model called "the Sonar Model." Flynn is author of "Brand Clout…Maintaining Relevancy and Profitability Amidst Constant Change." He has been a guest lecturer for both academic and corporate audiences on the issue of strategic branding and brand architectures and participated in various symposiums as a branding expert. He has also been a guest "mentor" for the Menttium 100 organization, a one-year comprehensive executive-development program for women recognized as future corporate leaders by their organizations.
Thomas Friedman,Partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Tom Friedman joined Deloitte Consulting in 1977 and became a partner in 1985. He focused on financial and strategic consulting in various industries and led the oil and gas practice from 1989 to 1996. Since then, Friedman has had global responsibility for joint ventures and new business investments. He has led efforts in such areas as mobile enterprise applications, Internet-based identity and authenticity and India-based development centers. He is also currently engaged in project financing and structuring of large outsourcing efforts. Friedman received his master’s degree in management from Kellogg and a B.S. from Indiana University.
Bill Gannon,Editorial Director/Managing Editor, Yahoo! Inc.
Bill Gannon joined Yahoo! Inc. as editorial director and managing editor in July 2003. He has network-wide editorial leadership responsibilities in news, product development, content programming and policy. Prior to joining Yahoo!, he was editorial director and managing editor at Financial Engines Inc., a financial services firm founded by Nobel Laureate William F. Sharpe. While at Financial Engines, he created Investor Central™, a personal-finance Internet site with more than 3 million paid subscribers, and received two co-inventor patents for Internet product development. Prior to joining Financial Engines, Gannon was a national correspondent and staff writer for The Star-Ledger in New Jersey and for Newhouse Newspapers Inc., where he specialized in investigative, political, terrorism and conflict beat reporting. His foreign reportage included prolonged assignments in Rwanda and Zaire, The Persian Gulf War, and assignments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In 1996 he was selected to be a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University. Gannon’s other awards include the National Headliner Award, four Deadline Club Awards and the New Jersey Press Association’s Journalist of the Year Award. In 2001, he and a team of colleagues received the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Jesse Levanthol Prize for Deadline Reporting and were also finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.
Leah Gentry,Managing Director, Finberg-Gentry/The Digital Futurist Consultancy
Leah Gentry is a managing director of Finberg-Gentry, The Digital Futurist Consultancy, where she works with media organizations and emerging companies to develop successful strategies in an evolving digital business landscape. Gentry is a senior fellow at The Media Center at the American Press Institute, for which she plans and delivers seminars for media professionals and works with news companies to evaluate and improve their Web sites. She also teaches online newswriting and Web design at the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California. Gentry led Web sites at the Los Angeles Times and at the search engine company Excite. She launched the Chicago Tribune’s Web site in March 1996 and later that same year Digital City Arlington Heights, the first of the Tribune’s Digital City Web sites. In 1994, Gentry put one of the first Internet newspapers online with a gopher-driven version of The Orange County Register. For the Register, she also developed one of the earliest educational online services and later moved both Register sites to the Web. Before new media, Gentry spent two decades as a print writer and editor with the New York Times Regional Group, Freedom Newspapers and Howard Publications. She has served as a board member of the New Media Federation of the Newspaper Association of America, for which she helped launch the Minority New Media Fellows program. She co-authored “Come Together: Defining the Complementary Marketing Roles of Print and Online,” and a follow-up report, “Come Together II.” Gentry is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Dan Gillmor,Business and Technology Columnist, San Jose Mercury News
Dan Gillmor is technology columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. He also writes a daily Web-based column for SiliconValley.com, a KnightRidder.com site that is an online affiliate of the Mercury News. His column runs in many other U.S. newspapers and he appears regularly on radio and television. Gillmor joined the Mercury News in September 1994 after about six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Vermont, Gillmor received a Herbert Davenport Fellowship in 1982 for economics and business reporting at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. During the 1986-87 academic year, he was a journalism fellow at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he studied history, political theory and economics. He has won several state and regional journalism awards. Gillmor's book, "Making the News," a look at the intersection of technology and journalism, will be published in the second quarter of 2004. Gillmor has a longstanding interest in technology, studying programming in high school and buying his first personal computer in the late 1970s. He first went online in the early 1980s. Before becoming a journalist, he played music professionally for seven years.
Jeff Greenfield,Senior Analyst, Cable News Network (New York Bureau)
Jeff Greenfield is CNN's senior analyst and contributor to Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics, the nation's first program devoted exclusively to politics. He also contributes regularly to other network programs, including American Morning and NewsNight with Aaron Brown. Most recently, he was host of CNN's Greenfield at Large, a multi-forum program dedicated to the most relevant issues of the day. Previously, Greenfield, along with CNN's Judy Woodruff, Bernard Shaw and political analyst Bill Schneider, hosted the network's nightly special election program during the 37 days the presidential election story and the Florida recount unfolded. From this experience, he penned “Oh Waiter! One Order of Crow!” (Putnam Publishing Group), chronicling the events of Election Night 2000 and beyond. Since joining the network in January 1998, Greenfield has reported on and provided analysis for a wealth of stories ranging from the impeachment and trial of President Clinton to the public reaction to the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. He has guest-hosted for Larry King Live and moderated CNN's heralded town hall meetings, such as “Listening after Littleton” and “Investigating the President: Media Madness?” Greenfield reported live for CNN from the 2000 Republican and Democratic conventions and served as a panelist in the WCBS New York Senate debate between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rep. Rick Lazio. In addition to his work on television, Greenfield writes a column for TIME magazine. He has contributed articles to The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and National Lampoon, and has authored or co-authored nine books, including “Television: The First 50 years” and “The Real Campaign.” His first novel, “The People's Choice,” was published in 1995 and was named one of The New York Times' notable books of the year. Director Penny Marshall has purchased the motion picture rights to this political satire. Before joining CNN, Greenfield was ABC News' political and media analyst for 14 years. Greenfield appeared regularly on Nightline and served as an essayist on World News Sunday. Before ABC News, Greenfield was a media critic for CBS News' coverage of the 1980 Republican and Democratic national conventions and the 1980 presidential elections. Before joining CBS, he was an analyst for two Public Broadcasting Service programs, Firing Line, with William F. Buckley, and We Interrupt This Week. From 1968 to 1970, he served as chief speechwriter for New York Mayor John V. Lindsay, and from 1967 to 68, he was a senate aide and speechwriter for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Greenfield has garnered a number of awards, including the 2002 Quill Award for Professional Achievement and three Emmy Awards for his contributions to Nightline's South Africa specials in 1985 and 1990 and for a 1992 primetime special on Ross Perot. Greenfield has a bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Wisconsin and graduated with honors from Yale Law School with a Bachelor of Legal Letters degree.
Jennifer Griggs,
Online Director, The Star-News
Lynn Hamilton,Operations Manager, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Lynn Hamilton has worked for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Arkansas’ only statewide newspaper, for almost 30 years. He began his career with the newspaper in October 1974 as the corporate data processing manager. His present responsibilities include management of the paper’s production and administrative functions, coordination of Web site activities and publication of the Little Rock Air Force Base weekly newspaper. Hamilton is a former U.S. Navy officer and high school math teacher. He has served on several civic boards, including 15 years on the North Little Rock School Board with three terms as board president. He is an avid golfer and a former runner who has completed the Pikes Peak Marathon and a Grand Canyon crossing. Hamilton is a certified public accountant and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His undergraduate degree in mathematics is from the University of Central Arkansas.
Jay Harris,Annenberg Chair in Journalism and Communication, University of Southern California
Jay T. Harris joined the faculty of the Annenberg School for Communication in October 2002. He also serves as the founding director of The Center for the Study of Journalism and Democracy at the school. From 1994 to 2001, he was chairman and publisher of the San Jose Mercury News. During his seven years as publisher, the paper rose to national prominence for the quality of its journalism and was ranked as one of the 10 best newspapers in the country by The Columbia Journalism Review. In 1985, Harris joined Knight Ridder, the parent company of the Mercury News, as executive editor of the Philadelphia Daily News. Harris is one of three persons holding the rank of Presidential Professor at Santa Clara University where he also teaches. Harris is founder and president of Deep River Associates, which is active in scholarship, policy development and advocacy that support organizations working to improve the health of communities and strengthen the vitality of democracy in America. Harris is a member of the Pulitzer Prize board of directors and The Poynter Institute’s national advisory board. He serves on the boards of the Pacific Council on International Policy and the Salzburg Seminar, one of the world's foremost international educational centers. He is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Council on Foreign Relations. Harris began his journalism career in 1970 at the Wilmington (DE) News-Journal as a reporter and editor. Between 1975 and 1982, he was on the faculty of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and served as assistant dean of the school. In 1978, he designed and launched the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ annual national census of minority employment in daily newspapers, which remains the industry benchmark and helped earn Harris a place on the list of the 20th century’s 100 most influential black journalists. In 1982 he moved to Washington, D.C., where he was a national correspondent and columnist for Gannett News Service. His professional work has been recognized with awards from numerous universities, public benefit corporations, social justice organizations, and national-journalism and journalism-education organizations. He has received honorary doctorates from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, his alma mater, and Santa Clara University in California. Harris is married and has three children. He lives with his family in Los Gatos, California.
Christian Hendricks,Vice President, Interactive Media, The McClatchy Company
Chris Hendricks is a visionary leader and business strategist in the world of new media who has helped McClatchy build one of the newspaper industry's most successful Internet businesses. When Hendricks joined McClatchy in the early 1990s, he was one of several technology enthusiasts within McClatchy and became its manager of technology in 1994. As the media industry moved cautiously online, Hendricks quickly grasped the importance of digital media to newspapers and society and helped interactive media become a core part of McClatchy's business. Gary Pruitt, CEO and president of the McClatchy Company, says Hendricks has been invaluable to McClatchy in charting the company's Internet strategy: "Every step along the way, he has added tremendous value to the company through all of the whirlwind and through all of the turmoil of the tech bubble and the bursting of the tech bubble. Chris has been able to sort out what was real from what was a fad and where McClatchy's stake in the Internet should be… As a result we have among the most successful Internet operations in the industry, both in terms of revenue and cash flow." Today, as vice president of interactive media for McClatchy, Hendricks oversees the development of the company's affiliated sites and regional portals. Hendricks has served on the boards of directors of the Newspaper Association of America’s New Media Federation and its Diversity Committee. Earlier this year, Hendricks received NAA's New Media Pioneer award that recognizes individuals "whose vision and commitment to mentoring rising leaders have inspired other members and set the groundwork for the [new-media] industry's continued success." Through NAA's James K. Batten Leadership Development program, Hendricks mentors minority managers. Pruitt credits Hendricks for helping to diversify McClatchy's management, newsroom and interactive ranks by identifying and attracting people of color to McClatchy.
Mary Hodder,
Graduate Student, University Of California, Berkeley
Mary Hodder is doing research in digital nonfiction media and information. Her work sits at the intersection of SIMS and three other departments where she conducts related projects: Boalt Law School, the Journalism School and Haas School of Business. She is a member of the Samuelson Clinic for Law, Technology and Public Policy, and is doing research on RFID and sensor networks. Hodder has been the primary author of the Berkeley Intellectual Property Weblog (http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/biplog/), which came out of a Fall 2002 graduate journalism-department class. She was online editor and a featured writer (with John Battelle) on the subject of security and privacy for the Big Story magazine, produced at the journalism school. In addition, she writes Napsterization (http://napsterization.org/stories/), a blog on disruptive technologies.
Michelle Horowitz,Vice President/Content Development, PR Newswire
Michelle Horowitz is vice president of content development at PR Newswire. In this role, she oversees PR Newswire's significant partner relationships, product development and partner strategies with key players in the online, broadcast and multimedia markets. Since joining PR Newswire in 2000, Horowitz has been instrumental in developing strategic distribution relationships with major portals including, but not limited to, Yahoo!, CBS Marketwatch and Lycos; wireless distribution partnerships with Palm, Go America and Verizon; and has worked directly on special projects with some of PR Newswire’s most significant clients, including Motorola, Microsoft and Omnicom. Horowitz was recently named chairperson of the XBRL-US Adoption Committee and leads its efforts to build awareness of XBRL as a technology that enables financial institutions and corporations to better communicate the complex information contained within financial reports. She also oversees PR Newswire’s XBRL initiative, liaising with the company’s many departments involved in researching the development and adoption of XBRL in the business-reporting supply chain. Michelle received a B.A. degree from McGill University and an M.B.A. degree from Joseph Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Ed Horowitz,Chairman, EdsLink LLC
Edward Horowitz is chairman of EdsLink LLC, a New York City-based venture capital firm providing financial, advisory and technology consulting services. Prior to forming EdsLink LLC, he was executive vice president of advanced development for Citigroup (1997-2000) and founder and chairman of e-Citi. In addition, he served on Citigroup’s management and investment committees. Prior to joining Citigroup, Horowitz was senior vice president at Viacom Inc. (1989-1997), chairman and chief executive officer of Viacom Interactive Media and a member of the Viacom Executive Committee. Currently, he is strategic advisor to the chairman of Cablevision's Rainbow DBS Satellite Company and a member of its executive committee. He is an advisor to SPARX Group, an independent, publicly traded Japanese financial services and investment company, and NeuStar, Inc., the leading provider of neutral, third-party clearinghouse services to the telecommunications industry. Horowitz serves on the boards of directors of iVillage, Acterna and Musicnet. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the New York Hall of Science and of the American Museum of the Moving Image. Horowitz holds a B.S. in physics from the City College of New York and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Anne Hunter,Director of Sales, Tacoda Systems, Inc.
Anne Hunter has spent the last eight years in digital advertising management. She joined TACODA Systems Inc. in 2002 as director of sales, responsible for helping publishing companies such as Belo, Gannett, McGraw Hill, Scripps and Tribune to increase their revenues with Audience Management. Her previous role as director of sales and ad operations at 24/7 Real Media gave her oversight of account management for top agency clients as well as the network's internal operations and e-mail divisions. She started with Real Media in 1998 and served the company through Real Media's merger with 24/7 as well as in a number of different capacities. Throughout her career, Hunter has focused on increasing profits from interactive media for newspapers and traditional publishers. She is often consulted by the industry on issues surrounding operations and inventory management. Before Real Media, Anne worked for Hearst New Media and Technology, where she served as associate marketing manager and ad manager working on multimedia brand promotions for clients such as Kraft, Hidden Valley and Ford. She currently co-chairs a New York City youth development group. She attended Barnard College of Columbia University where she was the editor in chief of the college newspaper.
Flemming Hvidtfeldt,Editor-in-Chief, NORDJYSKE Stiftsidende/Nordjyllands Avisselskab
Flemming Hvidtfeldt, who has been a journalist for 25 years, joined NORDJYSKE Medier as editor on November 1, 1998. Prior to NORDJYSKE, Flemming was with JydskeVestkysten and Vendsyssel Tidende, both regional papers. He began his career as a reporter at Vendsyssel Tidende and worked as reporter, copy editor and news editor at Jydske Tidende. At JydskeVestkysten, he worked as managing editor with special responsibility for the Sunday edition, and from 1995 on, he was responsible for the journalistic content of both weekday and Sunday editions. He was responsible for the design of JydskeVestkysten. Hvidtfeldt was co-chairman of the 1999 Society for News Design conference in Copenhagen and has been arranging conferences for the Society for News Design Scandinavia in Denmark. He is currently chairman of the Scandinavian design jury, which conducts the annual newspaper design contest in Scandinavia. He has lectured in Poland about the workings of a free press and spoken at the WAN congress in Brussels about media convergence.
Lars Jespersen,Editor, NORDJYSKE Stiftsidende/Nordjyllands Avisselskab
Lars Jespersen is one of the editors in chief of NORDJYSKE Medier in Denmark. NORDJYSKE is a regional multimedia company at the forefront of media convergence. In 2003, the company was honored by the World Editors Forum for best practice in media integration in Europe. Jespersen began his media career in 1987 as a radio journalist. He has worked with media integration for several years. Most recently, in September 2003, he head the launch of a 24-hour local-news TV operation, “24NORDJYSKE,” the first of its kind in Northern Europe. In 2002, he was editor in chief in the launch of a free youth-oriented newspaper, “10minutter.” Jespersen has been one of the key persons making NORDJYSKE a true multimedia company, where 248 journalists and photographers work across media, who are organized according to topics and geography rather than by platform.
Gary Kebbel,News Director, America Online, Inc.
Gary Kebbel has been the news director at America Online since 1999. He’s in charge of the news, government, politics and elections areas on AOL. Media Metrix records AOL News as the largest news site on the Internet. Kebbel directed the site’s coverage of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., and headed AOL’s election coverage in 2000 and 2002. Before coming to AOL, he was the homepage editor at washingtonpost.com during the Monica Lewinsky/President Clinton impeachment story. He was on the launch team for Newsweek.com, where he helped develop a dynamic publishing system for Newsweek.com and washingtonpost.com. Kebbel was on the launch team for USAToday.com in 1995. As deputy editor/news he was in charge of the site’s coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing, the O.J. Simpson trial, the TWA Flight 800 explosion, the Atlanta Olympics bombing and USAToday.com’s 1996 presidential election coverage. Before moving into the dot-com world, Kebbel was the night graphics editor at USA Today during the Gulf War, the fall of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall and several winter and summer Olympics. He has been a managing editor in Troy and Glens Falls, both in New York, and was city editor in Ithaca, New York. Kebbel is an adjunct journalism faculty member at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
Melinda Keirnan,
Former General Manager & Senior VP, San Jose Mercury News
James Kennedy,Director of Strategy, Associated Press
Jim Kennedy leads strategic planning across all divisions of the world's largest news organization. He began his second stint with The Associated Press in 2001, after two years as executive director of product planning for The Wall Street Journal Online (WSJ.com). Before moving to the Journal, he spent 13 years at AP, first as business news editor and later as the founding director of the news agency's multimedia department. As business editor of AP, Kennedy led the agency’s award-winning coverage of the stock market crash in 1987 and oversaw the development of the new data services that for the first time enabled newspapers to customize their listings of stocks and mutual funds. In 1995, he was tapped to lead a new department creating AP’s first Web-based news service, which was honored in 1999 by the Smithsonian Institution. Kennedy has been a board member and president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and is a founder and former board member of the Online News Association. He was a participant in The Media Center's inaugural gathering of media executives and thinkers in 1997. He began his journalistic career at The Ogdensburg (NY) Journal as a reporter and then managing editor. He also spent several years as a bureau chief, foreign correspondent and business editor for The Tampa (FL) Tribune before moving to AP. He is a 1975 graduate of Amherst College where he majored in American Studies. He has also been a lecturer at the Wharton School of Business, Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Brian Kirlik,
Vice President of Product Development, Nando Media
Brian Kirlik, an award-winning Canadian journalist with 18 years of newsroom and online experience, joined the Sacramento-based McClatchy Company in 2002 to launch the Canadian extension of Nando Media, Nando Canada, expanding the company’s online-sales operations north of the border. Prior to joining McClatchy, Kirlik worked with Metroland Printing, Publishing and Distributing Ltd., Canada’s largest chain of community newspapers, as a reporter, managing editor, editor in chief and online publishing manager for one of the company’s largest newspaper groups. In 2001, he became Metroland’s first e-business development manager, working with the company’s 71 newspapers in Ontario to create and implement online business strategies. McClatchy hired Kirlik in 2002 to service and develop McClatchy’s Canadian business. He was offered the position of vice president of product development and technology for Nando in April 2003. He is a graduate of Ontario’s Centennial College journalism program and has earned numerous provincial, national and international awards for newspaper design, content and general excellence.
Ezra Klein,
Blogger, Pandagon.Net
Jeffrey Klein,President & CEO, 101communications
Jeffrey S. Klein, a seasoned and highly regarded media executive, is president and chief executive officer of 101communications, a b2b publishing company that he helped start in 1999 after many years in the newspaper business. 101 publishes nine magazines, 30 electronic newsletters and 15 Web sites. It operates trade shows and conferences, all targeted at information-technology professionals in the U.S. and Europe. Trained as a lawyer and a journalist, Klein has 20 years of experience operating media and related businesses. He spent 15 years with the Los Angeles Times and Times Mirror in senior management positions, including senior vice president and general manager for news and senior vice president for consumer marketing. He also served as president of two large regional editions of the newspaper. For several years, he was president and CEO of California Community News Corp, a Times Mirror company which publishes community newspapers in Southern California. Under his marketing leadership, the Los Angeles Times became the largest-circulation metropolitan daily in the United States. While serving in a corporate position at Times Mirror, he also was responsible for two company television stations. Klein began his career as a lawyer, first in the entertainment industry representing movie stars and production companies, and later on behalf of the Los Angeles Times as a specialist in First Amendment issues. He has taught media law at the University of Southern California for several years. His early law experience included work for Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt on the Kemeny Commission investigating the accident at Three Mile Island. For 10 years, he wrote a weekly consumer-law column for the Los Angeles Times. Klein's articles have appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review, the Online Journalism Review and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He has spoken at numerous industry events about marketing, management and leadership. He has served on a variety of nonprofit boards and community organizations, including the United Way, Foundation for American Communications and the Alliance for the Arts. Klein received his master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, his law degree from Stanford University, and his bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, from Claremont McKenna College.
Lawrence Kramer,Chairman & CEO, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Larry Kramer is the founder of MarketWatch.com, having proposed the creation of the joint venture between Data Broadcasting Corp. and CBS. He led the company through its launch in October 1997 and managed the company through its successful IPO in January 1999. Kramer joined Data Broadcasting Corporation in 1994, following its acquisition of DataSport, to run a sports and news division. There he created DBC News, the predecessor to MarketWatch.com, and served as DBC’s vice president of news, sports and marketing. As founder, president and executive editor of DataSport Inc. from 1991 to 1994, he created SporTrax, a hand-held sports information monitor, launched under a marketing agreement with The Sporting News. Prior to founding DataSport, Kramer spent more than 20 years in journalism as a reporter and editor. He started his career in 1974 as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. In 1977, he became a financial reporter for The Washington Post. In 1980, the Post promoted him to executive editor of The Trenton (NJ) Times. In 1982, he returned to the Post to serve first as assistant to Executive Editor Benjamin C. Bradlee and later as assistant managing editor and metro editor. In 1986, he returned to the San Francisco Examiner as executive editor. In 1991, he left the Examiner to start Data Sport. During his distinguished career in the newspaper business, he won the National Press Club Award, the Gerald E. Loeb Award and the Associated Press Award for reporting. His staffs have won the Pulitzer Prize, the Overseas Press Club Award, the Seldon Ring Investigative Reporting Award and the National Headliners Award. For 10 years, Kramer was guest lecturer at the Harvard Business School. He holds an M.B.A. degree from Harvard and a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism and political science from Syracuse University. He was a committee chairman of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Jury in 1987 and 1988. In 2000, he was named one of the 100 most influential business journalists of the 20th century. In 2001, Kramer was a founding board member of the Online Publishers Association. He is married to Myla Lerner. They have two children, Matthew and Erika, and reside in Tiburon, California.
Peter Krasilovsky,Senior Partner & Vice President of Consulting, Borrell Associates Inc. (Southern California Office)
Peter Krasilovsky has been a specialist in interactive media and commerce for 18 years. Based in Carlsbad, California, he’s relied upon by many leading media and retail companies for his analyses of new media advertising and usage trends. He is also a frequent commentator in key media outlets. Krasilovsky has been closely associated with Borrell Associates Inc. since 2001. Previously, he founded The Kelsey Group's Local Online Commerce program, heading up a strategy team that advised many of the key companies pursuing “local” as the next media frontier. He has also served as vice president of Arlen Communications Inc., where he advised TV networks, publishing companies, online services, sports leagues and electronics firms on interactive media and commerce strategies. He has worked extensively with the Bell companies in their development of enhanced services and as the Cable Television Information Center’s director of research. Krasilovsky earned his master's degree in communications management from the Annenberg School of Communications at The University of Southern California in 1985 and his bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983.
David Liu,
CEO, The Knot, Inc.
CEO and co-founder David Liu has been instrumental in making The Knot a true Internet success story and a thriving, global, life-events media and services company. With his business acumen and solid vision, Liu helped secure three rounds of financing totaling more than $20 million for the company. In early December 1999, he helped The Knot raise over $35 million in its initial public offering. Under his direction, the company grew from six to more than 200 employees in less than three years. The Knot has been recognized as an innovative, fast-growing company by Fortune, Forbes, Upside, Entrepreneur, CNBC, CNN, Deloitte & Touche, Harvard Business School and Columbia Business School. Prior to launching The Knot, Liu sharpened his entrepreneurial skills in a successful career in digital-media production and management. At RunTime Inc., he spearheaded the production of award-winning media products for clients including Viacom, The Smithsonian, Intel and AT&T. Liu received a B.F.A. from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Institute of Film and Television.
Albert Lopez,Director, UberMedia, Motorola (Strategic Web Communications)
Albert López is Motorola’s Director of überMedia. He directs Motorola’s global, corporate Web operations for Motorola.Com. In addition, he is charged with leading the company’s Web channel content delivery and user/visitor experience for the Media constituency. He directs the development of compelling content for that channel, as well as leveraging Motorola’s key messaging in other alternative channels. Most recently, he developed and directed the implementation of a global platform application for the timely and relevant publishing of content to the Web channel. Albert began his career with Motorola in 1994. He has held a variety of senior level communications positions with the company, including communications director for Europe Middle East & Africa operations, and director of communications technology and media relations. Prior to joining Motorola, Albert worked for AC Nielsen in Northbrook, Illinois, Burrell Communications Group, Chicago, USF&G Insurance in Jacksonville, The Boasberg Company in Kansas City, and Deans & Homer in Los Angeles. Albert holds a bachelor of arts degree in public relations and a master of sciences degree in safety and systems management from the University of Southern California. In addition, he holds a certificate in Digital Innovation and Strategy from the Graham School of General Studies at the University of Chicago. A Los Angeles native, Albert currently lives in Chicago.
Rebecca MacKinnon,Shorenstein Center Media Fellow, Harvard University - Kennedy School Of Government
Rebecca MacKinnon worked for 12 years for CNN in China and Japan. She is currently on leave at Harvard’s Kennedy School, where she is examining ways in which new technology and new Internet-based forms of media are transforming journalism. As CNN's Tokyo bureau chief and correspondent since July 2001, she was responsible for the global news network's coverage of Japan and also covered major events in Korea, Pakistan and the Philippines. She traveled frequently to South Korea and North Korea to cover developments related to the North Korean nuclear standoff. After Sept. 11, she spent six weeks in Peshawar, Pakistan, covering events on Afghanistan’s border before the fall of the Taliban. From 1998 to 2001, MacKinnon served as CNN's Beijing bureau chief, responsible for the network’s coverage of China. She joined CNN in Beijing in 1992 as a producer and began on-air reporting in 1996. Before joining CNN, she was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan, where she also worked as a freelance journalist for a number of publications including Newsweek. MacKinnon is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Originally from Tempe, Arizona, MacKinnon graduated magna cum from Harvard, where she majored in government with emphases on Soviet and Chinese studies.
Alison Macondray,Publisher/Executive Producer, Wired News
Geoff McGhee,Enterprise Editor, New York Times Digital
Geoff McGhee is enterprise editor of NYTimes.com, the news and information Web site of The New York Times. He manages a staff of six who produce photos, multimedia and infographics for the site, which serves over one million users per day. He is also responsible for coordinating collaborative projects with the reporters and editors of The New York Times. For NYTimes.com, he has reported on such national stories as the 2004 presidential campaigns, the California recall and the redevelopment of Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. His work was cited in the 2002 Communication Arts Interactive Annual. In 2003, the NYTimes.com multimedia staff won awards from the Society for News Design, Editor and Publisher, the Online News Association and the Society of Publication Designers. Prior to joining NYTimes.com in 2000, McGhee worked at ABCNews.com, where he was responsible for designing, developing and producing news infographics, interactives and photographic features. He also developed and produced ABCNews4Kids, an animated, interactive Web site for 8 to 12 year-olds that was featured on Go.com and Disney.com. McGhee is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he concentrated in new media and radio journalism. His master’s project was a multimedia examination of urban transit and the development of a rail link to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. McGhee also has extensive experience as a writer and multimedia designer for clients ranging from Citibank, Lucent Technologies and the Japan Foundation, to Estee Lauder, iVillage.com and others. He was born and raised in New York City.
Chris McGill,
Director, News and Information, Yahoo! Inc.
Kevin McKean,CEO, InfoWorld Media Group
Kevin McKean is responsible for the management of the company's print publication, InfoWorld, as well as its online operations (including InfoWorld.com), research and events. Prior to joining InfoWorld, McKean was responsible for the strategic editorial direction of PC World in print and online. He led complete redesigns of both the PC World Web site (launched October 2000) and the magazine (September 2001). McKean held the position of executive editor at Forbes.com, where he was responsible for product development and content relationships. He served for two years as the assistant managing editor for business and finance at Time Inc. New Media. From 1987 to 1997, he worked for Money magazine, first as a senior editor, then as the founding new media editor responsible for all computer-related Money products. As a staff writer and senior editor at Discover magazine from 1981 to 1987, McKean edited the magazine’s computer section and covered a broad range of topics, including science, medicine and technology. During his tenure, Discover won the 1986 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. McKean began his journalism career in 1974 as a police reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago. He joined The Associated Press in 1975 working as a general assignment writer and broadcast editor in Denver and New Orleans before becoming national science writer in New York in 1978. He covered such major stories as the Three Mile Island nuclear incident and the eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano. McKean was the science editor for the 1991 three-hour, WGBH-produced public television special, “Living Against the Odds.” He authored the chapter on writing about science and technology in the 1994 book, “Speaking of Writing,” edited by noted writing authority William K. Zinsser. He has appeared on numerous television programs, including NBC’s Today show, CBS This Morning, CNN, CNBC and CNNfn. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, McKean was raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Elmira, New York. He graduated cum laude from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in English.
Susan Mernit,Senior Vice President, 5ive (West Coast Office)
Susan Mernit has more than 10 years of senior executive experience with P&L responsibility in building profitable new brands and products. As an entrepreneurial, creative leader skilled in managing media brands and services from concept to launch, she has led development of leading consumer brands for Scholastic, Parade Magazine, Advance Publications, Netscape and America Online. Her consulting company, 5ive, focuses on new product development, product innovation and rethinking businesses to create new revenue streams. She works with established companies, nonprofits and technology startups. A former magazine journalist and online news editor, Mernit’s products have won industry awards from, among others, the Newspaper Association of America, Folio magazine, Clarion Women in Communications, The American Journalism Review, the Software Industry Association of America and Editor and Publisher magazine. As vice president of programming, design and production at Netscape.com, she transformed the site into the number one daytime work/home content destination on the Internet, tripling advertising, e-commerce and search revenues. At Advance Internet, she was founding editor of New Jersey Online and creator of several community tools, including Community Connection. With Jeff Jarvis she developed The Yuckiest Site on the Internet, an award-winning science entertainment site now owned by Discovery. Mernit's business skills and creative energy successfully and repeatedly created Internet operations that became core to off-line businesses' identity and branding and improved their bottom line. A published poet and journalist, she is passionate about media, community and next generation tools, as well as the new capabilities they help create.
Stephen Messere,
Head of North American Sales, Independent Television News
Steven Messere joined ITN in January 2004 from Getty Images, where he was director of editorial sales for news, entertainment and publishing since 2002. While at Getty Images, Messere was responsible for significant expansion of its editorial news operations, including the merger of Agence France-Presse photojournalist clients and Time-Life Pictures clients into the Getty Images editorial sales organization. Messere has spent most of his professional career fulfilling the promise of multimedia integration, working for leading technology companies such as Apple Computer, LapLink.com and Adobe, and leading media companies such as ABC News, Knight Ridder, PressLink and Agence France-Press. He has contributed to a number of major technology developments as a member of the release teams for the Apple Macintosh II, the Apple Newton, HyperCard, Microsoft Excel and Adobe Illustrator. Messere played a pivotal role in the release of PressLink on the World Wide Web, a pioneering development that was the industry’s first real-time photojournalism asset management and direct client sales site. He is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island with a B.S. in information marketing.
Paul D. Miller (a.k.a. Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid),Musician, Artist, Conceptual Writer
Paul D. Miller is a New York-based musician, conceptual artist and writer best known under his constructed persona, “Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid.” He was the first editor at large of Artbyte: The Magazine of Digital Arts, and his articles have appeared in The Village Voice, Artforum, Rap Pages, Paper Magazine, The Source and many other publications. His art work employs a wide variety of digitally created music and multimedia to create a form of post-modern sculpture in the tradition of composers such as John Cage and Afrika Bambaata. He has collaborated with a wide variety of preeminent musicians and composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Butch Morris, Kool Keith (a.k.a. Doctor Octagon), Killa Priest of Wu-Tang Clan, Yoko Ono and Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, among many others. Miller's artistic work has appeared in the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennial for Architecture in 2000, the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany, Kunsthalle in Vienna and The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. His most recent projects include the "Unfinished Stories," a three-way collaborative effort with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times critic Margo Jefferson and Francesca Harper, a dancer and choreographer with Bill Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet company, as well as several books and novels.
Dean Mills,Professor and Dean, University of Missouri
Dean Mills has been professor and dean at the School of Journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia for 14 years. He earlier served as vice chair and director of graduate studies at California State University, Fullerton, and as director of the School of Journalism at the Pennsylvania State University. His research has focused on journalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the coverage of diversity and minority issues in U.S. media and journalism ethics. He is co-author of “Journalism and Journalism Education in Eastern and Central Europe” (Hampton Press, 1999). His recent AEJMC activities include membership on the Task Force on Diversity in Administration and mentoring in the Journalism and Mass Communication Leadership Institute in Diversity. On the Missouri campus, he has served for five years as the Council of Deans representative on the campus Resource Allocation Committee and the Strategic Planning Advisory Council. He has a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Illinois, an M.A. in journalism from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Russian and journalism from the University of Iowa. He attended Talladega College. Before joining academia, he was a Washington and Moscow correspondent for The Baltimore Sun.
Bryan Monroe,Assistant Vice President for News, Knight Ridder
Bryan Monroe is assistant vice president/news, the second ranking news executive of Knight Ridder. Before joining Knight Ridder’s corporate staff, Monroe spent 16 years at various Knight Ridder papers, most notably the San Jose Mercury News where he rose to the position of deputy managing editor. In 2003, Monroe completed a year at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow. Before joining the Mercury News in 1991, Monroe was assistant project director for Knight Ridder's 25/43 Project, a newspaper R&D initiative which created a daily living laboratory for experimentation into the future of newspapers; this "Boca Project” later served as a model for future thinking for newspapers around the globe. Monroe has a B.A. in communications from the University of Washington in Seattle. He has worked as director of photography and design at the Myrtle Beach (SC) Sun News and as a photographer at The Seattle Times, the Roanoke (VA) Times & World News and United Press International. He was the first African-American editor of the University of Washington DAILY, a student publication. Monroe has lectured all over the world. He has been recognized by Presstime magazine as one of the 20 top American journalists under 40 and was named by MediaWeek magazine as one of the nation's "Media Elite." In 2003, CityFlight magazine named him one of the 10 Most Influential African Americans in the Bay Area. He serves as vice president/print for the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and is a member of the boards of directors of Unity: Journalists of Color and of 100 Black Men of Silicon Valley, Inc., a mentoring and leadership group of African American civic leaders. He was a picture editor and coordinator for the photo book and museum exhibit, "Songs of My People'' (Little, Brown/Time Warner), and was associate producer on "Tom Dowd & The Language of Music," a documentary film that debuted at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga,Founder, Armstrong Zúniga LLC
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is an author and editor of The Daily Kos, one of the top political Web logs in the United States with over 3 million visits each month. Moulitsas' unique mixture of military and political analysis makes The Daily Kos must-reading for the Democratic Party establishment and activists. A chief proponent of the “new politics” that uses technological innovation to broaden the political process to a wider audience, Moulitsa is co-founder of Armstrong Zúniga, a consulting firm that specializes in the use of emergent technologies in political campaigns. Armstrong Zúniga’s first client was Howard Dean, who used the firm’s mixture of community-building tools and “meet-ups” to great initial effect. Moulitsas majored in philosophy, political science and journalism at Northern Illinois University and holds a law degree from the Boston University School of Law.
Ian Murdock,
Digital Media Director, Hearst Newspapers
Ian Murdock is digital media director for Hearst Newspapers. He oversees the operations of seven newspapers, heads online activities for Hearst’s newspaper and yellow page businesses and has responsibility for newspaper technologies and technology strategy. Murdock brings a variety of skills to his present position, including media, business, sales and technology experience. Prior to his corporate appointment, he was the new media director for the San Antonio (TX) Express-News. During his time in San Antonio, he worked with television to form an online media alliance, built one of the nation’s best-performing newspaper-affiliated Web sites in terms of reach, and established a strong online foundation for classifieds. In the seven years before coming to Hearst, Murdock was president of a large furniture retailer in Texas. He has also held positions in sales, management and computer programming with Pacific Bell and with a small Colorado-based software company. Murdock serves on the boards of three companies and is the immediate-past president of the Newspaper Association of America’s New Media Federation. He holds an honors degree in economics from the University of California.
Andrew Nachison,Director, The Media Center at API
Chief teacher and leader, Nachison is a writer and online publishing veteran who sets the course at The Media Center and steers its educational programs. He learned from remarkable teachers: the art of fiction from novelist Frank McCourt and computer programming from BASIC inventor John Kemeney. Nachison has played clarinet at Tanglewood and Carnegie Hall, studied environmental policy in Kenya, spoken on media convergence and business strategies in Asia and Europe and currently serves on the board of the World Editor’s Forum in Paris. He’s worked as an online news editor and manager and as a journalism and new media professor at Indiana University. He’s directed The Media Center since 2000.
Michael Noe,
Internet News Editor, Rocky Mountain News
Vikki Pachera,
Vice President/Alliances & Business Developments, Hewlett-Packard
Vikki Pachera will be responsible for developing technology roadmaps that provide a business and technical perspective over a three- to five-year horizon. These roadmaps will provide context for decision making around long-term product directions, partnerships and investments. Pachera will be responsible for developing strategic market and competitive intelligence and running operations for the strategy and technology group. Previously, Pachera was vice president of business operations in the Office of Strategy and Technology at Compaq Computer Corporation. She has over 20 years of high technology experience in hardware and software product development, operations, business development and services. As co-founder and vice president of operations of an Internet start-up, Pachera ran the data center, professional services and customer support. She was vice president of engineering operations and customer services at Cadence Design Systems. Prior to that, Pachera was at Apple Computer for 10 years where she held a number of product development, business development and services positions in imaging and consumer products. She started her career with IBM’s storage products group. Pachera holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in business administration from Santa Clara University. She is active in community and environmental affairs, sitting on the boards of directors of two nonprofit organizations.
Dawn Paduganan,
Vice President/ Sales and Market Dept., Freedom Communications, Inc.
George Patience,President, VNT:,
George Patience, originally hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, has been involved in entertainment for 20 years, producing, writing, scoring and directing his first television commercial at the age of 16. Balancing artistic and executive duties, he produced music videos and records. Upon moving to Los Angeles, Patience became an executive for Coral Communications and helped pioneer interactive television entertainment. With great success in this fledgling industry, Patience was appointed to spearhead the entertainment division for Interactive Telemedia (ITM), where he applied his expertise to after-market and opening-week theatrical promotions for Universal, Paramount and Columbia, as well as to numerous television projects. His efforts gained several interactive industry awards, culminating in his being named president of ITM Entertainment. With offices in New York and Los Angeles, Patience successfully negotiated the first U.S. interactive entertainment company in Japan, ITM Tokyo. He contributed to the FCC Markey hearings in Washington, D.C., assisting Hall, Dickler, Kent and Friedman in drafting legislation for the new entertainment marketplace. Most recently, Patience has developed several innovative iTV applications destined to change the paradigm of television and advertising and to make interactive television integral to the American viewing audience.
Dale Peskin,Co-Director, The Media Center at API
Media explorer, innovator and information architect, Peskin leads The Media Center’s thinking and learning practice. He became a daily-newspaper editor in his 20s and was among the first American reporters in China following the lifting of diplomatic sanctions in the early1970s. With three decades of experience under his belt as a reporter, editor and news executive, he has led corporate initiatives in convergence and new media as a vice president of Belo in Dallas, where he was editor of DallasNews.com. Peskin has founded an online news company, taught or consulted on four continents and directed a media think tank, New Directions for News. He became co-director of The Media Center in late 2003 when The Media Center merged with New Directions for News.
Joseph Pilotta,Vice President-Research, BIGresearch
Joe Pilotta has expertise in contemporary research methodologies, consumer behavior, consumer taste and preference, and globalization of political economy. He has conducted over 50 online studies in consumer behavior over the last two years. With BIGresearch, Pilotta and Don Schultz of Northwestern University launched the first Simultaneous Media Study, building a database of over 30,000 observations. Involved with China business development for over 15 years, Pilotta is also a director of Prosper International, a business development company in Columbus, Ohio, which, in partnership with the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, the largest corporation in China, focuses on developing and implementing U.S.-China business strategy. Pilotta has authored 10 books and over 100 academically professional presentations. He holds Ph.D. degrees from Ohio University and the University of Toronto in Canada.
Thomas Porter,President/Freedom Interactive Community Newspapers, Freedom Communications, Inc.
Tom Porter is president of Freedom Community Interactive Newspapers, guiding Freedom's online activities for its community publications. He began his duties in January 2002. Previously, Porter was vice president of community newspapers for Freedom Communications, responsible for the company’s business in California, Odessa, Texas, and Clovis/Portales, New Mexico. He also held some divisional duties overseeing the group's Newspapers in Education program (NIE), the Freedom Classified Network and the Freedom Wire. Earlier, from 1997 to 1999, Porter was publisher of the Victor Valley Daily Press and the Barstow Desert Dispatch community newspapers, with combined Sunday circulation of approximately 36,000. Before Victorville, Porter was publisher of The Free Press, a 15,000-circulation daily newspaper serving Kinston, North Carolina. Porter went to The Free Press in 1994 after a two-year stint as editor of The Tribune in Fort Pierce, Florida. Porter has been a journalist since 1980. His work has taken him from the wilds of West Virginia, where he was graphics editor at the Charleston Gazette, to the smog, sunshine and traffic of Southern California, where he was assistant managing editor of editing and design at The Orange County Register. He was with the Register, Freedom Communication’s flagship newspaper, from 1983 to 1992. Freedom also owns The Free Press and The Tribune, as well as the Victor Valley Daily Press and the Barstow Desert Dispatch. Porter has served as Freedom’s representative on PAFET (Partners Affiliated for Exploring Technology), a technology consortium of six media companies – Cowles Media, A.H. Belo Corporation, McClatchy Newspapers Inc., Pulitzer Publishing Company and Central Newspapers. He is the husband of Pam Marshak and they have a 9-year-old daughter, Willis Ann.
Scott Powers,Arts Editor, Chicago Tribune
Scott Powers joined the Chicago Tribune in 2000 and was named entertainment editor in 2002. He oversees the Sunday Arts & Entertainment section as well as daily arts and entertainment coverage throughout the newspaper. Prior to the Tribune, Powers was arts editor at The Boston Globe and entertainment editor and assistant managing editor for features at the Chicago Sun-Times. His other newspaper jobs include serving as Sunday editor at the Cleveland Press and news editor at the Troy (NY) Times-Record. Powers has worked in magazines: as a founding associate editor for Northern Ohio Live, founding editor of Signals, a business technology magazine published by Ameritech (now part of SBC) and editorial director for Hill & Knowlton’s custom publishing unit. He has an undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University and a master’s degree from Kent State University where he wrote his thesis on arts criticism. Powers is currently an adjunct lecturer at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he teaches a graduate course in arts reporting and criticism .
Jeffrey Rayport,Chairman, Marketspace, LLC
Jeffrey F. Rayport is founder and chairman of Marketspace LLC, a content and consulting business that works with leading information industries companies to create sustainable competitive advantage in the networked economy. A faculty member at Harvard Business School for nearly a decade, Rayport focuses his research on new information technologies and their impacts on companies' service and marketing strategies, particularly in information-intensive industries. As a consultant, Rayport has worked with executives and corporations around the world, specializing in the development of breakthrough service strategies for network-based businesses, particularly in high-tech, media, entertainment and data services. With co-author Bernard J. Jaworski, Rayport has published three leading M.B.A.-level textbooks through publisher McGraw-Hill/Irwin on strategy in the networked economy: “e-Commerce,” “Cases in e-Commerce,” and “Introduction to e-Commerce.” He has a forthcoming trade book on service strategies in the digital age from Harvard Business School Press. At Harvard Business School, Rayport developed and taught the first e-commerce course in the United States. In developing it, Rayport authored over a hundred HBS case studies, and business plans produced by students in the course resulted in dozens of high-tech start-ups, including Yahoo! In 2001, he hosted Report on Business Television, a national, primetime weekly television show in Canada. Prior to joining the HBS faculty, Rayport was a reporter for Fortune, a telecommunications analyst for Nikko Securities in Tokyo, and a principal of the Winthrop Group, a consulting firm specializing in the history of business and technology. His writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Boston Globe, the Financial Times, The Industry Standard, the Los Angeles Times, the McKinsey Quarterly and Strategy & Business. Rayport has appeared on numerous occasions as a business commentator on public television and radio, including The NewsHour on PBS and on National Public Radio. Rayport earned an A.B. from Harvard College, an M.Phil. in international relations at the University of Cambridge, an A.M. in the history of American civilization at Harvard University and a Ph.D. at Harvard in business history. He serves as a director of several public and private companies, including Andrews McMeel Universal, CBS MarketWatch, GSI Commerce, International Data Group and ValueClick.
Donna Reed,Vice President, News, Media General Publishing Division
Donna M. Reed is the newly named vice president of news for Media General’s publishing division. She will lead efforts to improve the quality of Media General’s print journalism and focus on growing the company’s multimedia initiatives. Media General’s publishing operations include The Tampa (FL) Tribune, the Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, the Winston-Salem (NC) Journal and 22 other daily newspapers in the southeast United States. Reed was the managing editor of The Tampa Tribune, where she began her journalism career in 1974. According to the March 2003 publisher’s statement, the Tribune was one of the fastest growing newspapers in the country, and Editor & Publisher magazine named it one of the 10 newspapers “That Do It Right” in its June 2003 edition. At the Tribune, she was heavily involved in the development and expansion of zoned sections in the Tribune’s primary market and in the evolution of the Tribune into a fully paginated newspaper. In recent years, she led its transformation to a team-based newsroom immersed in a multimedia journalism environment. Reed was part of the team that developed the vision for The News Center, the complex that houses The Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV News Channel 8 and TBO.com, all companies of Media General. She is a member of the Associated Press Managing Editors board of directors. She has been a reporter, bureau chief, assistant suburban editor, suburban editor, assistant metro editor, state editor and deputy managing editor. A native of Dayton, Ohio, Reed earned her Bachelor of Arts (1973) and Master of Arts degrees (1974) from Morehead State University in Kentucky.
Howard Rheingold,
Author, Howard Rheingold Associates
Howard Rheingold is the author of several books: “Smart Mobs,” “The Virtual Community,” “Tools for Thought” and “The Virtual Community.” He was editor of The Whole Earth Review (http://www.wholeearthmag.com), The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog (http://www.well.com/user/hlr/mwecintro.html) and HotWired (http://www.hotwired.com). He is founder of Electric Minds (http://www.abbedon.com/electricminds/html/home.html) and Brainstorms (http://www.rheingold.com/community.html)
Michael Romaner,President, Morris Digital Works
Michael Romaner founded Morris Communications’ Division of Online Services in 1995 as the Internet-support arm for all Morris business units. Later, as the division began selling technology, consulting and development services to non-Morris companies across the country, it was renamed Morris Digital Works and Romaner became its first president. Today, MDW continues to provide technology and other Web-based services to Morris properties and supports dozens of local, regional and national Web sites, many with major awards for their leadership in the field. MDW also provides software and other development solutions for hundreds of businesses in the U.S. and elsewhere, and has forged close relations with many other companies, including Advance, Media General, Belo, Scripps and the New York Times Regional Group. Romaner is a former president of the Newspaper Association of America's New Media Federation. He is on the advisory boards of the American Press Institute’s Media Center and of Editor & Publisher Interactive. He is married, has a 14 year-old daughter and owns a small horse farm in the rolling hills outside of Augusta, Georgia.
Conrad Saam,
Director, Smashing Ideas, Inc.
W.E. Tige Savage,Vice President, Time Warner Ventures
W.E. Tige Savage is a corporate vice president at Time Warner where he manages half of the Time Warner Ventures team, the company's early-stage investment group designed to bring new innovation into Time Warner through deep interaction with and investments in leading private companies. Prior to joining Time Warner Ventures, Savage was executive vice president and a founder of Riggs Capital Partners, which manages two venture capital funds with commitments of $200 million. There, he invested in companies and funds focused on a variety of technology, media, and communications-oriented growth industries. Savage has also served in a number of capacities, including executive vice president and chief of staff to the chairman of the board, at Riggs Bank, a publicly-traded financial services company. For a time, he was an investment banker for Dillon, Read & Co. Savage has served in various capacities on several boards, including the board of Allbritton Communications Company where he assisted in developing that company's new media investment strategy. He earned his M.B.A. with highest distinction from The University of Michigan and his B.B.A. from James Madison University.
Jan Schaffer,Executive Director, J-Lab
Jan Schaffer launched J-Lab in December 2002 as a new center at the University of Maryland’s College of Journalism. J-Lab is helping newsrooms use innovative computer technologies to develop new ways for people to learn about important public issues – news experiences rather than news stories. The center also rewards innovative practices through the new Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism, launched in 2003 with funding from the Knight Foundation. J-Lab is a successor project to the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, a $14-million initiative that Schaffer led for nearly 10 years. The Pew Center was an incubator for better engaged people in public life. Both centers work with print and electronic journalists. Schaffer, a former business editor and a Pulitzer-Prize winner for The Philadelphia Inquirer, brings to the initiative more than 30 years of experience in the newspaper industry. In addition to tracking and nurturing best practices, she is involved in teaching and coaching in newsrooms around the country, in public speaking and writing, and in sharing the lessons learned from the newsroom projects. Schaffer joined The Inquirer in 1972 after earning a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She held a range of reporting and editing positions on the city desk, the national desk and the business news department. As business editor, she directed the reporting and editing of two investigative series that were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, one on pharmaceutical pricing and one on abuses in the nation's nonprofit sector. As federal court reporter, she helped write a series of stories that won freedom for a man wrongly convicted of five murders. The series led to the civil rights convictions of the Philadelphia homicide detectives involved in the investigation. The articles won several national journalism awards, including the 1978 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service, the Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Public Service Award, the Roy W. Howard Medal for Public Service and the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel. Also while covering federal courts, she broke the Philadelphia Abscam story about the FBI sting operation that used agents posing as Arab sheiks. She was sentenced to jail for six months for refusing to reveal her sources; the sentence was stayed on appeal. Schaffer has been a journalism fellow at Stanford University and has taught journalism courses at Temple University and workshops at the American Press Institute. She is married to a Washington Post editor and has two young children.
Jerry Schuman,
Chief Technology Officer, Versifi Technologies, Inc.
Jonathan Segal,
President, Community Newspaper Division, Freedom Communications, Inc.
Jonathan Segal has been senior vice president of Freedom Communications Inc. and president of its community newspapers division since 1999. Prior to assuming his current positions, he served as senior vice president and president of the Eastern Community Newspapers Division for eight years. Before joining the corporate staff, Segal served as senior publisher of Freedom's North Carolina newspapers and publisher of The Gaston (NC) Gazette for 10 years. He also was editor of The Free Press in Kinston, North Carolina, and worked in various circulation, advertising and editorial positions at The Brownsville (TX) Herald and The Gaston Gazette. He is past president of the North Carolina Press Association and president-elect of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. Segal has 32 years of experience in the newspaper industry and graduated from the University of Texas with an honors degree in journalism.
Michael Silberman,Deputy Editor/East Coast, MSNBC.com
As deputy editor for the East Coast, Partners & Strategy, Michael Silberman manages all MSNBC interactive program production with NBC News and MSNBC Cable. Silberman oversees coordination with NBC’s worldwide news gathering operation, the production of content and the integration of Internet, network and cable programming on all three platforms. In addition, he coordinates the editorial relationship with MSNBC's major content partners, Newsweek and The Washington Post. Silberman is also responsible for developing editorial strategy and long-range editorial product development with MSNBC.com Editor in Chief Dean Wright. Prior to this assignment, Silberman was executive editor of MSNBC.com, based in Redmond, Washington. In that role, he managed cross-newsroom projects and resources and coordinated between the newsroom and MSNBC’s technology, operations and business departments. He also led MSNBC.com’s political coverage during the 1996 general election and 1998 mid-term elections. Silberman has been a key contributor to MSNBC since the July 1996 launch of the joint venture, first as part of the start-up management team, and later as a leader of the site-wide redesign project in 1997. He also directed MSNBC’s industry-first foray into interactive television, leading the 1998 effort that made MSNBC cable the first 24/7 interactive television-news channel in the U.S. During the second half of 2002, he was acting editor in chief of MSNBC.com, overseeing all editorial operations. Silberman came to MSNBC from CBS News, making the switch from broadcast media to digital media after more than 10 years as a producer covering politics, health and consumer affairs. He began his career at CBS in 1985 as a desk assistant for CBS News radio, then quickly moved to television in an assignment with CBS’s morning news program from 1985 to 1992. In 1988, Silberman was one of the first “kids on the bus” assigned to fulltime coverage of the 1988 presidential campaign. In 1991, he was a founding producer of the CBS This Morning consumer affairs unit, with correspondent Hattie Kaufman. He covered the 1992 presidential campaign – from the Democratic primaries to Ross Perot’s first presidential foray to Bill Clinton during the general election – as producer for Scott Pelley and Bill Plante. From 1993 to 1995, he was a producer for Eye to Eye with Connie Chung. Silberman is a board member of the Online News Association. He graduated cum laude with a B.A. from Harvard University.
Robert Stern,President, Projects In Knowledge, Inc.
For 24 years Robert Stern has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Projects In Knowledge, Inc. Projects In Knowledge offers information and continuing education programs for consumers and healthcare professionals. Robert Stern graduated from the NYU School of the Arts with a BFA in film and television and a Master of Arts also from NYU. He has won numerous awards and recognition for the development of new technologies and delivery systems for medical information including digital, computer interactive and broadcast media. His firm is a founding member of MECCA and NAAMECC, the two leading medical information professional associations. Robert Stern is the editor of Genome, a collection of the best essays and articles on unlocking the secrets of the human genome. He is currently working on a collection of essays and articles on medical ethics, to be published in 2004.
Michael Stroud,
CEO, iHollywood Forum
Jake Tapper,Correspondent, ABC News (Washington Bureau)
Jake Tapper, who turns 35 on March 12, joined ABC News in June 2003. For ABC News, he has traveled to such places as Iowa and South Carolina to cover the Democratic presidential race, to Los Angeles to cover the California recall, and to South Dakota to cover the trial of Congressman Bill Janklow (R-SD). His work regularly appears on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Good Morning America and Nightline, as well as on ABC Radio and abcnews.com. Tapper most recently was a correspondent for Salon.com, where, as Washington correspondent, he broke a number of stories, including candidate George Bush's controversial trip to Bob Jones University during the 2002 presidential campaign. His reports about Enron were nominated for a 2002 Columbia University School of Journalism online journalism award. Tapper was a columnist for TALK Magazine and has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard and other publications. Before joining ABC News, Tapper was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio's All Things Considered. His work was included in “The Best American Political Writing 2002.” In broadcast, Tapper hosted The Sundance Channel's 24 Frame News in 2003 and was correspondent for a series of VH1 news specials in 2002. Throughout 2001, he appeared on the CNN news talk show, Take Five. He has served as a substitute host on a number of CNN programs, including The Point, Crossfire and The Spin Room. Tapper is the author of “Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency” (Little, Brown), and “Body Slam: The Jesse Ventura Story” (St. Martin's Press). His political comic strip, Capitol Hell, appeared in Roll Call from 1994 to 2003. He began his journalism career as a senior writer for the Washington City Paper, during which time he won a Society of Professional Journalists award. Tapper is a Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College.
Gilbert Thelen,President and Publisher, Tampa Tribune
Gil Thelen is president and publisher of The Tampa Tribune, a 240,000-circulation daily paper in Florida. He was a consultant to Knight Ridder on newsroom development prior to joining the Tribune in May 1998. Thelen was executive editor and vice president of The State, a newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, from 1990 to 1997; the Society of Newspaper Design in 1996 named it one of the three best American mid-sized papers on content and presentation. From 1987 to 1990, Thelen was editor and executive vice president of The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1990 named it one of 10 examples of excellence among small newspapers. Thelen served in a number of assistant editor positions at The Charlotte (NC) Observer from 1978 to 1987, the last as assistant managing editor for news. He was a Washington correspondent from 1966 to 1978, first for The Associated Press, then for Consumer Reports magazine and finally for the Chicago Daily News. Thelen is a graduate of Duke University and did postgraduate work at Cornell University. He often teaches at colleges and universities, is an active member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and has been a Pulitzer Prize juror. He is chairman of ASNE's Education Committee, was chairman of the ASNE Change Committee in 1995-96, was a member of the Journalism Values Institute and is a member of the ASNE Credibility Project. Thelen, 65, is married to Cynthia Struby and they have four children.
John Twohey,Vice President/Multimedia, Tribune Media Services
John Twohey is vice president for multimedia products at Tribune Media Services (TMS), a Chicago-based unit of Tribune Company. In this role, he's responsible for development and sale of Web-based information products for TMS. Twohey has served as general manager of FluentMedia, a content-licensing agency of TMS that provided news and commentary to U.S. corporations for use on their intranets, extranets and public Web sites. He previously was general manager of thepavement.com, a national, Web-based career-building service for young adults. Prior to joining thepavement.com, Twohey directed a new-product development team at Tribune Company charged with creating information products for the national consumer market. Twohey joined the Chicago Tribune in 1977, where he held a variety of newsroom-management positions, including senior editor, associate managing editor, sports editor, Sunday magazine editor, editor of the Op-Ed page and design director. Before that, he was design director for The Washington Post and has taught journalism at the University of Notre Dame. Twohey holds a bachelor's degree from Notre Dame and a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He lives in Evanston, Illinois, with his wife Mary Jane.
Vivian Vahlberg,Director of Journalism Programs, Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation
Vivian Vahlberg is director of the journalism program for the McCormick Tribune Foundation. The $7-million program makes grants, develops initiatives, hosts conferences and produces reports in five priority areas of interest. Before joining the foundation in 1992, she was executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists; chief executive officer of the National Press Building Corporation; assistant Washington bureau chief for the Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City Times and Colorado Springs Sun; and adjunct professor of journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. A native of Oklahoma City, she graduated cum laude from Rice University with a bachelor's degree in sociology. She attended Medill Graduate School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Vahlberg has served as president of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame. She was named by Working Woman magazine as one of 300 “women who have changed the world: 1976-1996.”
Mike van Niekerk,Online Managing Editor, John Fairfax Group
Mike van Niekerk has worked as a journalist in South Africa and Australia for 23 years. He was appointed managing editor, online, for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in July 2001. These two titles are owned by leading Australian publishing group John Fairfax Holdings, which also publishes The Australian Financial Review, The Sun-Herald, BRW magazine, regional and community newspapers and eight other financial and consumer magazines. Van Niekerk began his career as a reporter for South African Associated Newspapers in Johannesburg and Cape Town. He moved to Perth, Western Australia, where he was arts and literary editor of The West Australian, then moved to Melbourne to relaunch The Age’s computer section and initiate new inserted-magazine projects. He served as deputy editor of The Age while heading up the newspaper’s Internet operation as online editor. He took on an expanded role when The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age online operations were merged in mid-2001. Subsidiary sports sites of the main mastheads are rugbyheaven.com for fans of rugby union football, and realfooty.com.au for followers of Australian-rules football. Van Niekerk is a graduate of the University of Cape Town.
Katherine von Jan,Ethnofuturist, Glueh
Katherine von Jan is a business strategist with 11 years of experience in the software, telecommunications and professional services industries. She is a globally established expert in mobility, collaboration and communication. Prior to founding her current venture, Glüh, an anthropologically inspired business-strategy services firm, von Jan led knowledge management and innovation at Quam, a mobile operator and daughter company of Telefonica Movilés, based in Munich, Germany. There, von Jan co-founded the company’s think tank to develop consumer-focused wireless solutions on 3G technologies. Formerly, she led wireless practice and innovation strategy at the firm, Viant, Internet Management Consulting. She began her strategy career at Lotus Development/IBM, where she co-developed Knowledge Management strategy, solutions and organization. Among other accomplishments, von Jan served on a team of experts advising the United Nations on global information and communication strategy, as well as led development of a wireless field solution for humanitarian aid workers to collect and use refugee information to reunite families and prosecute war criminals. She is currently focused on the trends of “contribution culture,” “professional nomadicism” and on trends related to the use and perception of time. Von Jan is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, Durham, where she studied international management and anthropology.
Chris Waddle,President, The Ayers Family Inst. For Community Journalism
Chris Waddle conceived the Ayers Family Institute for Community Journalism as a school and foundation to retain community control of The Anniston Star, a northeast Alabama daily frequently honored as one of the best small newspapers in America. The institute cooperates with the University of Alabama in a master’s degree for honors students who work and study at The Star in a specialized curriculum. Waddle is a liberal arts graduate of Birmingham-Southern College and holds a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He was the 2003 James A. Clendinen Professor of Editorial and Critical Writing at the University of South Florida. In 2001, as a Fulbright Scholar, Waddle taught journalism at American University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Before joining The Star in 1982, he served as managing editor of The Kansas City (MO) Times, which was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure. His earlier newspaper assignments took place at The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, Tennessee, The Birmingham (AL) Post-Herald and The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, for which he served as a Washington correspondent. He is a frequent commentator on Alabama Public Television. As executive editor of The Anniston Star, he moved the newspaper into new media via www.annistonstar.com. A PBS-TV report, “International Journalism in America,” to be broadcast this year, is a product of a conference he developed under the title, “The Angry World.”
Alan Webber,
Founding Editor, Fast Company Magazine
Alan M. Webber is an award-winning, nationally recognized editor, author and columnist. In 1995, he launched Fast Company magazine, a fresh, dynamic entry in the business magazine category. Headquartered in Boston, the magazine became the fastest growing, most successful business magazine in history. Fast Company won two national magazine awards – one for general excellence, one for design – and Webber, along with co-founding editor William Taylor, was named Adweek’s 1999 Editor of the Year. In 2000, Fast Company magazine was sold to Gruner + Jahr for the second largest amount paid for any magazine in U.S. history. This year, Webber stepped down from his fulltime editorial responsibilities, but retains his title and contributing role as founding editor. Prior to founding Fast Company, Webber was for five years the managing editor and editorial director of the Harvard Business Review. During his tenure, HBR was twice a finalist for National Magazine awards. He oversaw the journal’s visual redesign and created the architecture for the editorial performance that continues to this day. Earlier in his career, Webber was active in the world of alternative newspapers: He worked as an editor at Willamette Week newspaper in Portland, Oregon, overseeing that paper’s commentary, editorial and op-ed section, and helped to found The Oregon Times, a political paper headed by a protégé of I.F. Stone. Webber is the co-author of two business-related books, “Changing Alliances,” a Harvard Business School study of the competitiveness of the U.S. auto industry, and “Going Global,” a look at the techniques and tactics needed to succeed in the global economy. His articles and columns have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications.
William Weiss,Chairman & CEO, The Promar Group
Bill Weiss has an established international reputation as a visionary business strategist and special advisor to executive-leadership teams, boards of directors and investors the world over. As chairman and CEO of The Promar Group, an executive-strategy firm, he has provided global companies with innovative guidance on how to embrace change, leverage technology and create new business possibilities. For over 25 years, Weiss and The Promar Group have been sought by corporations such as Clarke American, Ericsson, General Electric, IBM, Qualcomm, Steelcase and Toshiba. Weiss is also a partner in Quantum Capital Management, a venture capital firm for early-stage, business-to-business technology companies. He is a senior fellow of The Media Center at the American Press Institute, a think-tank organization that promotes innovation in news, media and enabling technologies, and is a strategic advisory-board member for the NCSU College of Engineering Computer Science Department. Weiss and Promar have been involved with and featured in many publications, including “Work Naked,” a fast-selling business book about the virtual workplace, and Fast Company magazine’s article "Fast Pack 2000,” a follow-up piece about a gathering of the movers and shakers for the year 2000 and beyond. Weiss often shares his unique viewpoints and experiences at high-level corporate and industry events. His presentations have included: "Driving Revenue and Profits from Information Technology” for the G.E. Executive Leadership Team sponsored by the CIO; “A Tour of the Future and What It May Mean To You” at the NCEITA Securing the Future Forum; “Wireless World Wide: Where Is It Going?” at the Council for Entrepreneurial Development Conference; “The Future of Technology” at the Cyber Conference by the Independent Insurance Agents of North Carolina; and “Mobile Internet in Scandinavia and North America” at an international seminar held in Stockholm, Sweden. Weiss also devotes time and the resources of his firm to projects that help young people. His corporate sponsorships include the Duke University Children’s Hospital. While pursuing an undergraduate degree in computer science at North Carolina State University, Weiss started The Promar Group and several other businesses, including a retail electronics chain, two direct marketing companies, a recording studio and an advertising agency. By the time he completed his degree in 1976, those businesses had grown into multi-million-dollar enterprises. As other executives and investors from around the world began to approach Weiss to take advantage of his insights, he transformed The Promar Group into one of the first virtual enterprises and began to selectively engage executive associates to form the basis of his and Promar’s continued success.
Lawrence Wilkinson,Chairman of Heminge & Condell / Co-founder of GBN, Global Business Network
As chairman of Heminge & Condell (H&C), Lawrence Wilkinson is involved in venture-formation work and directs and counsels a number of companies he helped create, among them Global Business Network (GBN), Ealing Studios, Design Within Reach, Oxygen Media and Character. He is a frequent speaker in public, industry and corporate settings and is active in a variety of not-for-profit organizations. Wilkinson serves as executive director and advisor to Ealing Studios, Ltd., the oldest continuously operating film studio in the world. He continues to serve as vice chairman of Oxygen Media, Inc., which provides cable television service reaching 50 million households in the U.S. as well as award-winning Web services (www.oxygen.com, www.oprah.com). In 1987, Wilkinson co-founded and became president of Global Business Network (now part of the Monitor Group), the strategic consulting firm central to the development and spread of the Scenario Planning technique that has become a critical component of organizational and project planning worldwide. He remains active as a GBN Network member and strategist. Wilkinson helped form, then served as director and chief architect, of Wired Ventures, the partnership responsible for Wired Magazine, Wired Digital/HotWired and other ventures. From 1984 to 1990, he was president of Colossal Pictures, an award-winning film, television and digital-entertainment production company. Prior to Colossal, he was the managing partner of Wilkinson and Associates, a consulting firm offering counsel on business strategy and venture formation. He was instrumental in founding Business Times, a pioneering cable and radio financial-news service that spawned such “children” as CNN/fn and The Wall Street Journal Report. In 1983, with Tom Peters, he created Excel/Net, a multimedia management program still in use at companies around the world. Wilkinson has authored and edited numerous publications and Harvard Business School case studies. He has produced and executive-produced numerous television programs, multimedia titles and feature films, including the award-winning “Crumb” (Sony Pictures Classics). He is a regular contributor to general and business periodicals, and to national television, cable and radio business-news programs. Wilkinson is a graduate of Harvard Business School, Oxford University and Davidson College. For years he served as vice chair of the San Francisco Film Society/San Francisco International Film Festival. He lives in San Francisco with his daughter, Nora.
Christopher Willis,Principal, Hypergene Media Solutions
Chris Willis, who has been working in the media business for 15 years, is a principal of Hypergene Media Solutions, a media consulting and design firm, which has redesigned The Cleveland Plain Dealer and worked on magazine and Web development with Hearst and Smithsonian. Prior to that, Willis worked as a user experience/interface designer for Ericsson's Mobile Internet Consulting Group and was Chief of Design for Belo Interactive, establishing practices of design, content and production for national network of the 25 local web sites under the Belo umbrella. Willis also was a co-founder and Art Director of Hour Detroit Magazine an award-winning city magazine in Michigan. In addition, he worked for The Dallas Morning News, The Detroit News and The Burlington Free Press. Willis is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire. He is the co-author of several whitepapers on participatory journalism: “We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information” “Amazoning The News” and “Playing the News.” He writes regularly about participatory journalism on Hypergene MediaBlog (www.hypergene.net/blog/). He is also the co-author, with Shayne Bowman, of “Designing Web Sites That Sell” by Peachpit Press (2002).
William Winter,President, William Winter & Associates, LLC
Bill Winter retired as API's president and executive director on October 1, 2003. Born and reared in Jonesboro, Arkansas, he began his journalism career as sports editor of the Truman (AR) Democrat. He taught journalism at San Antonio College and Central Michigan University, then became sports editor and county reporter for the Bozeman (MT) Chronicle. Beginning in 1970, he spent seven years with The Associated Press, with early general assignment and sports writing positions in Helena, Montana, Louisville, Kentucky, and Columbus, Ohio. He became a correspondent in The AP's Cincinnati bureau in 1972, and in 1973 moved to Jackson, Mississippi, as correspondent. In 1975, he became Kentucky bureau chief. After a one-year hiatus as a country singer/guitarist in Louisville, Winter became executive sports editor of the Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times. He was named assistant managing editor/news of the Akron (OH) Beacon Journal in 1979, then became executive editor of the Star-News in Pasadena, California, in 1984. He joined the American Press Institute as director in September 1987, and was named president and executive director in 1990. Under his leadership, API significantly broadened its program offerings, adding a Media Center and distance-learning programming, and developing tailored-learning activities for individual newspaper companies. Under Winter’s guidance, the institute completed a $10-million endowment campaign and a $5.2-million headquarters building addition and renovation project. Winter holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in journalism from Arkansas State University and Ohio University, respectively, and a Ph.D. in administration in higher education from Kent State University. He is a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and served on the board of directors of the World Editors Forum. He was a Pulitzer Prize juror in 1992 and 1993. He received the L.J. Hortin Distinguished Alumnus Award from the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, and the Legacy Flame Award from the Society of Professional Journalists chapter at Tennessee State University. Winter recently launched William Winter & Associates, LLC, a media consultancy.
Leonard Witt,Robert Fowler Distinguished Chair in Communication, Kennesaw State University
Leonard Witt has spent most of his professional career as an award-winning journalist. As executive director of the Minnesota Public Radio Civic Journalism Initiative, his last major project there won the Silver Gavel Award, the American Bar Association’s top national award. Witt was editor of Minnesota Monthly magazine, the Minneapolis Star Tribune Sunday Magazine and the Allentown (PA) Morning Call’s A.M. magazine. He conceived and edited “The Complete Book of Feature Writing” (Writer’s Digest Books, 1991) and has an M.A. in nonfiction writing from the University of New Hampshire. He is founding president of the Public Journalism Network (PJNet.org), a new professional society for journalists and academics, and is chair of the Civic Journalism Interest Group with the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Currently, Witt is helping launch the Community Voice Empowerment Center to help nonprofits, grassroots organizations and citizen advocates get their voices heard in the media and public policy arena. His articles and opinion pieces have appeared in Folio, the Columbia Journalism Review, Blair and Ketchum’s Country Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer and numerous other publications.
Tom Wolzien,Senior Media Analyst, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC
Tom Wolzien is senior media analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC, a subsidiary of Alliance Capital Management L.P. He provides large institutional investors with analyses of publicly traded media conglomerates, including AOL Time Warner, Disney and Viacom, and the cable companies Cox and Comcast. Before joining Bernstein in 1991, Wolzien spent 16 years at NBC in positions ranging from White House field producer for NBC News and executive producer of various news programs, to vice president of worldwide news operations. As senior vice president of NBC’s cable division, he was part of the team that helped start CNBC. Wolzien began his career as a reporter-photographer and producer for television stations in Denver, St. Louis and Green Bay, Wisconsin. A graduate of the University of Denver, he served as officer-in-charge of an Army combat photography unit in Vietnam. Wolzien has been awarded multiple patents for his inventions linking television and radio programming with the Internet. Wolzien is married to Valerie Wolzien, who is author of some 20 published female-oriented murder-mystery novels. They live in the Hudson River Valley north of New York City.
Dean Wright,VP & Editor in Chief, MSNBC
Dean Wright serves as editor-in-chief of MSNBC.com, the leader in breaking news and original journalism on the Internet.
Wright returned to MSNBC.com from AOL Time Warner, where he served as senior director of programming integration for America Online. In that post, Wright helped direct the integration Time, Inc.’s editorial content into AOL. He also served as senior director of programming and promotions for Netscape/AOL Web Properties and helped lead that company’s effort to transform Netscape’s browser into a media Web site. Wright spent four years at MSNBC.com as managing editor for news, helping launch MSNBC.com into the Web’s No. 1 news destination by developing the site’s original reporting, including coverage of the 1998 elections, the impeachment crisis and the 2000 presidential primary campaigns. Before his first tenure at MSNBC.com, Wright worked as a reporter and supervisor at The Associated Press’s Washington Bureau. Over the prior 20 years, Wright held a range of editorial positions at leading metropolitan dailies, including the The Baltimore Sun, The Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal, The Kansas City (MO) Star and The San Jose Mercury News, one of the nation’s first newspapers to go online. Wright began his journalism career in Canada, where he worked for a number of newspapers, including The Albertan, The London Free Press and The Toronto Star. Wright lives with his wife in Redmond, Washington.
Owen Youngman,
VP/Development, Chicago Tribune
Owen Youngman was named vice president for development of Chicago Tribune Company in August 2000. He currently directs and facilitates product development, cross-department and cross-company project management and strategic planning, as well as the community relations and community development departments. Youngman served as the Chicago Tribune’s first director of interactive media from 1995 to 1999, with both editorial and P&L responsibility for the newspaper’s efforts on the Internet and America Online. In that job, he created and operated such award-winning Web sites as chicagotribune.com and metromix.com. More recently, Youngman oversaw the projects that led to the launch of RedEye, the Tribune’s daily tabloid newspaper for young urban commuters; the introduction of the Sunday Tribune’s new Q section; and the acquisition of Chicago magazine. Over the course of a Chicago-Tribune career that began in 1971 as a copy boy on the weekend night shift, Youngman has held positions as deputy sports editor, associate metropolitan editor of suburban news, associate features editor, associate managing editor of financial news and managing editor of features, among others. He serves on the boards of Swedish Covenant Hospital and Legacy.com Inc.
Robert Zadek,President, MacroThinking, Inc.
Robert Zadek is the founder and president of Macro Thinking Incorporated, a consulting and education firm dedicated to the design and facilitation of strategic collaboration with an emphasis on the use of Web-based GDSS (group decision support systems). Since 1982, he has worked with senior managers to support collaborative planning, decision making and organizational alignment globally. In 1994 he coined the term “CollaborWriting” as a way to describe the union of decision support technology with proprietary facilitation processes and technique. He has facilitated hundreds of complex planning and decision sessions for companies including Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Merck, Glaxo-SmithKline, Roche, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Nabisco, Warner Lambert, AT&T Long Distance and AT&T Wireless. Zadek was a pioneer creativity technologist, in the early 1980s introducing IdeaFisher™ to accelerate idea invention at advertising agencies and at packaged goods and technology companies. Zadek is a product of San Francisco State University where he majored in fine art and English. He has held positions as a photographer, scriptwriter and industrial film producer. He resides in the San Francisco area where he enjoys mountain biking, yoga, photography and is authoring a book on CollaborWriting.
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