Speakers
Prem Aparanji
Principal Consultant, CRM Cognizant
With extensive experience in CRM, business process management, quality assurance, and solutions & innovations management, Prem Kumar Aparanji leads the Social CRM initiatives at Cognizant Technology Solutions and evangelizes about it in the external world. A thinker, tinker, and innovator, Prem has been deeply involved in the formation and definition of the Social CRM space. He draws upon his wide experience working on various projects for Global 2000 companies across various industries and continents as well as his deep involvement in open source and other communities to bring the burgeoning world of social computing into the enterprise.
Laura Buchanan
Social Community Specialist, Future Shop
Laura Buchanan started working with online communities in University while participating in her program’s co-op program and has been working in the online space ever since. Now Social Community Specialist at Future Shop, Canada’s #1 consumer electronics retailer, she is responsible for the strategy and management of the Forums, Blogs, webcasts and a variety of other social media initiatives. If not in front of her computer it’s likely you’ll be able to find her in Whistler snowboarding.
Rebecca Carroll
Community Program Manager, Verizon
Becky Carroll is the Community Program Manager for Verizon. She is responsible for developing the strategy for the Community forums as well working with her team to integrate the community with other Verizon social media. Her business blog Customers Rock! is listed in the Top 5 of the Top 50 Customer Service Sites. She is a regular personality on nationally-syndicated, The Big Biz Show, and teaches the “Marketing via New Media” class at the UC San Diego Extension.
Previously, Becky was a Senior Consultant for Peppers & Rogers Group and worked at HP for 14 years, including a role as Director of Marketing for UK and Ireland.
Ray "Catfish" Comstock
Senior Search Strategist at BusinessOnLine
Ray "Catfish" Comstock has over 10 years of experience in the search marketing industry, specializing exclusively in organic search engine optimization and social media strategy. He has presented at numerous industry conferences, including the Online Marketing Summit, is a contributing author to the BusinessOnLine SEO Blog – syndicated through WebPro News, and is quoted extensively in trade and business publications.
Gina Debogovich
Social Media Strategist - Enterprise Customer Care, Best Buy
Gina Debogovich provides strategic direction for Best Buy and its family of brands in the online space. She engages directly with customers on Twitter (@Gina_BestBuy), appears in Best Buy's bi-weekly videos, and writes “Best Living”, one of Best Buy's blogs. Gina leads a team of employees who are responsible for the day-to-day operations of customer-facing online communities across a variety of the Best Buy brands. Since the team is responsible for moderating nearly all of Best Buy’s online customer-facing engagements, it endeavors to usher a consistent brand voice through all of these communities. For leading Best Buy into the new online realm, Gina and her team were honored with receiving the company’s highest honor: The Chairman’s Award, Honorable Mention. Gina has worked with online communication for over a decade and holds two graduate degrees, one in psychology and the other in IT.
Frank Eliason
Senior Director, Comcast National Customer Operations,Comcast
Frank Eliason is a Senior Director for Comcast’s National Customer Operations. In the past few years, Frank has become well known in social media for the Customer Service outreach function that his team has been involved with. This work has been recognized by many news organizations such as ABC News, New York Times, Business Week, among many others. Taking the simple approach of asking "Can we help?" has created new communication channels for customers and an improved customer experience. Prior to joining Comcast in 2007, Frank had worked in Customer Service management for Advanta Bank and Vanguard Investments.
Michael Fauscette
Group Vice President, Software Business Solutions, IDC
Michael Fauscette leads IDC's Software Business Solutions Group, which includes research and consulting in ERP, SCM, CRM, and PLM Applications (and the associated business process that the software supports), small and medium business applications, partner and alliance ecosystems, open source, software vendor business models (SaaS) and software pricing and licensing. Having extensive executive experience with software vendors ranging from large enterprise companies to small Silicon Valley start ups, Mr. Fauscette brings a unique perspective by relating research data and trends to the overall strategic focus and go-to-market strategy of application software companies.
Paul Greenberg
Best-Selling CRM Author and Owner at The 56 Group
In addition to being the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century, Paul Greenberg is President of The 56 Group, LLC, a customer strategy consulting firm, focused on cutting-edge CRM strategic services and a founding partner of the CRM training company, BPT Partners, LLC, a training and consulting venture composed of a number of CRM luminaries that has quickly become the certification authority for the CRM industry.
His book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century, now in its third edition, is in eight languages and been called “the bible of the CRM industry”. It is used by more than 70 universities as a primary text. It was named “the number 1 CRM book” by SearchCRM.com in 2002 and is one of two books recommended by CustomerThink. The Asian edition of CIO Magazine named it one of the 12 most important books an Asian CEO will ever read. Paul has also authored two other books, including “E-Government for Public Officials” (Thompson Publishing, 2003).
Paul is also the co-chairman of Rutgers University’s CRM Research Center and the Executive Vice President of the CRM Association. He is a Board of Advisors member of the Baylor University MBA Program for CRM majors, a unique national program.
Mark Hopkins
Social Media Program Manager, Lenovo
Mark Hopkins is a Social Media Program Manager, Corporate Blogger, and Community Manager at Lenovo. Joining the new Lenovo in 2005 following twelve years in IBM's PC Division, his career path is diverse and includes time technical support, product development, user-centered design, project management, and customer satisfaction programs. Mark draws upon this collective experience to build a global community that is leveraged to provide support, improve quality, and improve satisfaction and loyalty. The Lenovo community was cited in a 2009 Forrester study and was a Groundswell Award Finalist.
Charlie Isaacs
eServices Strategic Advisor, Genesys
Charlie Isaacs has more than 20 years of experience in the industry is currently is responsible for eServices Strategy at Genesys, a division of Alcatel Lucent. He was most recently CTO and Chief Customer Officer at KANA Software. KANA Software provides customer service solutions for many of the world’s largest companies. Prior to KANA, Charlie was CTO for Primus Knowledge Solutions, acquired by Art Technology Group. Charlie is listed as an author on over five patent applications in the eServices/Knowledge Management space and is a member of the Chief Customer Officers Council.
Esteban Kolsky
Principal and Founder, ThinkJar, LLC
Esteban Kolsky is the Principal and Founder of ThinkJar LLC, an advisory and research thinktank focused on customer strategies.
He has over 22 years of experience in customer service and CRM consulting, research, and advisory services. Most recently he spent eight years at Gartner, focused on Customer Service and CRM research. While there, he coined the terms for EFM (Enterprise Feedback Management) and CIH (Customer Interaction Hub). In addition, he researched and wrote on the social networking topics that led to today’s revolution and assisted Fortune 500 and Global 2,000 organizations in all aspects of their CRM deployments.
Mr. Kolsky is currently advising vendors and organizations on how to extend customer interactions from the CRM niche to the entire organization in their efforts to become Social Businesses.
He attended California Polytechnic University at Pomona, where he graduated with a degree in Business Administration and minors in Computer Information Systems, Telecommunications, and Economics.
Randy Ksar
Social Media Marketing Manager, Motorola
Randy Ksar currently manages the social media strategy for MOTODEV which is Motorola’s developer program focused on mobile devices and Motorola’s latest Android phones. He is constantly listening and engaging with the MOTODEV community via blogs, discussion boards, and numerous social networks like Twitter, Facebook, G-SNAP!, blogtalkradio, and YouTube.
Michele Mitchell
VP of Audience Development, Research & Retention, iVillage Networks
As Vice President of Audience Development, Research and Retention at iVillage Networks, Michele Mitchell drives the growth of the iVillage community by attracting, tracking, and retaining new, untapped audiences by deploying iVillage content and branded experiences. Michele has oversight of the Audience Development, Community, Search Engine Optimization, Newsletter, Research, and Web Analytics teams.
Michele has over 15 years of professional experience in customer acquisition and retention as an accomplished marketing executive with a proven record of incubating businesses and growing revenue streams. Prior to joining iVillage, she was Vice President of Audience Development for RDA Interactive. Before that, Mitchell spent 10 years at Time Inc., leading consumer marketing efforts for publications such as Sports Illustrated, Time, and Entertainment Weekly.
Sean O'Driscoll
Co-Founder, CEO & Ant Advocate, Ant's Eye View
Prior to co-founding Ant’s Eye View, Sean O'Driscoll was a 15 year veteran at Microsoft Corporation. In his most recent capacity as General Manager, Community Support Services, Sean was responsible for developing social media and community-based support models and leading the global Microsoft MVP program. The MVP program was designed to award and recognize amazing individuals in technical communities around the globe who share a passion for technology and the spirit of community.
Sean is the Co-Chair of the Influencer Council for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, and graduated from Pacific University (1992) in Forest Grove, Oregon, with degrees in Business Administration and Philosophy.
Jeremiah Owyang
Partner, Customer Strategy Altimeter Group
Jeremiah Owyang is Partner of Customer Strategy at Altimeter Group, a strategy consulting firm that provides thought leadership, research, and consulting on digital strategies. He works closely with clients to craft and deliver successful, long-term strategies which integrate customer and community needs, business objectives, and technology.
Previously, he was a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, and has over 10 years experience as a practitioner on both the vendor and brand side. He’s frequently quoted in the mainstream press, speaks at conferences all over the world, and serves as a regular columnist for Forbes magazine.
Michael Procopio
Social Media Strategist, HP Software and Solutions
Michael Procopio has more than 25 years experience in high-tech organizations as a business leader and technology and marketing manager. In addition to his regular duties, Michael teaches social media to various groups inside HP; manages Social Wednesday, a speaker series on social media; and writes the internal Social Media Update monthly newsletter. Michael is a member of the Society for New Communications Research, HP Digital Marketing Council, the IEEE and is a trained HP Wikipedian.
Will Rose
Sr. Analyst, Web & Self-Help Product Methods & Procedures -
Customer Service Operations Support T-Mobile
An eight year T-Mobile veteran, Will Rose leverages his front-line customer support experiences in his current role where he strives to take T-Mobile's award-winning customer service online. Responsible for T-Mobile's customer community and Twitter programs, Will has created spaces which allow T-Mobile customers to connect with each other as well as with the company. Will's programs led to the creation of a new cost-saving team within Customer Service responsible for managing T-Mobile's presence on several social media networks and delivering real-time customer feedback to all lines of business. His current projects find him investigating means of harnessing crowd-sourced content to supplement or replace in-house knowledge creation.
Kevin Ryan
Digital & Social Media Consultant, Kevin S. Ryan
Kevin S. Ryan is a Digital and Social Media Consultant who ran content and community programs at Barnes & Noble for nearly a decade. He created the company's online book clubs, built the audio and video channels, and directed the social media strategy. Kevin has led content programs at startups and established brands, and began his career in journalism, including stints at New York Newsday and The New York Times. Today, Kevin is building a digital consulting practice specializing in social media, customer engagement and social commerce.
Jaeme Sines Lackowski
Senior Community Relations Manager, LeapFrog Enterprises, Inc.
A seasoned communications professional who has quickly embraced and pioneered social media best practices, Jaeme Laczkowski in 2008 firmly ushered LeapFrog into the online space, building both a Parents Community and Facebook channel from the ground up. In 2009, membership in LeapFrog’s social channels increased by more than 600 percent, due to Jaeme’s strategic development initiatives and low-cost engagement practices. More than ten years spent in public relations, crisis and corporate communications, and brand positioning, for clients such as Horizon Organic, Mattel Interactive, and Intuit have informed Jaeme’s ability to tightly integrate social media outreach with traditional marketing and CRM, for highly leveraged campaigns company-wide.
Shaazia Stonehocker
User Experience Design Lead – Communities & Social Media, HP
Shaazia Stonehocker joined HP in 2007 as the User Experience Design Lead for communities and social media in WW Corporate Marketing. In this role, she is responsible for the overall user experience design and information architecture for HP’s social presence on HP.com, social networking sites, and HP-branded communities. Prior to joining HP, Shaazia was the Marketing Manager for a company specializing in online video broadcasting and white-label social networking solutions. She has a diverse professional background spanning many industries and specialties including management consulting, marketing, design, and entrepreneurship.
Patrik Wijkstrom
Community Architect, Juniper Networks
Patrik Wijkstrom is the Community Architect for Juniper Networks, a provider of high performance network products and technologies used in the world most demanding companies. Responsible for establishing a vibrant community across Juniper’s website properties, he has driven the successful rollout and re-design of Juniper’s technical communities and forums, developed social media marketing programs that tripled user community participation, and led the team that transformed Juniper.net to deliver an enhanced user experience. A native of Sweden, Patrik has spent 13 years developing rich end-user and partner web experiences at a variety of high-tech companies, including Nortel and Bay Networks.
