Speakers

Here you’ll find the latest lineup of who’s going to be presenting at the Twitter Conference in Seattle on March 8th, 2010.

Look like an awesome lineup? We think it is. Go ahead and snag your tickets now.

Ben Parr is the Co-Editor of Mashable, one of the world’s largest and most respected publications on social media and web technology. Ben has written on-and-off for Mashable since August 2008, but became Associate Editor in March 2009 and Co-Editor that September.

Ben was also the Project Manager and Promoter for Free Lunch, a social networking application start-up. We created a beautiful app called FriendQuilts. You could build video and photo mosiacs commemorating an event or thing and share it with friends.

Dom Sagolla, Author, @TheBook. Dom Sagolla helped create Twitter while working for Odeo in 2006. He grew up in New England before attending Swarthmore College, where he earned a degree in English Literature in 1996 and created Dom.net. A software engineer in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom, Dom returned to get his Masters in Education from Harvard University in 2000. Since then he has helped build Macromedia Studio, Odeo Studio, the original Twttr, Adobe Creative Suite, and now produces iPhone apps with his company DollarApp in San Francisco. His successes include the official Obama ‘08 iPhone App, as well as two iTunes Staff Favorites: Big Words and Math Cards.

Dom’s forthcoming book “140 Characters” describes the short form as a new genre of literature. @TheBook deals with the deluge of information in social media, and how to command an audience using one’s unique voice. With over 25 active Twitter accounts of various types, he can be found simply as @dom: user number 9 on the system.

Damon Cortesi, Founder, Untitled Startup

Damon has been developing Twitter applications since 2007 when he whipped up a quick Perl script to analyze the patterns of his first 2,000 tweets and has been hooked ever since. Since then, he’s built a number of other Twitter tools and sites including TweetStats and TweepSearch and ultimately Damon started a new social media company in 2010 called Untitled Startup that is crowdsourcing solutions for social media professionals.

Before his addiction to Twitter, Damon spent ten years as a computer security consultant, most recently in the payment card industry and web application security spaces. He provided consulting and training services for several financial industry and Fortune 500 clients. Despite embracing social media, he’s also concerned about the privacy and security implications and has talked at a number of security conferences to that effect.

Jennifer Leggio, ZDNet. is passionate about all things social media, especially enterprise, security, privacy and reputation issues, which is why she writes about these issues for ZDNet. She has been a writer and communications professional for more than 15 years and currently works at the cross-section of social media and security as director of strategic communications for Fortinet, a leading network security appliance vendor. Jennifer has led or supported interactive social networking efforts for industry conferences including SOURCE Boston, RSA Conference and Black Hat USA, and founded the Security Twits, a community for network security professionals. She contributed to “Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging can Help or Hurt Your Company” (2008) and co-hosts the Quick’n’Dirty Social Media Podcast with Aaron Strout. She’s also a frequent speaker on social media, including events such as Twitter Conference, Blog World Expo, Social Media Club, Girls In Tech, and so on. Jennifer was profiled in Silicon Valley San Jose Business Journal’s 2009 “40 Under 40″ edition, as a rising star for 2009.

Robert Scoble, Building43, Rackspace. Robert is a blogger, technical evangelist, and author. Scoble is best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft. He is married to Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble. He has two sons, Patrick, from a previous marriage, and Milan. He is currently closing out his work at Fast Company as a video blogger. He is also the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers with Shel Israel.

H.B. Siegel is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for IMDb.com, an Amazon.com company. IMDb is the largest and most comprehensive website addressing film and television. H.B developed and enjoys working with his colleagues on IMDb’s Twitter & Facebook presences. Prior to joining IMDb, H.B. founded and managed Amazon’s Media Technology (Digital) group, creating Amazon’s first offerings in digital downloads, digital library, Search Inside the Book, e-books & documents, video, and MP3 music. He currently holds twelve patents in various areas of digital media.

Before that, H.B. was CTO for Industrial Light+Magic and Skywalker Sound, in Marin, California, worked at SGI in charge of Core Graphics including OpenGL, at Pixar managing a real-time graphics development team, and at Wavefront managing groups developing foundational technologies for Maya.

Mónica Guzmán is a newsgatherer at seattlepi.com and the main contributor to The Big Blog, which was named the Best Blog of 2008 by the Western Washington chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Tinkering with ways to better connect readers to news has made her something of an online news evangelist, speaking in both classrooms and conferences about things like community engagement, social media and promising trends in journalism. In May 2009, she served as guest faculty for a four-day digital skills seminar for journalists at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

She joined the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in January 2007 as a Hearst Newspapers Fellow, covering the culture of technology in a weekly column and a blog, Net Native. When the P-I shut down its print publication in March 2009, she stayed on with the online-only news site.

Under Jesse’s leadership, CoTweet has quickly become the go-to Twitter platform for many of the world’s most admired brands, including Whole Foods, Starbucks, JetBlue, Ford, Microsoft and others. Prior to founding CoTweet, Jesse developed award-winning web strategies for organizations such as Swatchbox Technologies, Armstrong World Industries, Citibank, Prudential, Hershey Foods, The Wharton School and Prentice Hall.

An expert in corporate microblogging, Jesse has been widely quoted in leading national/social media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, CNET/Webware, Mashable and InformationWeek, among others. Jesse completed his undergraduate studies at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he concentrated in marketing and entrepreneurial management. Aside from Twitter, Jesse’s hobbies include spending time with his wife and three boys.

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

I am Jenni Hogan and I live in Seattle with my wonderful husband Josh. He’s the reason I have the last name Hogan. I often get asked if I’m related to Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee). Although I know a lot about that movie, I don’t know much about us being related. My husband doesn’t think we are and since it’s his last name I’ll take that as fact. It would be fun to start the rumor though don’t you think? That’s not a knife, this is a knife! See I could be related?

During the day I work as a traffic anchor at KIRO TV. I got into television while I was at the University of Washington. At first I started studying Economics, as I love numbers (there’s a weird random fact about me). During my sophomore year I shared a house with 10 football players. A few of them got in trouble with the law and I was surprised at how the media covered it. I ended up writing a letter to “The Daily” (our school newspaper). They published it and when I walked into the gym that day, the athletes all thanked me for getting their side out. That was a huge moment for me. I realized how powerful the media is and loved being a part of helping people get their side out. After that I started taking Communication classes, and graduated with a double degree in Communications and Economics.

Adam Loving, Software developer and entrepreneur, creator of Twibes. Adam is a software developer and entrepreneur with a keen interest in social media. He has been a computer hacker since the 1980s, cited in Lotus Magazine in his early teens. Adam’s passion for viral user experience design led him to create Twibes, a group site taking Twitter by storm. Adam has worked as a software consultant for both giant and tiny companies, but prefers startups. He got burnt out in 1996 and took a short 11 month trip around the world to visit 24 countries.

Adam was featured in Microsoft’s “A Startup A Week” documentary series, where he built a Facebook app to help Room to Read raise money for a computer lab in Cambodia. Adam is also the inventor of the Zuckerbuck (one of the first virtual currencies on Facebook). His Facebook app “Dumb Americans” won an overnight coding contest at the CommunityNext conference in San Jose. In addition to being the founder of Twibes, and chief dog walker for his Great Dane Gretel, Adam is “Twitter guy” at Gist – a company he helped incubate for Vulcan Capital.

Shauna Causey manages communications, community relations and social media for Comcast. She was recently voted in the 100 Top Women in Tech by the Puget Sound Business Journal’s TechFlash. Shauna serves on the board of directors for Social Media Club Seattle as the Communications Director. In early 2009, she started Voluntweetup, an event series where local technology enthusiasts volunteer to train and educate non-profits how to effectively use social media. She is on the steering committee for Twestival Seattle (part of a global non-profit social media event) and Gnomedex (the premier Puget Sound tech conference). You can also find Shauna on Seattle 2.0 TV interviewing tech startup companies, co-hosting a weekly social media Google Wave chat, and volunteering to help local non-profits and elected officials with their social media efforts.

She has more than 15 years of experience in the communications industry and has worked for the Seattle Mariners, Fox Sports Net, FOX, and Comcast.

Ayush Agarwal, Venture Associate, Madrona Venture Group. Ayush is very excited about the opportunities which Twitter has created by providing such an elegant framework for sharing information. He believes that ‘Tweets’ as a content type fill a very important gap in ‘information spectrum’ that spans from IP packets to websites. Ayush sees Twitter as a web convergence application that combines important aspects of blogging, social-networking, search, discovery, messaging, and more. At Madrona Ayush evaluates investment opportunities and advises portfolio companies on a range of issues. He has developed a deep interest in social-media, particularly Twitter, and follows the space very closely.

Besides startups and social media, Ayush is into dancing (esp salsa), cycling, and design. He grew up in India, Nepal, and Singapore, and calls Seattle home. You can connect with him at @yush. He also has about thirty other Twitter accounts. You might be interested in @yush_140tc, @yush_design, and @yush_Seattle.

Ryan Holmes, CEO – Ryan Holmes is the CEO of HootSuite Media, Inc. and also co-founded Invoke Media in 2000.

Ryan’s experience combines diverse management skills with solid industry and technical knowledge in addition to academic knowledge through the University of Victoria School of Business and Okanagan College plus hands-on entrepreneurial experience through several start-up ventures including a restaurant chain, a tourist adventure business, and an e-commerce store with 3m+/year revenues. Holmes frequently appears in media interviews, speaks at conferences and participates in industry panels about the future of the social web.

Dan Shapiro is the former CEO and co-founder of Ontela, which merged with Photobucket in December of 2009. He currently holds a seat on the board of directors at the newly formed Photobucket Corporation.

Prior to founding Ontela, Dan managed development of the RealArcade service at RealNetworks, enabling thousands of end-users to play classic games such as Monopoly, Scrabble and Rollercoaster Tycoon on their desktops. He arrived at RealNetworks by way of Wildseed, where he managed software development for the Identity Cellular Phone, from the modem to the Linux platform to the user interface. Dan started his career at Microsoft, where he was responsible for Windows XP user interface components, the critically acclaimed Windows PowerToys, Windows 2000 Storage Management, and consumer storage in Windows 98.

Dan is a frequent speaker and serves on the Board of Directors of the Washington Technology Industry Association. He has been awarded six patents, and received his B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.

Rich Harris is the Senior Manager of Social Media at Seagate Technology. With over 10 years of online marketing experience, he has worked within the consumer and enterprise spaces, both software and hardware. He has a passion for people, community building, and a strong aversion to online marketing’s status quo. Since he started his social media role with Seagate in July 2008, he has helped Seagate go from a traditional online marketing presence to a solid social media-infused strategy that focuses on spreading the hard drive gospel to their consumer, SMB, and enterprise audiences through multiple Twitter accounts, augmenting Seagate’s marketing efforts worldwide. Before Seagate, Rich had dabbled in code (web development,  SCM engineer), creative (site/UI design), and analysis (SEO/SEM, user behavior). Regardless of what he’s doing, as long as it has to do with people and the web, he’s a happy camper.

He’s a father of three boys, blogger, artist, photographer, and musician. Follow him on Twitter (@47project). Check out his blog at 47project.com.

Maya is an entrepreneur, writer, a social media and technology geek. who is insanely passionate about education and enabling communities. After more than a decade in technology and business in larger companies ( Qwest, Compuware, ACS), Maya founded Memetales – a revolutionary online marketplace for children’s picture books and related merchandize. Maya is Director of Education at Social Media Club, Seattle; sits on the advisory board for the Digital Arts Program at The Everett Community College and was heavily involved in the production of the tech conference Gnomedex 9.0. She regularly speaks (Ignite Seattle, 140conf, Wordcamp, Blissdom ), moderates panels and training sessions related to technology entrepreneurship and Social Media. Maya writes at the leading Simplemom blog in addition to her own blogs.

Kathy E. Gill, Department of Communication, University of Washington. Kathy teaches graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Washington, Department of Communication. Her primary appointment is with the Master of Communication Digital Media program, but she also teaches undergraduate digital journalism. Her research focus is the impact digital communication technologies are having on institutions of power, specifically journalism and politics.

Kathy’s blog, WiredPen, supports her classes with tech news and commentary and helps ease the itchy finger “must write!” gene. She has worked as a writer for About.com (now a New York Times property) twice: 1998-2000 and 2004-2009.

Ricardo Rabago has been using media socially since the early 1990s.

He’s been online since the early 1980s on various CompuServe bulletin boards, posted on Usenet, built web sites and participated in virtual environments since the early 1990s.

Since then, he has helped politicians, non-profits, corporations and others use online social media to share their story online utilizing technologies like ebooks, enewsletter, audio/video streaming and podcasting.

Today serving as a consumer-owned natural food co-operative Buzz Agent through the use of social media, including blogs, vlogs, Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and more. Encouraging, advising and contributing to the use of social media tools and outreach. Providing counsel to marketing or division counterparts on consumer messaging and strategy as it relates to consumers perception of the co-operative online.

Twitter: @pcc and @rrabago

Sean Demery is a nationally recognized, award winning program director, music director and air talent with over 30 years of broadcast experience. (click here for accolades) He is a creative coach, talent councilor and programming consultant for Alternative, AAA, Classic Rock, Modern AC and emerging hybrids.

He builds stations and audio sources based on years of winning experience strongly coupled with new ideas that take your project from the status quo to new models of media.Sean’s latest endeavor is to get radio to embrace social media as a way to build community and help take radio to the next level.

The next level for radio is to become a media outlet rather than just a portable loudspeaker.

Byron is the Principal of Textura Design, an agency that specializes in creative and interesting approaches to social media. He’s a full-time blogger, inventor of the consumer product Clip-n-Seal, and coauthor of Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Your Business, a New Riders book.

In his career, Byron built many of the original business blogs for Fortune 100 companies. He evangelizes new web technologies, developing and deploying strategies to integrate them into business practice. He also founded and publishes Bike Hugger, a blog about bike culture and rides his bicycle in faraway places like Europe, China, and India.

Steve Broback, Founder, The Parnassus Group. Steve Broback is the founder of the Blog Business Summit and the Web Community Forum conferences. He is also the coauthor of Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business (Peachpit Press, 2006.) He also co-founded Thunder Lizard Productions, (a technology event production company) in 1991, which became a subsidiary of Fawcette Technical Publications in 2000.

At Thunder Lizard, Broback orchestrated some of the most successful technology events of the last 10 years focusing on Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Macromedia DreamWeaver. He also produced TLP’s Web Design World, Macromedia Web World, and other events with attendees numbering in the tens of thousands.

Jason Preston, Director of New Media, The Parnassus Group. Jason has worked with clients on shaping blogger engagement strategies, creating blogs, conceptualizing Facebook applications, and has spoken about Social Media at the Web Community Forum, PodCamp Seattle, and the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. He has been quoted on social media and online communication technologies in the Sydney Morning Herald and in The Observer.

Jason is also the co-founder of L33tsauce.com, a site where gamers can collect ad revenue from tips, tricks, and secrets shared on easy-to-make web pages.