Speakers
StoryWorld’s speaker roster is filled with luminaries of the film, publishing, and game development industries who have shepherded successful projects across multiple platforms. They’ll join us to share their expertise and give you the tools to create profitable cross-platform collaborations of your own. Check back often to view our growing list of expert speakers.
 |
Jordan Weisman, StoryWorld Keynote Speaker Harebrained-Schemes LLC and Go Go Kiddo Inc. Jordan Weisman has been the creative force behind several interactive entertainment companies; including his latest ventures: Harebrained-Schemes LLC and Go Go Kiddo Inc. He created MechWarrior, Shadowrun and Crimson Skies, which are some of the longest running franchises in the game industry. Weisman got his start in the paper game industry founding FASA Corporation in 1980, where he created BattleTech/MechWarrior and Shadowrun. He pioneered publicly accessible virtual reality at his second company, Virtual World Entertainment, which he sold to the Disney family in 1992. Jordan founded FASA Interactive to develop his properties for PC and sold the company to Microsoft in 1998. After the acquisition, Jordan became the Creative Director for Microsoft’s Games Division where he oversaw the first two years of all Xbox titles, including the launch of the Halo franchise. In 2000 Weisman founded Wizkids when he invented the collectible miniature figure game format for MageKnight, MechWarrior and HeroClix. Wizkids grew quickly and was acquired by Topps Inc. in 2003. After Wizkids, Jordan co-founded 42 Entertainment to build upon the pioneering transmedia experience he created with Steven Spielberg for the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence which spawned the new genre of Alternate Reality Games. As Chief Creative Officer of 42 Entertainment, Jordan oversaw the creation of “I Love Bees,” for the launch of Halo 2, “Why So Serious,” for Dark Knight, “Year Zero,” for Nine Inch Nails, along with many other landmark ARGs. Weisman is a New York Times bestselling fiction author, winner of the Northwest E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year award, Time Magazines Ten Best Ideas, and dozens of design awards. He is an adjunct professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and co-founder of the Center for Serious Play at the University of Washington. |
 |
Rafiq Ahmed Founder and President Demibooks Rafiq Ahmed is the Founder and President of Demibooks, a new digital publisher with a software platform for authoring and publishing richly interactive book apps for children on the iPad. His experience spans mobile applications & services, user-centered design and consumer electronic products. In the past he's worked at Motorola Mobility, digital agency Sapient, mobile apps startup EssTec, and management consultants PriceWaterhouse Coopers.
|
 |
Jesse Albert Jesse Albert is a former Sr. Agent at ICM where he focused on high profile digital and branded entertainment strategy and engagements for world leading clients and brands including Beyonce, Chris Brown, Megan Fox, Showtime, Sony, Ford, Ikea, Activision and many others. His efforts crossed all divisions, including traditional media, web, publishing, video gaming, venture capital, music, etc.. Prior to ICM, Albert led US digital entertainment for Simon Fuller’s 19 Entertainment, creator of American Idol where he helped establish the first American Idol/iTunes relationship as well as launch the careers of Daughtry and other American Idol artists. Albert also helped establish United Talent Agency’s online division and began his career in Hollywood serving as general manager at Media Revolution, an award-winning leader and pioneer in digital marketing, working with most of the major Hollywood studios and networks, and such campaigns as Independence Day, Air Force One, X Files The Movie, Alien Resurrection, and many others. Since leaving ICM, Albert has focused on leveraging his Hollywood relationships and expertise into producing partnerships across most media platforms with active projects in film, television and digital, and partnerships with companies such as Quadrant Films, Ryan Seacrest Productions, Entertainment One, Vuguru and many others. Albert is active in the technology sector developing services and IP, and serves on several boards of advisors for both technology and media companies, and often speaks on panels globally concerning the digital landscape, transmedia or cross platform IP development, and branded entertainment. In a previous life, Albert spent 8+ years working in the music business where he toured with such illustrious rock bands as Aerosmith & Guns ‘n Roses. Albert holds two degrees from the University of Southern California, including a BA from the Annenberg School of Journalism and an MFA from the Peter Stark Producing Program in the School of Cinema and Television.
|
 |
Rosie Allimonos BBC A transmedia commissioner and creative producer with 15 years experience in expanding stories across digital platforms. Rosie is currently responsible for commissioning the next generation of connected TV, mobile, online and IPTV platforms for BBC Drama, Films and Acquisitions. In this role she has pioneered the development of online drama and narrative gaming, overseeing the strategy and delivery of the BBC’s most successful transmedia brands. Working across the silos of the organisation and with independent producers to harness collaborative energies and expand storyworlds; she has delivered content with strong emotional appeal yet has also cut through to deliver massive audiences. Prior to her current role, she led interactive development teams for BBC Children’s, creating services that grew digital reach and audience appreciation. As a proud creative generalist, before joining the BBC Rosie spent a decade working across interactive agencies, film bodies, indies and broadcasters in the UK, US and Australia, while leading the ‘science meets art’ innovation hub Experimenta. Committed to innovation in transmedia formats, Rosie also works with the BBC’s R&D arm; she conceived the ‘Mythology Engine’ an R&D prototype that maps TV drama series into a re-usable, transmedia wiki for unlocking the BBC archive. Her current research involves the development of anticipatory interfaces for storytelling, providing a seamless storyworld journey across devices. She has won numerous awards throughout her career for storytelling, including SXSW, BAFTA and Webby awards. Rosie regularly presents on the subject of transmedia engagement and serves as a judge for Power to the Pixel transmedia pitch and MIP’s CONTENT 360 digital innovation competition.
|
 |
Aaron Archer Vice President Brand Design and IP Development Hasbro Role: Brand design and IP development across all formats of Transformers, GI JOE and several of Hasbro's vault properties. He has have been at Hasbro for 16 years.
|
 |
Ivan Askwith Head of Digital & Interactive Lucasfilm San Francisco, CA
Ivan Askwith is the Senior Director of Digital Media at Lucasfilm, where he oversees strategic and creative direction for the wide range of online, mobile, social and cross-platform initiatives that make up the digital presence of Star Wars, Lucasfilm and the company's other properties.
Prior to joining Lucasfilm, Ivan was the Director of Strategy at Big Spaceship, an award-winning digital agency in Brooklyn, NY, where he led efforts to develop immersive digital experiences and presences for clients ranging from Google and Apple to Sony Pictures and NBC Universal.
Ivan is also a founding member and consulting advisor to MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium, with a particular focus on transmedia development and cross-platform narratives. As a graduate student at MIT, his work focused on the rise of transmedia strategies for building audience engagement with primetime television series, as well as the creative and commercial applications of alternate reality games.
Ivan has published chapters on audience behavior and franchise development in numerous books and encyclopedias, and appears as a frequent speaker on digital strategy, transmedia development, and online communities at both academic and business conferences, including ad:tech, CAT, Digital Hollywood, NAB, SXSW and more.
|
 |
Yomi Ayeni Founder of Articipate Media and creator of crowd-funded steampunk experience Clockwork Watch Yomi Ayeni is a transmedia producer / digital strategist of a variety of promotional and self-funded interactive arts projects. The most memorable being Breathe, a series of short films delivered over a three week period, where participants became active collaborators in a police investigation into a series of mysterious deaths. Breathe launched as part of the 2009 Power to the Pixel - Cross Media Forum. The story was told through Internet Radio, live events, role play, user-generated content, film and social media platforms. Yomi worked as production-coordinator on Scooterman, a romantic comedy screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, voted Audience Choice at the Palm Springs International Festival, and Best of Fest at the L.A. Comedy Festival. He created Violette’s Dream (2008), an alternate reality game (ARG) commissioned by Gamecock Media (Austin, TX) to market Velvet Assassin - a next-gen video game. Inspired by the story of Violette Szabo a World War II heroine, the experience led players through a series of real world interactions with characters and organizations from within the unreleased computer game. Violette’s Dream was the first project to back engineer real-world interaction into a computer game. In 2000 Yomi developed and produced the first fully interactive reality TV programme, “e-trippers” for cable company Rapture TV. His interest in participatory media led to developing a Global E-Missions for ITV which won Best Use of New Media Broadcast Award in 2002. His career started as a newsroom journalist for BBC Radio and TV. In between 14-hour shifts, he launched seminal dance record label “Tone Def” and a pioneering force of the drum and bass music genre. Yomi also works as Associate Lecturer in Expanded Cinema at the University of Arts London, and spends his spare time managing international media requests for the Burning Man Festival.
|
 |
Jim Babb Co-Founder, Lead Game Designer Awkward Hug Jim Babb is a co-founder and lead game designer at Awkward Hug, an innovative studio that makes fun in the awkward space between the digital and real-world. He is also a strategist at Undercurrent where he has advised clients like Ford, GE, and Pepsi in digital mechanics. Jim has spoken at prestigious events like Power to the Pixel, Indiecade, and Parsons The New School For Design. Jim and Awkward Hug recently launched Socks Incorporated the first causal ARG (Alternate Reality Game) for families. Socks, Inc. has been featured for its creative use of technology in the Wall Street Journal, Wired, Rock Paper Shotgun, and on G4TV. |
 |
Molly Barton Vice President Penguin Molly Barton, Vice President of Penguin in the US overseeing Digital Publishing, Business Development and Strategy, is also President of Penguin's new subsidiary Book Country, an online community for fiction writers. She has overseen the company from its inception. Always looking for better ways to serve writers and readers, she leads Penguin's efforts to publish apps, enhanced eBooks, and eSpecials, in addition to launching new business models, strategies, and partnerships. Molly started at Penguin in 2004 as an editor and she still edits a select group of fiction writers for Viking and other imprints. She previously held editorial and marketing roles at Oxford University Press. |
 |
Gene Becker AR Strategist Layar San Francisco, CA
Gene Becker is a leader in emerging technologies that blend the physical and digital worlds. As Layar’s US-based AR Strategist, Gene is responsible for building the creative ecosystem for the Layar augmented reality platform, working with brands, creative agencies, developers and grassroots AR enthusiasts. Prior to joining Layar, Gene was a director at Hewlett-Packard, where he led advanced research and business development for web-based mobile and ubiquitous computing, co-founded a cloud services business, and led worldwide R&D for extreme gaming and mobility brand Voodoo PC. He is the founder of strategy consultancy Lightning Laboratories, a co-founder of the ARDevCamp unconference and organizer of the Ubiquitous Media Studio meetup. Gene studied engineering and computer science at MIT and Stanford, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
 |
 |
Nuno Bernardo beActive Entertainment Nuno Bernardo is an award winning and Emmy nominated transmedia writer and producer and the creator of the world’s first international interactive on-line teen series, Sofia’s Diary. Is also the author of “The Producer’s Guide to Transmedia” book published in 2011. After spending some years in the Marketing and Advertising world, Nuno Bernardo established his own Company, beActive, where he created “Sofia’s Diary” (Portugal), a pioneering Interactive TV Series in its mix of traditional medias such as TV, Books and Live Events with new medias such as Internet and Mobile. The Series has been localized in 10 territories around the World so far and is distributed by Sony Pictures Television. His work has lead him to be guest and keynote speaker at International events such as the Toronto, Cannes and Venice International Film Festivals, MIPTV (Cannes), MEM (London), Participation TV (London), the Interactive TV Show Europe, Power to the Pixel, and many others. In North America he is an executive producer for prime-time TV Series, including “The Line” featuring Linda Hamilton, and “Living in Your Car”, which premiered on HBO Canada and will be broadcasted in the UK on Channel FIVE. Nuno’s recent work includes Sofia’s Diary UK for SONY and the second season of the Interactive show called “Flatmates” for the Portuguese Web portal SAPO and national broadcaster RTP. Flatmates is now being broadcasted in local versions in Greece and Romania. His work as the producer and creator of the series “Aisling Diary” for Irish broadcaster RTE also earned him two Kidscreen awards in New York for “Best Teen Drama”. In Brazil Nuno produced the Transmedia series “Final Punishment” which earned him an Emmy and a Rose D’ Or nomination and a “TelaViva Best interactive Show” Award and a C21/Frapa Best Multi-platform format Award. Currently Nuno is producing the Transmedia series “Collider” and “Beat Girl” to be released in the UK in early 2012 and the Interactive documentary “350 South”. In his home country, Nuno Bernardo already sold more than 500.000 books and his work is being licensed for International publishing. According to BBC, "Nuno Bernardo is a leading world expert in New Media". |
 |
Jeff Bernstein EVP, Global Managing Partner Universal McCann San Francisco, CA
Jeff was recently appoionted to run UM's San Francisco office after serving UMSF's Lead Client Business Partner for the past two years. Before joining UM, Jeff was the Co-founder and CMO of the PBJS Advertising Agency from 2003-2008. At PBJS, Jeff headed up marketing, sales and the on-line advertising business which included clients such as AT&T, MSNBC, Smart Balance, Experian, CDW and Microsoft. PBJS advertising focused on the marriage of world-class creative and back-office optimization. Jeff was also on the forefront of creating new models for branded entertainment that provided both innovative advertising opportunities and stand-alone content vehicles. PBJS was sold to the Publics Group in August of 2008.
Prior to PBJS, Jeff spent 6.5 years (1997-2003) at the Microsoft Corporation all within the MSN division, rising to Director of MSN Ad product Planning and Industry Development. Among his team's responsibilities were developing the advertising business strategies for all of MSN's on-line properties, creating innovative advertising technologies and driving the productization of data and audience segmentation. During his tenure, Jeff chaired the IAB Ad Sizes Committee which released the Universal Ad Package, providing the industry with much needed standards in creative implementation. Jeff started his career at BBDO NY (1994-1997) where he co-founded the BBDO Interactive Group (later to become Atmosphere), and helped introduse brands such as VISA, Federal Express, M&M Mars, General Electric, Pepsi and Pizza Hut to the Internet. He has lectured at the Kellogg School of Business management as well as spoken at several industry conferences including AD Tech, IMedia and the IAB National Conference. He is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, where he majored in Political Science. He now resides in Menlo Park, California with his wife and three daughters. |
 |
Kevin Brown Art Development Manager Sony Computer Entertainment America Santa Monica, CA
Prior to joining Sony Computer Entertainment America in Santa Monica, Kevin was Director of Content at Brash Entertainment in Hollywood and shipped "Space Chimps," "Jumper" and "Six Flag’s Fun Park." Before joining Brash, Kevin spent 5 years at Microsoft Game Studio as Studio Art Director and worked on "Mass Effect," "Gears of War," "Age of Empire" and "Zoo Tycoon" to name a few. He also spent 5 years at Electronic Arts as an Art Director establishing the "Tiger Woods" Franchise. And in 1994, Kevin started his video game career as a 2D/3D artist at Coolhand Interactive and shipped "Star Wars Rebellion." Kevin A. Brown is a founding member of Blacks in Gaming and holds a seat on the board of director at Entertainment Arts Research. He is also on the board of advisories at the Santa Monica College AET Campus.
|
 |
Lenny Brown Director, Creative and Business Development THQ Los Angeles, CA
Lenny joined THQ in 2008 with Danny Bilson and has run point for Transmedia strategy with a variety of business partners that include Syfy network, Random House, and Machinima.com. As Director, Creative and Business Development, Lenny also spearheads creative relationships that support video game development and was part of the team that negotiated multi-game deals with Guillermo del Toro, Tomonobu Itagaki, and Patrice Desilets. Prior to joining THQ, Lenny worked as a television executive at HBO where he covered Everybody Loves Raymond, Martin, Spawn, Sex in the City, and The Sopranos as a current programming manager. He holds a BA from UCLA in English Literature.
Session: |
 |
Albert Cheng Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Digital Media Disney / ABC Television Group As Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Digital Media, for the Disney/ABC Television Group, Albert Cheng is charged with general management and strategic oversight of digital media, as well as development of ancillary revenue streams for Disney/ABC Television Group’s diverse portfolio of broadcast and cable networks, including ABC Entertainment, ABC News, ABC Daytime, ABC Family, Disney Channel and SOAPnet. To that end, he leads a team that oversees product development, marketing and operations for the Group’s digital media content platforms, including video-on-demand, broadband, web-based and mobile platforms, as well as interactive television technologies. |
 |
Lee Clancy SVP of Product Management & General Manager of Direct Revenue IMVU San Francisco, CA
Lee Clancy is the SVP of Product Management and General Manager of Direct Revenue for IMVU, an online community whose members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create, and play with their friends. IMVU has reached 50 million registered users, 10 million monthly unique visitors and a $40 million revenue run rate. Lee joined IMVU in September 2008 from Yahoo!, where he was Senior Director for Community Products. At Yahoo!, Lee also led product management for Yahoo! Groups, a global community of 110 million users, and Yahoo! Personals, the most visited destination in the dating market. Prior to Yahoo!, Lee co-founded a music-focused social networking startup. Lee also worked at Broadband Office in business development and at PricewaterhouseCoopers in strategy consulting advising entertainment and media clients. Lee earned a B.A. in Spanish Literature from Amherst College, an M.B.A. from Cornell University, and an M.A. in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
|
 |
Brian Clark CEO and Founder GMD Studios |
 |
Olivier Delfosse Vice President, Interactive, Mobile & Digital Content FremantleMedia Burbank, CA
Olivier Delfosse is the Vice President, Interactive, Mobile and Digital Content, North America for FremantleMedia Enterprises (FME), based in the company’s offices in Burbank, California.
At FME Olivier is responsible for all sales, product development, marketing and new business initiatives for interactive, mobile and digital content in North America across the whole spectrum of FremantleMedia’s television shows and third party brands. These include American Idol, America’s Got Talent, The Price Is Right, Family Feud, Let’s Make A Deal, as well as the much anticipated US version of The X Factor . Delfosse has grown his business with great success working across all new gaming platforms, including high profile and groundbreaking successes with the Family Feud and The Price Is Right brands in the mobile gaming, iPhone/iPad and Facebook gaming arenas. Delfosse also oversaw a company investment and partnership in a portfolio of original IP games for Facebook with a variety of development partners. On the digital content front, Delfosse is responsible for overseeing digital extensions for all major FremantleMedia brands, while also brokering deals for original digital content. Delfosse’s most recent successes include a 12 city online travel series for MSN, sponsored by Buick called re:discover, and a choose-your-own-adventure series on YouTube sponsored by AXE called, The Teleporter.
|
 |
Christy Dena Director Universe Creation 101 Melbourne, Australia
Christy Dena specializes in the design and production of trans/cross-media projects. Recent projects include working with Tim Kring, The Company P and Nokia on Conspiracy for Good; with No Mime Media and Cisco on The Hunt; on ABC’s global alternate reality drama Project Bluebird; and with the Bangarra Dance Theatre Company. Christy has recently run Transmedia Victoria and has given keynotes and speeches at Power to the Pixel, TEDxTransmedia, XMediaLab, Crossover, Cartoons on the Bay, Whistler Film Festival, Slamdance, DIYDays, the First International Conference on Cross-Media Interaction Design, and many more.
|
 |
Flint Dille President Ground Zero Productions Los Angeles, CA
Flint Dille is a living embodiment of Transmedia. His career started by turning toys into TV Shows with G1 Transformers, G.I. Joe, Inhumanoids and Visionaries. He has designed games with Gary Gygax and written movies for Steven Spielberg. Flint has sold game design documents as feature films (Venom: Dimension 2006) and Agent In Place (Lionsgate 2010). His Agent 13 novels, are in feature film development. Flint directed the Interactive Movie Terror T.R.A.X., Track of the Vampyre which became a television pilot for Fox as well as Dragonstrike, one of the first hybrid film projects. He has a degree in Ancient History from U.C. Berkeley and an MFA from USC.
Session:
|
 |
Stephen Dinehart Chief Wizard Narrware Boy-wizard born from the primordial sludge of pop-culture past, Stephen Dinehart is Chief Wizard of Narrware, delivering interactive storytelling innovation to global audiences through a creative-spiritual mission to do nothing less than co-create a more fun-loving, adventurous and empathetic world. Stephen has worked on franchises ranging from "The Marvel Universe", “Prey”, "F.E.A.R.”, “Batman”, and “The Lord of the Rings”, to “Warhammer 40,000″ and “Company of Heroes”. His projects have won and been nominated for various awards including “Best Writing for a Game Production” at the Canadian Awards for the Electronic & Animated Arts and “Internet Download Game of the Month” from Edge Magazine. He holds an MFA in Interactive Media from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and a BFA in Animation & Digital Media from The College For Creative Studies.
|
 |
Guthrie Dolin Principal, Director of Brand and Strategy Odopod San Francisco, CA
Guthrie Dolin is a seasoned creative executive, strategist and entrepreneur. He believes that the most successful businesses are built on deep, lasting relationships between people and brands around their shared interests.
As Principal, Director of Brand and Strategy for Odopod, a digital innovation agency, Guthrie spearheads a full-service strategic offering for clients that include; Sony Electronics, Coca-Cola, Tesla Motors, Levi’s and Disney. Prior to Odopod Guthrie worked with the product innovation consultancy IDEO to develop and launch new brands. He also served as Group Creative Director at Organic, where he oversaw the creative team in San Francisco and Los Angeles. In addition, Guthrie founded Department 3, an award-winning integrated agency based in San Francisco whose clients included Apple, Microsoft and Nike.
|
 |
Nick Braccia Creative Director G2 New York, NY
Nick Braccia is a Creative Director at G2 in NYC and has also managed teams in LA and SF to create engagement programs for EA games Dead Space 2, Dead Space and Dante’s Inferno. Currently, he leads digital creative initiatives for the NFL, Hertz and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. Since 2001, he’s explored his passion for immersive narrative, contributing to Dave Szulborski’s ARGs “Catching the Wish” and “Unnatural Selection” as well as multiple games and apps for Random House titles Brisingr, Inheritance and Modelland. He hosts the Transmedia Talk podcast for The Workbook Project. |
 |
Constance Fleuriot University of the West of England Bristol, UK
Dr Constance Fleuriot is a Research Associate at the Digital Cultures Research Centre, University of the West of England, based in the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, UK. She is working with Professor Jon Dovey on an AHRC funded Knowledge Transfer Fellowship investigating the language, aesthetics and value of pervasive media, attempting to capture the emerging field of practice around the pervasive media studio and what the new business models might be.
She has a lengthy involvement with innovative technologies, both in her own arts practice and also as one of the principal investigators on the Mobile Bristol Project, investigating the social impact of emerging pervasive and mobile technologies. After Mobile Bristol she founded featherhouse, an independent family collective of digital, social and pervasive media consultants, which in 2010 launched fashionpopcorn.com, a new network for creative people working in film, fashion and digital media. Constance has worked as a consultant in user research and locative media design for clients in industry and education, facilitating location-based mixed-media projects with a variety of user communities. Her current interests encompass exploring ethical issues associated with pervasive technology, including the accessibility of production and consumption of pervasive applications, and where romantic fiction might fit into all of this. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. |
 |
Kevin Franco Founder
Francomedia
Kevin Franco founded the award winning creative firm Francomedia specializing in immersive marketing and branding. Francomedia has worked with Hewlett Packard, VoodooPC, Canada Safeway, Enbridge, Old Dutch Foods, Canadian Sport Centre as well as numerous professional sports teams, and authors. In 2010, the Alberta Chambers of Commerce awarded Francomedia with the Marketing Award of Distinction.
Kevin is also co‐founder of Enthrill Entertainment, a digital content provider and transmedia publisher. Currently, Enthrill is rolling out a new ebook distribution and sales system through brick & mortar bookstores while in development of their next transmedia thriller.
|
 |
Brent Friedman President Electric Farm Entertainment Brent V. Friedman is a founding partner in Electric Farm Entertainment, a leading digital media company. Brent created, wrote and produced EFE’s first two ground-breaking webseries, AFTERWORLD and GEMINI DIVISION for Sony. Brent served as Executive Producer on EFE’s recent webseries, WOKE UP DEAD and VALEMONT, the latter that he also co-created for MTV.
Session:
|
 |
David Gale Executive Vice President MTV Cross Media (MTVX) In his previous role as Executive Vice President of New Media at MTV, Gale helmed the development and production of original content for new media platforms. Prior to starting MTV New Media, Gale launched and was Executive Vice President of MTV Films where he oversaw the release of 26 successful films, grossed more than a billion dollars in box office and opened seven movies to #1 in their opening weekends, including Blades of Glory, jackass the movie and jackass number 2, Save The Last Dance, Coach Carter, Varsity Blues and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. The division also released Academy Award nominated Election, The Longest Yard, The Original Kings of Comedy, as well as such Sundance standouts as the groundbreaking Hustle and Flow, Justin Lin’s Better Luck Tomorrow and indie smash Napoleon Dynamite, which became a cultural phenomenon and earned three Independent Spirit Award nominations. |
 |
Bradley Garrett Attorney Cohen Gardner LLP Bradley is a transactional entertainment attorney at Cohen Gardner LLP, representing a variety of clients including actors, writers, directors, producers, authors, musicians, financiers, as well as media and production companies. Prior to joining Cohen Gardner LLP, Bradley worked at Greines Martin Stein & Richland LLP, contributing to several high-profile entertainment appeals, including those involving The Doors, Anna Nicole Smith, and “Gone in 60 Seconds.” Bradley received his undergraduate degree from UCLA, and his law degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. www.cohengardnerlaw.com http://www.facebook.com/cohengardnerlaw |
 |
Jason George CEO Telescope Inc Los Angeles, CA
Jason originally joined Telescope in February 2006, as Chief Creative Officer to leverage the growing opportunities for mobile marketing and participation TV content in the U.S. market.
He began his career in television with the formation of Victoria Real in 1994, overseeing groundbreaking interactive programming for UK broadcasters such as the BBC, Channel 4, and ITV as well as digital advertising for clients such as BT and Pepsi. As Chief Executive, he played a key role in Victoria Real’s growth to become the foremost digital production company in the UK and its subsequent acquisition by the Endemol Group. He was responsible for award-winning interactive broadcast productions including Big Brother UK, Fame Academy, and I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, as well as the development of Premium Rate Telephony revenues from Play TV shows such as Brainteaser. He served on the Endemol Group Creative Board until he left the company in December 2004. In January 2005, Mr. George took over as President of Digital Content at UK cable network Virgin Media TV, working across its portfolio of channels with a remit to explore digital distribution and content creation, and deliver ancillary revenue streams through interactive platforms. During his tenure at Virgin, he commissioned the network’s first foray into Participation TV, Quiz Night Live, launched two made-for-mobile TV channels and an online pay-per-view download service, as well as spearheading the company’s push into gaming and user generated content. Mr. George is considered one the most experienced and innovative digital practitioners in the industry. He chaired the Royal Television Society’s Future Media committee, and was awarded the New Media Age Honorary Award for Outstanding Individual Contribution to Digital Media in 2001. |
 |
John Gilles Vice President Sales and General Manager Coincident
|
 |
Marcus Gillezeau Principal Partner Firelight Productions
|
 |
Ian Ginn Founder Transmedia Learning Network Amsterdam, NetherlandsIan Ginn is a creative producer with 20 years experience in the entertainment and digital media industries. Working with multiplatform storytelling since 2004, he founded Hubbub Media in 2008 to develop original transmedia properties. He is a frequent expert speaker and moderator at international events including TEDxTransmedia Geneva, Power to the Pixel London, Cannes Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, and Mobile 2.0 Europe Barcelona, and NPOX LAB Transmedia. A committed educationist he mentors professionals on developing their transmedia projects in programmes such the EU MEDIA-financed PixelLab as well as individually. He founded the non-profit Transmedia Learning Network in 2010 to develop and deliver transmedia innovation, education and training. Ian is a leading strategist on transmedia storytelling, advising companies and organisations including Sanoma Publishers, the Netherlands Public Broadcast Company (NPO), the Netherlands Film Festival, the European Broadcasting Union, and the EU MEDIA Programme. |
 |
Miguel Gonzalez Planning Director Euro RSCG Chicago Miguel Gonzalez is a digital strategy and management director for integrated marketing agencies. He helps brand management teams incorporate content-rich, consumer-centered, data-driven best practices into their integrated marketing plans. As planning director at Euro RSCG Chicago, Miguel advises the Sprint brand team in creative development, consumer insights and engagement strategy. Over the course of 18 years, Miguel has launched digital brand experiences for the U.S. Army, QVC, MSNBC, IBM, SC Johnson, KFC, Kraft and more. Miguel’s work has been recognized at Cannes CyberLions, the One Show Interactive, the Effies, Art Director’s Club of New York, Addys, Reggies, New York Advertising Festival, the Yahoo! Big Idea Chair and ad:tech. |
|
Joel Gotler Joel Gotler started his career over 30 years ago at the William Morris Agency in New York, and was made an agent upon signing superstar Mama Cass Elliot of “The Mamas and The Papas.” Gotler has been instrumental in deals for best selling authors and celebrities such as Sting’s best-selling memoir, Broken Music and Lyrics by Sting; television personality, Fran Drescher (Cancer, Shmancer and Enter Whining); Sue Grafton (A is for Alibi); Sci-Fi/Fantasy writer, Piers Anthony (Xanth series); Robert Graysmith (Zodiac, Zodiac Unmasked); Renee Loux (The Balanced Plate, Green Home Living); Dr. Tim LaHaye, creator of The Left Behind series, Babylon Rising; Pete Rose; and Ron Artest. In addition Gotler exclusively represents the film and television rights to other best-selling authors such as James Ellroy (The Black Dhalia, American Tabloid, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz); James Lee Burke (In The Electric Mist); Ken Bruen (London Boulevard, The Guards, Blitz); Charlaine Harris (True Blood); Amanda Hocking (Trylle Trilogy); Caldecott Award winner David Wiesner (Flotsam, Three Pigs, Tuesdays); Edgar Award winner, Michael Connelly (The Poet, Bloodwork, Lincoln Lawyer); Pulitzer Prize winners, Richard Russo (Empire Falls) and Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes). He also represents a long list of literary estates including John O’Hara; John Ball; James M. Cain; Alfred Bester; FX Toole and Andre Dubus II. Gotler is also responsible for selling the underlying rights to hundreds of films, including, but not limited to The Untouchables, Bettlejuice, Chocolat, In The Bedroom , The House of Sand and Fog, Dangerous Minds, Indecent Proposal, Glory, White Oleander, London Boulevard, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, Wolf of Wall Street, In With the Devil, Lincoln Lawyer, and Mr. Popper’s Penguins. As a producer, Gotler is attached to Ferdinand the Bull (Fox), Wolf of Wall Street (Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese), In With the Devil (Brad Pitt, Paramount) and the June 2011 release Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Jim Carrey, Fox). And most recently, he is a co-packager on the Carol Mendelsson/James Ellroy Project at FX and The Other Life with Terry Winter at HBO. |
 |
Hazel Grian Creative Director Aardman Digital Described by Simpsons creator Matt Groening as “ a funny filmmaking genius”, Hazel Grian has recently joined Aardman Digital as a Creative Director in this multi-award winning department of the famous UK animation studio. Hazel is a writer and director who finds it hard to describe what she does best but has been known to say “I write Science Fiction then I make it happen for real.” Hazel created her own very popular ARG MeiGeist and has worked on games for major NGOs and Hollywood blockbuster movies including the Star Trek ARG and 221b for Sherlock Holmes. As a resident of Bristol’s Pervasive Media Studio Hazel combines her back-ground in theatre and film with robots and sensors and loves ‘poking around in people’s tool boxes’ as a part of her dedication to creating new forms of high quality, meaningful entertainment for everyone.
|
 |
Sparrow Hall Transmedia Author and Brand Developer Hydrogen Media
Poughkeepsie, NY
Sparrow Hall is a transmedia author, producer and brand developer. He has created multi-platform initiatives for a variety of global brands and nonprofits, including Citibank, Motorola, The State of New York and Bono's Product (RED) campaign, helping to eliminate AIDS in Africa.
Hall’s published work merges literary fiction and transmedia storytelling, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the world of a story by expanding the experience across multiple mediums – including music, video, art, live performance, and web-specific content. Hall’s groundbreaking transmedia stories, Two Blue Wolves (2009) and Nightwork (2010) are featured in his latest collection, which merges print and digital book publishing – synthesizing the best of both worlds.
Hall is the editor-in-chief of The Silver Thread, an online journal dedicated to innovation, collaboration and the creative process, and serves as a regular contributor to Pomp & Circumstance Magazine. His collaboration with fellow author Paul G. Maziar, entitled “Winter Bunker,” was included in the 2009 anthology The Good Things About America published by Write Bloody.
As a singer/songwriter, Hall performs as one half of the electro pop duo, A Crowd Electric (ACE). Together, with creative partner David Crabb, ACE has produced remixes for Madonna, Britney Spears and Crystal Castles, and has received top mentions in the dance music category.
Sparrow Hall is a graduate of Bennington College and lives in upstate New York and Los Angeles. |
 |
Karine Halpern Digital and Cultural Communications Consultant Transmedia Ready
Karine Halpern is a digital and cultural communications consultant who has recently been creating cross-media content about international cooperation for governmental agencies. She has been conducting independent experimental work since the 1990s, has made creative content through public grants, and has produced the 7 Transmedia Families, a card game to use for creative thinking and transmedia development. She began her career in the international film and TV markets, working in production, sales and marketing. She has founded and managed nonprofit associations dedicated to cultural content, film and multimedia. She holds a master’s degree in Public and Political Communication and a certificate in Cultural Mediation.
|
 |
John David Heinsen CEO and Executive Producer Bunnygraph Entertainment, Inc. Los Angeles, California
At Bunnygraph, a digital content and strategy company, John works with writers, talent and technologists, to create serialized multi-platform formats for television, interactive and mobile platforms in what he calls “Storytelling through Advanced Content”. John serves in leadership roles for the Producers Guild of America, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and Social Media Week, which has allowed him in the past year to evangelize the digital storytelling space from Seoul, Korea to Abu Dhabi, UAE. He is veteran of the FOX Broadcasting Company, International Creative Management (ICM), and Castle Rock Entertainment and is a graduate of The American Film Institute. John’s passion projects include several charitable events including his upcoming comedy festival @AltadenaComedy.
email: john.heinsen@bunnygraph.com twitter: @bunnygraph web: http://www.bunnygraph.com |
 |
Sarah Hinchliff Pearson Senior Council Creative Commons
Mountain View, CA
As Senior Counsel at CC, Sarah advises CC on legal issues and policy implications that arise for CC and its programs. She joins CC after spending two years as a Residential Fellow with the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School, where she litigated cases and advised clients on fair use and copyright law. Sarah began her legal career as an intellectual property associate at Fried Frank in New York City. Prior to law school, Sarah had a brief stint as a journalist, including internships at New York Magazine and HARPO Studios. She has a journalism degree from Northwestern University and a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School.
Session:
|
 |
Dan Hon Interactive Creative Director Wieden + Kennedy Portland, OR
Dan is an Interactive Creative Director at Wieden + Kennedy Portland. Dan's favorite things are storytelling, play and games. Dan doesn't play World of Warcraft anymore. He has finished Portal 2. |
 |
Lisa Hsia Executive Vice President, Digital Media Bravo Lisa Hsia is Executive Vice President of Bravo Digital Media overseeing Bravo’s digital businesses including Bravotv.com, as well as Bravo’s initiatives in emerging media – wireless, interactive TV, apps, gaming and multi-platform programming. During her tenure at Bravo, Hsia has built Digital Media into an interactive powerhouse with numerous initiatives that serve to enhance viewer engagement. Her innovations include the Infoframe, the first technology to make both on-air programming and commercials interactive, Bravo Talk Bubble, the first real-time viewing party and social TV event, and Bravo Now, the first tablet and smart phone application that allows fans to participate in a live viewing companion experience. Bravo Digital has been recognized for numerous awards, including the Technology & Engineering Emmy, Webby, Advertising Age Media Vanguard Award, Mobile Excellence Award, Mobile Marketing Association Award and five Prime Time Emmy nominations for Interactive. |
 |
Charles Hudson CEO Bionic Panda Games San Francisco, CA
Charles Hudson is a Venture Partner with SoftTech VC and the CEO and Co-Founder of Bionic Panda Games, a mobile games company based in San Francisco, CA. Until February 2010, Hudson was the VP of Business Development for Serious Business, a leading producer of social games. Zynga acquired Serious Business in February of 2010. Hudson founded Third Power LLC, a conference and events company that was acquired by WebMediaBrands (NASDAQ:WEBM). in late 2009. He continues to produce events on their behalf, including the Virtual Goods Summit, Social Gaming Summit, Freemium Summit, and Smartphone Games Summit. Hudson also works with Justin Smith from Inside Network on a series of research reports on the virtual goods market.
|
 |
Jeff Hull Creative Director Nonchalance San Francisco, CA
Jeff Hull is Creative Director at Nonchalance, a Situational Design consultancy in San Francisco. Their mission is to provoke discovery through visceral experience and pervasive play. As creators of the Jejune Institute, an award winning immersive narrative experience, Nonchalance was successfully able to re-engineer the way audiences interact with media, the space around them, and each other. Utilizing automated environments, pirate radio broadcasts, guerilla masonry, and lock boxes within lock boxes, Hull’s work represents a warp zone that transports audiences between hyper realized fantasy worlds. Previously as a street artists with an ambition to infuse more variability and play into the civic realm Hull created Oaklandish; a decade strong community arts organization with 20 consecutive “Best of the East Bay” Awards to it’s credit. He is also the founder of inner city playground activities such as the Urban Capture the Flag League, the Lake Merritt Radio Regatta, and the Liberation Drive-In which spawned an international movement of rogue parking lot movie screenings. Hull began his career in the realm of interactive public arts in 1979, when he was a child performer at Oakland’s Children’s Fairyland, a storybook theme park which was the unsung prototype to Disneyland. Nascent time spent in this wonderland setting inspired much of his life & work since. He also plays bass, makes an exquisite ceviche, and hosts wild parties neck-deep in kids & dogs.
|
 |
Brian Seth Hurst CEO The Opportunity Management Company Santa Monica, California
Brian Seth Hurst is CEO of The Opportunity Management Company, a strategic consultancy driving the next generation of entertainment. Referred to as “the father of cross platform”, Hurst coined the term in 1998 as MD of Convergent Media, Pittard Sullivan, where he launched TV Guide as the first ever cross platform brand. Hurst's credo “go to where your audience lives” continues to transform the relationship of audiences to brands and programming.
TOMC has assisted broadcast clients and content rights holders in extending their programming and building communities on new platforms. The company has a rich practice in the building of “multiplatform ecosystems” including multiplatform storytelling, Alternate Reality Games and the burgeoning field of Augmented Reality. Clients have included: Showtime, Lifetime, SVT (Swedish Pubic Television), New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, NBCUniversal, Intel, Les Mills Fitness and AOL as well as successful start-ups including McLean Masterworks, Nixle and Paltalk. Hurst was on the team at Pittard Sullivan as MD of Convergence that developed the original user experience for TiVo. He sits on the advisory boards of MobiTV, Zannel, Vwalls and Nixle. Hurst is currently a principal and at work on Tim Kring’s (creator of Heroes) project the “Conspiracy For Good” for which he created the terms “Social Benefit Storytelling” and “Social Benefit Marketing” to describe this new entertainment genre and the project’s impact. Hurst spent 10 years on the Board of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences building the Primetime Emmy® Brand Strategy and serving in various positions including second vice chair. He served 3 terms on the Board of the Producers Guild of America, serving two terms as Chairman of the PGA’s New Media Council. Recipient of an Interactive TV Today Award for Leadership in Interactive Television, he was profiled in Emmy magazine as one of the 10 media executives leading the industry’s digital drive and was named two years running to the Hollywood Reporter/PGA Digital 50. Hurst was appointed Global Digital Ambassador for the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2009. He is currently host of the series “StoryCentric” at ITVT.com. and @story_centric |
 |
Nicoletta Iacobacci Crossmedia and Multiplatform activities European Broadcasting Union I was born in Rome, Italy.
I got a B.A. in Fine Arts then moved to US where I stayed until 2002. I worked as a producer/reporter covering US and Central America for RAI, the Italian national TV, and was the co-author and producer of TV series and live events, again for RAI. I got a master degree in Communication Arts (computer graphics) in 1987 and I was one of the pioneers of the web. Since then I was more and more involved in digital TV activities, initiating the RAI TV interactive/digital content factory in Italy and teaching Interactive storytelling. Today I am a PhD candidate & researcher; I am responsible for Crossmedia and Multiplatform activities at the European Broadcasting Union; and I coordinate and support the most interesting and innovative TV professionals of European Public Service Media (in Europe, public broadcasters are the leading TV players in almost every country) My aim is to create a call-to-action in order to shape the future of a socially responsible public service media. |
 |
Oren Jacob ToyTalk In 1990 as a College of Engineering freshman at Berkeley, he saw Tin Toy. Afterward he noticed a computer graphics internship on a Macintosh software project advertised on campus. He applied and got one of the four available intern spots. He quickly rose in the ranks to become a technical director on several of the commercials Pixar produced in the early 1990s, including Levi’s and Hallmark. The Listerine commercial Arrows won a Gold Clio in 1994. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He followed that up with his master’s degree. Among Oren’s contributions to Pixar include serving as technical director on early commercials for Listerine, Hallmark, Levi’s and TetraPak. His feature film work include lighting and special effects work for Toy Story, the amazing, opening shot of A Bug’s Life, visual effects lead on Toy Story 2 and supervising technical director on Finding Nemo. Oren also executive produced the non Pixar related documentary, Ready, Set, Bag!. The idea began from a conversation Oren was having with friends about first jobs. He learned of a grocery bagger competition (which became the basis of the film) and the rest is history. The documentary is produced and directed by Oren’s wife, Justine Jacob. He has been working as the Director of the Studio Tools group at Pixar for the last several years. Amongst his primary duties is the creation of the latest version of Marionette™. This proprietary animation software is the backbone of Pixar’s technical pipeline and is used for modeling, articulation, animating, simulation, lighting, and many other production tasks. Oren also served for several years as a Chief Technical Officer at Pixar. While continuing his work Directing the Studio Tools efforts, he is starting work on a new project at the studio that cannot be shared with the public. Yet. Oren also helped found Pixar University, the studio’s internal training and education division, and he taught Animated Short Film at the Academy of Art College for seven years. |
 |
Evan Jones Creative Director/Producer Stitch Media Halifax, NS
Stitch Media partner Evan Jones, is a two-time Emmy Award® winner whose innovative work on interactive content for primetime television, radio, web, mobile and games have established him as a pioneer in new genres of Alternate Reality Games, Locative Media and Interactive Documentary.
His work was recognized as one of the ‘Top 10 New Media Groundbreakers’ according to the Bell Broadcast & New Media Fund. Evan’s international clients include Microsoft, Disney, FOX, CBC, Bell, Discovery and The Movie Network. He has taught ‘Rich Media Production’, ‘Transmedia Storytelling’ and ‘Extending TV Drama Experiences’ around the world at the Canadian Film Centre, the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and the University of Southern California with Dr. Henry Jenkins. Session:
|
 |
Zak Kadison Chairman, President & CEO Blacklight Beverly Hills, CA
A respected industry veteran, Kadison is responsible for the day-to-day management and strategic vision of Blacklight, and oversees all film and television projects personally. He handles the corporate relationship with Imagine (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code) and key Hollywood talent and, with his partners, is an essential creative voice in the development and production of all of Blacklight’s intellectual property. Kadison will also identify business development and strategic partnership opportunities, represent the company to top level industry executives and have final approval over greenlighting the Company’s projects for production. Kadison previously served as a senior production executive at Fox Atomic, a production label of the major film studio 20th Century Fox, where he was responsible for the acquisition, development, and production of Atomic’s slate. During this time, he shepherded the teen comedy I Love You Beth Cooper directed by Chris Columbus (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Home Alone) and brought in such films as A Bittersweet Life with Denzel Washington attached to star, Random Acts of Violence with Eminem attached to star, Seoul with Channing Tantem attached to star, as well as numerous other high profile projects. Prior to joining Fox, Kadison served as the Senior Vice President of Production for Gold Circle Films (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and was responsible for the acquisition, development and production of Gold Circle’s films. While there, Kadison structured the company’s first deals with Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema as well as collaborations with Gore Verbinski, Natalie Portman, and Joel Schumacher. In addition to his duties at Blacklight, Kadison is currently working with the Sundance Institute on their Transmedia Storytelling Initiative and participates in the University of Southern California’s Mentorship Program. Kadison has served on numerous film festival juries and panels including the Writers Guild of America’s Transmedia Panel as well as the MIT Future Storytelling Media Lab. Born in Austin, Texas, Kadison is 30 years old and graduated with a degree in business from the University of Denver. |
 |
Christopher Kenneally Director, Business Development & Author Relations Copyright Clearance Center As a freelance journalist, Christopher Kenneally reported on education, business, travel, culture and technology for the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and The Independent of London, among many other publications. He also reported for WBUR-FM (Boston), National Public Radio, and WGBH-TV (PBS-Boston). He is author of “Massachusetts 101” (Applewood Books), a history of the state “from Redcoats to Red Sox” |
 |
Brad King Professor Ball State University Muncie, Indiana
Brad King is one of six Emerging Media Fellows at Ball State University, where his research examines how emerging technologies are changing the ways we tell—and share—stories. Brad has worked for Condé Nast's WIRED magazine as well as its sister website, Wired News, covering the convergence of technology and culture. In 2002 he co-authored Dungeons and Dreamers, a book on the history of computer games, virtual worlds and their effects on American culture. In 2004, he was hired as the senior editor and producer for MIT's Technology Review. He’s currently on the advisory boards for South by Southwest Interactive and Carnegie Mellon’s ETC Press.
|
 |
Mike Knowlton Founder Murmur New York, NY
Mike Knowlton founded social film studio Murmur with long-time business and creative partner Hal Siegel. At Murmur he creates original social films and consults with leading brands, studios, and networks on using social films to extend existing properties. Mike is actively involved in the Transmedia community in New York City and co-organizes the Transmedia NYC Meetup. Mike has a unique blend of technology, creative, and business experience. He founded and led three previous digital companies and has led large multi-disciplinary teams in developing complex software applications for brands including Gateway, Gucci, IBM, Theory, Tiffany & Co., and Victoria's Secret. His work has been covered in publications such as Fast Company, Spring Wise, and Social Times. Mike is a life-long musician and has played in numerous indie/punk rock bands.
|
 |
Tim Kring Multiplatform Storyteller 76 million “Heroes” fans around the world know the name Tim Kring, and tuned in across platforms, setting the bar for multiplatform storytelling when “Heroes” won the Primetime Emmy® for Interactive Television in 2008. In 2010, Kring received the Pioneer Prize at the International Digital Emmy® Awards in recognition of his industry-leading creativity in multi-screen storytelling. Kring recently launched the “Conspiracy For Good”, a global movement that allows the audience to become part of the story to create positive real world change. The London-based pilot engaged an audience online, through an ARG, mobile apps, and on the streets in a unique blend of entertainment and philanthropy. Kring’s “Conspiracy For Good” won both Best in Interactive and Best Cross-Platform Project at the Banff World Media Festival and was nominated for an International Digital Emmy® Award. Kring is currently in production on his latest TV series "Touch" for FBC and 20th Century Fox studios, starring Kiefer Sutherland. |
 |
Nina Lassam Marketing Wattpad Toronto, ON
Nina works at Wattpad, the digital story sharing community where she handles marketing as well as publisher and author relationships. Working with authors and their publishers, Nina helps create viral audiences for new and established titles using transmedia. Nina has written about the changing landscape of publishing for The Huffington Post, Girls in Tech, Novelr and the Electric Literature blog.
Before joining Wattpad, Nina obtained by MA at the University of Toronto at the Marshall McLuhan Institute and her BA at the University of King's College. |
 |
Jan Libby Storyworld Creator and Experience Designer Vodville Jan Libby juggles her work as a Creator/Designer for Media Companies and Ad Agencies with her Indie projects. Levi's, Scion, Coke, 20th Century Fox, Neutrogena and Discovery are just some of the Brands on her resume. Most recently, she wrapped on Ford's "Focus Rally", ABC Family's "Nine Paths to Chloe King" and Snow Town, a Community created Indie Storyworld. Jan first jumped into the world of Interactive Storytelling with her popular Alternate Reality Games – Sammeeeees (I & II). The following year she was Writer and lead Interactive Designer for the groundbreaking Lonelygirl15 Series. Jan then developed a transmedia television pilot with Kiefer Sutherland's East Side Entertainment. Simultaneously, she partnered on Book 3 of the Eldritch Errors ARG with Brian Clark & GMD Studios. A leading expert in Multi-Platform and Interactive Storytelling, she's been a featured speaker and panelist for NAPTE, ARGfest, DIY Days and MITX. Presently, she's developing a re-playable extension for and to ARGs and Interactive Storyworlds. |
 |
Esther Lim Digital Strategist / Chief Experience Architect The Estuary, LLC San Francisco, CA
Esther Lim is a well respected Digital Marketing Leader, Transmedia Producer, Social Media Strategist, and Game Analyst. She has over fifteen years of combined interactive agency and consulting experience creating digital, social media and transmedia storytelling programs for Fortune 500 brands. In addition to creating her own transmedia narratives, Esther also provides consulting to Digital Entertainment companies looking to create original or adapt existing content into interactive narratives. Her expertise includes gaming industry market monitoring, trending and analysis, social media marketing and analytics, community development and outreach, transmedia narrative, game design, mechanics and production, web development, e-commerce, user interaction and experience design, online advertising, direct marketing and brand development programs.Esther also writes for Girls in Tech on the creation of immersive experiences, interactive narrative, social integration of games, digital content and emerging technology and has been quoted by Forbes in articles on Women in Gaming, The Wire Magazine on Interactive Narratives and Digital Book World on Co-collaborative Interactive Narratives.
|
 |
Geoffrey Long Transmedia Producer, Narrative Design Microsoft Studios Bainbridge Island, WA
Geoffrey Long is a media analyst, scholar, and author currently examining storytelling, transmedia and design trends for Microsoft. As a Transmedia Producer and Program Manager in the Narrative Design team at Microsoft Studios, Geoffrey helps craft new IPs, plan franchises around IPs, develop future entertainment experiences and platforms, and research how technology and entertainment co-evolve.
Geoffrey is an alumni researcher with the Convergence Culture Consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a co-editor of the Playful Thinking book series from the MIT Press, and an executive board member of the Interstitial Arts Foundation. His professional career includes working as a researcher and Communications Director for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a decade-long run as the editor-in-chief of the literature, culture and technology magazine Inkblots; and co-founding the software collective Untyped, the film troupe Tohubohu Productions, and the creative consulting company Dreamsbay. He is also a 2007 graduate of the Master's program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, an avid scholar, a writer, an artist and a filmmaker. Geoffrey's writing has appeared in Polaris, Gothik, Hika, {fray} and The Comics Journal's Guttergeek; he has served on the editorial boards of Eludamos, the Journal for Computer Game Culture and the Journal for Transformative Works and Cultures; and he is a frequent speaker at such conferences as SIGGRAPH, SCMS, the Game Developers Conference, Pictoplasma and FuturePlay. His personal site can be found at geoffreylong.com. |
 |
Miles Maker Listed among the Top 50 Tech Tastemakers by BlackWeb 2.0 and Hewlett-Packard, writer/director Miles Maker is an agent and producer of content (marketing, development, distribution) and conversation; where marketing, branding, social media and advertising converge to generate what Maker calls 'attention currency.' Maker serves as a consulting producer, community architect and conversation Agent--perceiving what audiences value to drive interactive engagement and a call to action. Maker is the brainchild and curator of Convercinema, a fledgling cross-platform trade publication for motion picture content & conversation. Maker is also the founder of Directing Actors, a talentdriven performance network committed to the discovery, development, training and promotion of
talented and emerging Actors for stage and screen. Maker's recent clients include Gary King's, "How do You Write a Joe Schermann Song" and the award-winning web series "12-Steps to Recovery." Maker also serves as the social media Consulting Producer for "Pariah" (2011) which was awarded the Excellence in Cinematography Award in U.S. Dramatic competition at Sundance 2011 and acquired by Focus Features in a seven-figure deal. |
 |
Michael Margolis President Get Storied The son of an inventor and artist, Michael is obsessed with how ideas travel from the fringe to the mainstream. A big believer in DIY culture, Michael empowers people to find a bigger story and translate their message for wider acceptance. Over the last decade, Michael has become an evangelist for the global storytelling movement. He is the author of Believe Me: A Storytelling Manifesto for Change-Makers and Innovators, downloaded by 10,000 people. Michael has consulted to dozens of clients on strategic storytelling including Zappos, NASA, The Nature Conservancy, Ernst & Young, Marriott, and Omnicom. His work has been featured in Fast Company, Brandweek, and Storytelling Magazine. With a background in cultural anthropology, Michael began his career as a social entrepreneur, co-founding two nonprofits before the age of 23. He remains most comfortable at the convergence of business and social issues. Michael is left-handed, color-blind, and eats more chocolate than the average human. You can connect with him on twitter at @getstoried or download his Storytelling Manifesto by visiting www.getstoried.com |
 |
Carolyn Handler Miller Writer / Narrative Designer Lamy, NM
Carolyn Handler Miller is one of the pioneering writers in the field of interactive media, having entered the field in the early 1990s. Since then, she has contributed to over 50 New Media titles as a writer and content designer – a new profession she calls “digital storytelling.” Carolyn’s projects as a digital storyteller include video games, virtual worlds, webisodes, interactive TV, intelligent toy systems, electronic kiosks, and transmedia entertainment. She was a contributing writer for the classic Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? series and wrote the interactive version of the original Toy Story movie for Disney and Pixar. In addition, Carolyn is the author the groundbreaking book on the field, “Digital Storytelling, Second Edition: A Creator's Guide to Interactive Entertainment” (Focal Press). |
 |
Toby Moores CEO Sleepydog ltd Toby Moores is an entrepreneur and investor in disruptive technologies, most notably in the biotech and mobile sectors.
He is owner and CEO of content and licensing business Sleepydog Ltd, best known for creating Buzz: The Music Quiz for the PS2. It became one of SCEE's fastest selling original titles in their history to reach $100m of sales. It remains the worlds biggest music for video games license ever. It was sold in a record 32 countries and was Sony's first game ever to be translated into thirteen languages including Russian, Croatian, Finnish and Arabic. Sleepydog went on to make a further seven titles in the franchise. At peak the Buzz franchise had 6 titles and a peripheral in the PS2 All Time Top 100 on play.com Television is another of Moores' sectors of interest. Sleepydog has acquired a small library of 29 film titles, delivered a travel show to National Geographic called Weird & Wonderful Hotels and Tour Date, a pilot for a music show. They are currently in development of Slingers, a SciFi show (think Ocean's 11 in Space.) He has been working on IPTV or Social TV since the late '90s most notably with Sky and BBC3. He is currently working with the BBC Archive and LA talent agency ICM. He has an Honorary Doctorate in Technology from DMU. He is a Visiting Professor at two UK universities, each dealing with the cutting edge of new media research. He also runs a network called Amplified that has provided Social Media reporting services to Thompson Reuters, the World Bank and the three main political parties in the UK amongst others. |
 |
Mike Monello Co-Founder & Executive Creative Director Campfire New York, NY
Mike has been intimately involved in the creative development of every project that has come through Campfire's doors. From Beta-7 for Sega and True Blood for HBO to Frenzied Waters for Discovery, he's led work that has been awarded top honors at the One Show, Clio, Mixx, ad:Tech, and Addy awards. A vocal force in the world of transmedia storytelling, Mike has spoken at many prestigious events, including Futures of Entertainment at M.I.T. and SXSW Interactive. Prior to co-founding Campfire, Mike was a co-creator of The Blair Witch Project, a movie that changed the way marketers approached the Internet. Before that, he worked at the Florida Film Festival for five years, where he did everything from selling tickets to acting as program director. Mike graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BA in Motion Picture Technology.
|
 |
Mauricio Mota Chief Storytelling Officer & co-founder The Alchemists Mauricio leads the team responsible for building transmedia narratives for clients like Coca-Cola, Petrobras, TV Globo and Elle Magazine. He is responsible for bringing the concept of transmedia storytelling and leading innovators in the field to Brazil.
Before founding The Alchemists, he was involved in convergence, innovation and content projects for clients like Danone, Unilever, Nokia, Bradesco, Vivo, Banco Real and Volkswagen.
Mauricio was the first Latin American to participate and speak at the Futures of Entertainment conference at MIT. He was the Latin American jury member at the Festival of Media in Valencia (Spain) and is part of the world board of the Medici Institute, fostering innovative study of the Renaissance.
|
 |
Alison Norrington, Conference Chair Founder storycentralDIGITAL London, England
Alison Norrington is an English author, playwright and journalist, and founder of storycentralDIGITAL. She consults to publishers, broadcasters and authors globally on transmedia strategies, participative experiences, production, architecture and planning, and utilizing social media. Alison has written for WIRED magazine on transmedia publishing and runs various transmedia workshops and boot camps in London, New York and Europe. She commenced her practice-based PhD in January 2009 researching Transmedia Storytelling in Publishing, and has presented at a variety of conferences, including Digital Book World, TOC (Tools of Change in Publishing) and others.
|
 |
Siobhan O'Flynn CFC Media Lab Siobhan O’Flynn consults on digital & interactive storytelling and social media strategy and has advised on over 70 projects at the CFC Media Lab, including screen-based works, in situ & social media installations, online social networking initiatives, cross-platform projects, interactive short films, ARGs and interactive graphic novels. In 2006/07 she was the interactive story editor on Late Fragment, a feature film/dvd a CFC/NFB co-production that screened at Cannes in 2008 as part of the Future of Cinema Salon. Siobhan has mentored for the Digital Development Lab (CBC/BC Film/New Media BC) 2008 and 2009, and Melting Silos 2009 and 2010 (NFB/SFU Praxis), as well as giving numerous workshops on digital storytelling for a variety of audiences (traditional to digital). She recently became the Canadian representative of Storylabs, an international network of transmedia experts. Her talks in the past year have addressed strategies for trans/crossmedia development, digital storytelling, and disruptive distribution platforms & innovations in a digital world, amongst other subjects. Most recently, a new two-year research/art project on urban festivals and the social web has been funded via SSHRC. 1001tales.posterous.com http://www.scoop.it/t/tracking-transmedia |
 |
Anita Ondine Transmedia Producer Anita is a Transmedia Producer focused on the development of a slate of pioneering transmedia properties that are innovating new business models and modes of storytelling on a global basis. Anita started her career as an intellectual property lawyer in the specialist field of technology law, working on large scale, complex transactions as well as advising clients such as Reuters on the development of their data licensing and web platforms during the early days of e-commerce. Anita then worked in the City of London where she performed a number of roles including legal advisory, operational risk management and was Senior Vice President at a major investment bank. Anita is also active in the training and development of transmedia practitioners. She is a regular speaker at conferences and workshops, and co-Founded Transmedia Next, an advanced training program for experienced media professionals in the art, craft and business of storytelling in the 21st century. |
 |
Tommy Pallotta Tommy Pallotta is a visionary storyteller who creatively blends technology with filmmaking, animation and interactivity. His penchant for innovation was recognized by Microsoft Research and Development where he lead a research team to create and design interactive, animated storytelling experiences. Pallotta also directed the first machinima music video, In the Waiting Line, and the rotoscoped MTV Breakthrough video Destiny, both for the band Zero 7. He has produced several short animated films that garnered numerous awards, including Snack and Drink, which is now part of a permanent collection in the New York Museum of Modern Art. Tommy first connected Richard Linklater with animation when he produced the award-winning feature film Waking Life. He followed up with Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, starring Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr. His latest project is the Emmy nominated transmedia thriller, Collapsus. |
|
Tricia Pasternak Transmedia Producer Random House Worlds New York, NY
As transmedia producer for Random House Worlds, Tricia Pasternak guides writers, media companies, and other creators in transforming their stories and fictional worlds for 21st century storytelling. Tricia guides the creation of multiplatform content, generates original concepts for new intellectual property, and oversees the creative direction of story bibles that create the rich mythology behind enduring brands. |
 |
Steve Peters Senior Designer Fourth Wall Studios Culver City, CA
Currently the Senior Designer at Fourth Wall Studios, Steve Peters is a pioneering force in the Transmedia Storytelling/Alternate Reality Games genre. He has worked on some of the biggest and most successful interactive experiences to date, including Six Minutes to Midnight (for the feature film Watchmen); Why So Serious (for the feature film The Dark Knight); Year Zero (for the Nine Inch Nails album of the same name); and Dead Man’s Tale (for Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest).
Prior to Fourth Wall Studios, he co-founded No Mimes Media and was Director of Experience Design at 42 Entertainment. |
 |
Andrea Phillips Transmedia writer, game designer, author Perplex City won the Origins Vanguard Innovation Award in 2005 and was shortlisted for a BAFTA in 2006. Routes won the Prix Jeunesse Interactivity Prize, a Broadband Digital award, and a BIMA in 2010. America 2049 was nominated for the Katerva Award and a Games for Change award in 2011. Phillips is a moderator for the first community of alternate reality game players, the Cloudmakers. This 6,000-member group created many of the methods and social dynamics used by the ARG community to this day. She is a founding member of the IGDA special interest group on alternate reality games, and has served on its leadership council since 2005. She was the group’s chairman from May 2009 to 2010. She is also a founding member of the Transmedia Artists Guild, and a Fellow of the Futures of Entertainment. Phillips has spoken at SXSW, MIT Storytelling 3.0, Foo Camp, ARGfest, and DIY Days, among others. She writes about games, storytelling, digital culture, and gender issues on her blog, Deus Ex Machinatio. |
 |
Robert Pratten Founder and Managing Director Transmedia Storyteller Ltd London, England
Robert Pratten is CEO and Founder of TransmediaStoryteller.com a service for interactive storytelling and cross-platform audience engagement. He has more than 20 years experience as an international marketing consultant working with producers, writers, game developers and leading brands such as Ericsson, advising them on business development, market positioning, transmedia storytelling, social media strategy and distribution. Robert has also written, produced and directed two award-winning, critically acclaimed feature films - London Voodoo (2004) and Mindflesh (2008) - and produced the successful transmedia crime mystery Lowlifes.tv. He is a mentor for StoryLabs an organization of leading international multi-platform and transmedia creators dedicated to the education and mentoring of storytellers. Robert has established himself as a thought-leader in the field of transmedia storytelling through major contributions to the evolving field in the areas of new business models, development processes and documentation. He has written for Indie Slate magazine and Culture Hacker and presented at various conferences including Digital Hollywood and SXSW Interactive. He is the co-creator of the Transmedia Talk podcast and author of the book Getting Started in Transmedia Storytelling: A Practical Guide for Beginners.
|
 |
Jean-Francois Rodriguez Head of Gaming and Transmedia Orange Jean-François Rodriguez, Head of Gaming and Transmedia at Orange, has a wealth of experience spanning 15 years in the telecoms and media sector. He began his career with Alcatel, winning new markets in Europe and South America. He then went on to join Gemini Consulting, assisting Media and Telecoms market players in the implementation of their strategy and organisation based on new technologies.In 2005, he joined France Telecom to take charge of Mobile TV, with management responsibility for the Personal Mobile Television project.In 2008, he was appointed to head the Strategy and Business Development Department at the Content Division, where he was instrumental in setting up the Group’s initial Transmedia projects. After successfully transforming the operator’s Gaming activity, he was appointed head of this division in January 2010. A new organization and a strategy which focuses on games distribution via the Orange networks in all the country’s within the Group’s footprint, while further developing strategic partnership agreements and Transmedia projects. |
 |
Frank Rose Correspondent Wired Frank Rose is the author of The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories, recently published in the US and the UK by W.W. Norton. As a correspondent for Wired, he has written extensively on the impact of technology on media and entertainment, covering such topics as the making of Avatar, Sony’s enormous gamble on the PlayStation 3, Samsung and the rise of the South Korean techno-state, and the posthumous career of Philip K. Dick in Hollywood. He also writes on entertainment and advertising for Wired’s Epicenter blog and for his own Deep Media blog.
Before joining Wired in 1999, Frank worked as a contributing writer at Fortune, where he focused on the global media conglomerates, and as a contributing editor at Esquire. His work has also appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, New York, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and the Village Voice, where he got his start covering the punk scene at CBGB. He has been a keynote speaker at such conferences as Social Media Week and the Guardian's Changing Media Summit in London, and he has participated in debates about the future of media at the Ars Electronica Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, South by Southwest, and numerous other venues. The Art of Immersion is required reading for Henry Jenkins's Transmedia Entertainment class at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Among Frank's other books are West of Eden, a 1989 best-seller about the ouster of Steve Jobs from Apple (now available in an updated edition), and The Agency, an unauthorized history of the oldest and at one time most successful talent agency in Hollywood. |
 |
Liz Rosenthal Founder and CEO Power to the Pixel An early advocate and pioneer of cross-media storytelling, digital distribution and filmmaking, Liz is a digital film and media expert. She is the Founder and CEO of Power the Pixel (PttP), a leading cross-media organisation that specialises and advises international media companies and creators in new ways to create, finance and distribute stories and engage with audiences across multiple platforms. PttP runs the renowned annual Cross-Media Forum in London, connecting the film and media industries with key international innovators in a conference, cross-media market and think tank; and The Pixel Lab, a first of its kind project-focused business development course for European cross-media properties; and The Pixel Report an online resource to put audience-centred business and cross-media creativity at the centre of debate about the future of film and related media. PttP has run other labs and forums in the US, UK, Denmark, Sweden and Israel. Liz has advised many international media organisations including the UK Film Council, where she was Digital Strategy Advisor, and is regularly invited to speak at international conferences and film festivals, including Berlin, Cannes, Rotterdam, London, Edinburgh, TEDx. Liz was the Programme Director of Digimart, The Global Digital Distribution Summit in Montreal, founder of production company Earthly Delights Films, and set up and ran the UK office for Next Wave Films (a company of the Independent Film Channel) from 1998 to 2002. Next Wave Films was a pioneer in the production, finance and sales of ultra low budget features and digital filmmaking. The company helped exceptionally talented filmmakers, such as Christopher Nolan launch their careers. |
 |
Helen Klein Ross Brand Fiction Factory Former creative director at top ad agencies like TBWA\Chiat\Day and Ogilvy, Helen has been playing in the social media sandbox since 2007 when she created AdBroad, an award-winning blog with a following in the ad and digital marketing communities. In 2008, she brought several characters from AMC's drama "Mad Men" onto twitter. Her work as @BettyDraper has attracted 30,000 followers, a Shorty award and press coverage in Time and the Wall Street Journal. Based on that experience, she introduced the concept of Brand Fiction and produced the first “twepisode”, a new model for participatory entertainment. Helen has an MFA in Fiction and lives in New York. She is an avid speaker on 21st century storytelling. Recent engagements include presentations at Digital Hollywood and SXSW Interactive. |
 |
Cheryl Rubin Powerhouse Branding Cheryl Rubin is an expert in strategic and creative brand management. She recently formed Powerhouse Branding to provide consulting services to intellectual property owners, manufacturers, and creative agencies seeking to expand their business through new revenue streams. Prior to forming Powerhouse Branding, Cheryl was Senior Vice President, Brand Management for DC Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment. Cheryl is known for leading strategic development and creative integration across global brand extension and marketing initiatives for DC Comics’ famous portfolio of brands including Batman and Superman, growing them into the powerhouse franchises they are today. Working with Time Warner, Warner Bros. divisions, creative talent, and business partners around the globe, Cheryl successfully managed cohesive brand development, management and licensing across thousands of consumer products and promotions, six Batman feature films, two Superman feature films, sixteen animated series, eight live action TV series and over fifty interactive games. She also led creative teams to produce over 400 industry leading brand style guides and supervised profitable business units including DC’s global licensed publishing and DC Direct. Cheryl served two terms on the Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association (LIMA) Board of Directors from 1997-2001 and was recently a guest speaker at NYU on property exploitation across media platforms and global brand management. Cheryl began her career at DC Comics in 1987 as Licensing Sales Manager. She was promoted in 1989 to Licensing Director, in 1994 to Vice President Licensing, in 2000 to Vice President, Licensing & Merchandising, in 2003 to Vice President, Brand Management and in 2004 to Senior Vice President, Brand Management. She formed Powerhouse Branding in early 2011. Cheryl graduated from The University of the Arts with a BFA. |
 |
Pamela Rutledge Co-founder A Think Lab Palo Alto, CA
Pam Rutledge is a psychologist and co-founder of A Think Lab, a consulting and advisory firm that applies psychology and neuroscience to early stages of the message chain to develop strategies for effective use of emerging technologies, adopting to cultural and psychological audience shifts, and core story development for branding and advocacy in a transmedia environment. Pam’s expertise is in how technology, applications, and narrative satisfy psychological and emotional needs, influence intrinsic motivation, and promote positive experience and learning. In addition, she is Director of the Media Psychology Research Center and adjunct faculty at Fielding Graduate University. A writer, researcher, and speaker, Pam authors “Positively Media” on PsychologyToday.com and is a frequent expert source for the media on media psychology, popular culture, and social media issues, among them Good Morning America, ABCnews.com, Toronto Sun, and USAToday.
|
 |
Ana Serrano Founder and Director CFC Media Lab Ana is the Founder and Director of CFC Media Lab, the world-renowned and award-winning institute for interactive storytelling she created in 1997 at the Canadian Film Centre. With her visionary direction and digitally-forward approach to organizational growth, Ana built the CFC Media Lab into a unique blend of training facility, incubator, and creative production house, that continually re-invents itself as new media demand new approaches – from the early exploration of Web-based entertainment, to today's world of mobile smart-phones and iPads. To date, she directed the development of over 130 interactive media projects, mentored over 50 start ups and produced some of Canada’s seminal works in interactive media including the influential Great Canadian Story Engine, one of the World’s first digital storytelling sites and Late Fragment the first interactive dramatic feature film to be featured at the Toronto International Film Festival and distributed by Mongrel Media. Ana is a three-time winner of awards from the Canadian new media industry, and frequently speaks at digital media and film festivals throughout the world about the emerging realms of interactive art and entertainment. She has sat on boards as varied as the Canadian Conference of the Arts, Virtual Museums of Canada, Laidlaw Foundation, and Mcluhan International Multimedia Festival. Currently, she is active on the boards of Artscape, Kapisanan Arts Centre and several start-up companies focusing on interactive entertainment. She is also an Advisor in the Information, Technology and Entertainment Practice at MaRS. |
 |
Orrin Shively Director of Art & Design Disney Online Studios In his role as Director of Art & Design for Disney Online Studios at Disney's Interactive Media group, Orrin Shively manages the studios creative staff and is also the Art Director for a variety of upcoming products. His team works primarily on exiting MMO titles and new development projects & initiatives for the group. Leading up to this he spent 8 years as Executive Director of Creative and New Business Development for Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, Orrin Shively managed the R&D creative staff and was also the project lead and chief designer for New Business Development. His R&D team worked closely with Corporate Development to identify and develop new business initiatives for The Walt Disney Company. Prior to R&D, Orrin spent 12 years in the theme park division at Imagineering in a variety of creative roles, working on attractions for parks in Tokyo, Paris and Orlando, most notably designing and show producing Test Track, presented by General Motors, at Epcot in Walt Disney World Resort. Orrin joined Imagineering in 1988 as a show designer for Star Tours at Tokyo Disneyland, and subsequently worked on various projects during their early design phases, including the original ride systems used at Mickey’s Toontown and in the Indiana Jones™ Adventure at Disneyland. His work on those attractions, plus his role in producing post-show experiences for Star Tours and it’s a small world at Disneyland Resort Paris, led to his promotion to show producer in 1992. Before his Disney career, Orrin designed advanced concept vehicles as part of Honda’s research and development team for more than three years. His British accent belies the fact that Orrin was born in Wisconsin. Raised in England, he moved back to the United States in 1981 to attend the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in industrial design in 1983, specializing in transportation design. He has maintained ties with his alma mater, and taught Industrial Design there for 15 years. Orrin lives in Glendale, California. When he’s not traveling to far-off, exotic locales (or at least to England to visit family), he is either flying his plane or indulging his “bad motorcycle habit” in the hills above his home. |
 |
Gunther Sonnenfeld New Media Advisor & Digital Innovator, Transmedia Creator and Social Entrepreneur Gunther is best described as a media generalist, who, for the last 18 years, has explored just about every intersection of media, culture and technology. Currently, he consults Fortune 100 brands, media companies, studios, agencies and networks on this ever-changing media and product landscape, developing myriad solutions to complex problems. Gunther is also a data expert and social technologist: he is the co-Founder of ThinkState, a data & knowledge innovation company, and Heardable, a brand analytics platform. Overall, he has co-developed 7 proprietary technologies to date. He has leveraged this knowledge as an advisor to a dozen Silicon Valley start-ups and middle-stage companies, and has helped them raise north of $30M in funding from private equity firms and investment banks over the last three years. On the brand marketing side, Gunther most recently served as the SVP of Cultural Innovation & Applied Technology for RAPP (Omnicom Group), where he oversaw experience planning, content strategy and analytics initiatives for clients such as Adobe, Skype, Toyota, Unilever and Bank of America; previously, he worked with marquee brands such as Kraft, Diesel, Sony and Motorola, and global non-profits such as The Annenberg Foundation and NRDC. In his “free” time, Gunther is a professor at Miami Ad School, the most awarded brand marketing institution in the world. His passion for fast culture has led him to some innovative creative work. In 2006, he took top honors at X-Dance as a writer/producer on the documentary, FLOW, the story of one of the world’s most successful action sports brands (Channel Islands, owned by Burton). Presently, he is transmedia designer on Algren, a cross-platform narrative of Nelson Algren’s influence on prolific artists such as Lou Reed, Johnny Depp, David Mamet, Russell Banks and Michael Mann. Additionally, he is co-developing an educational ARG called Gates of the West that puts players into different scenarios within modern history, making them explorers of social and political conspiracies such as the deaths of JFK and Leonard Peltier. Gunther is also an internationally renown speaker and published author; he has keynoted alongside the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Mitch Joel, Arianna Huffington, Jonathan Harris and Jeffrey Hayzlett, and is working on his second book entitled, A Literacy of the Imagination, an exploration of the storytelling paradigm and its influence in shaping the collaborative economy. |
 |
Ben Straley CEO and Co-Founder Meteor Solutions Seattle, WA
Ben Straley has spent over 15 years of his career managing and leading marketing teams and business for venture-backed startups and large, publicly traded companies. As CEO and Co-Founder of Meteor Solutions, he sets the vision for the company, leads strategic sales and business development, and manages day-to-day operations. Meteor’s customers include Microsoft, MTV, AT&T as well as many other global brands.
Ben began his online marketing career in 1997 as a producer at Starwave, where he worked on online advertising and marketing promotions on ESPN.com and ABCNews.com for major brands including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Gatorade, and Pizza Hut. In 1998, Ben moved from the creative services team to spearhead the development of ESPN.com’s online marketing and e-commerce systems and lead product management of Disney’s Go Network registration and billing web services platform. In 2001, Ben joined Santa Clara-based Sanctum Corporation to oversee Product Marketing of AppScan, the company’s leading suite of Web application security assessment and monitoring tools. In the spring of 2003, Ben was recruited to lead eCommerce and Internet Business Development for the Salton Corporation, a $1.3B global kitchen and housewares company. In this role, Ben led an ecommerce team, oversaw B2B and B2C ecommerce operations and fulfillment, coordinated the expansion of the company’s online presence and ecommerce operations in the UK and Australia, and signed partnerships with leading online retail companies including Amazon and Target. In the summer of 2005, Ben returned to his native Seattle to lead marketing for venture-backed Judy’s Book, a site where community members around the country shared advice and recommendations about local businesses and activities. In late 2006, Ben co-founded Spring Creek Group, a leading social media strategy and digital marketing agency. Ben was selected by Seattle Business Magazine as one of the Innovators of the Year and was recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal as one of the “40 Under 40” top business leaders in the Puget Sound region. He is a frequent speaker at conferences including SMX, OMMA, WOMMA, and Digital Hollywood and he has written articles for a variety of publications including Mashable, Adotas, and Digiday.
Ben holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, a BA with distinction from Colorado College, is the curriculum developer and lead instructor at the UW Extension’s Advanced Interactive Marketing program, and is the past-Chair of the Board of Directors at the Seattle Children’s Home, Washington State’s oldest children’s charity. |
 |
Kenneth Swezey Attorney Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard EMPLOYMENT - Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP, New York, NY BAR ADMISSIONS New York, California EDUCATION - UCLA, Los Angeles, CA B.A. (summa cum laude), Member of Phi Beta Kappa, UCLA Graduate School of Management, Los Angeles, CA M.B.A , UCLA Law School, Los Angeles, CA J.D. ASSOCIATIONS AND ACTIVITIES - Art and Sports Law section of the New York State Bar Association, Former Chair of its Committee on New Technologies (2008 - 2009) Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Member Regularly conducts publishing negotiation seminars for Columbia University School of Law. |
 |
David Tochterman Head of Digital Media Innovative Arts As Head of Digital Media for Innovative Artists, David’s focus is packaging premium and branded content across all platforms, and building monetizable properties and business models for clients, brands and media companies. Innovative Artists Digital Media provides consulting and content strategy, and represents creative talent, production companies, intellectual property and technology platforms. Current IADM client projects include Vuguru, Paramount Digital, AOL, Yahoo, Mindshare Entertainment, Berman Braun, Atom.com, Digitas, DBG and the Webby award winning Urban Wolf for Sony/Crackle. David was among the first traditional executives to expand into digital media in 2005 when he was recruited to launch the groundbreaking video website CHANNELBLAST, which featured live interactive branded content and was featured in Forbes and the NY Times. His company Versatility Media provided content strategy, business development and production for clients including DECA, Mindshare, Mania TV, Daily Motion, For Your Imagination and IPG Emerging Media Lab. He was an Executive Producer for Fat Guy Stuck On The Internet on Adult Swim, the first scripted comedy to move from the internet to television. In his seven years as Senior Vice President of the Carsey Werner Company, David played an integral role in the development and production of hit shows including That 70s Show, 3rd Rock From The Sun, Roseanne and was an Executive Producer of Grace Under Fire. He also was Executive Vice President for the launch of Will Smith's production company Overbrook Entertainment and led its television division. David has been a speaker at media conferences including SXSW, NATPE, Social Media Week, Digital Hollywood, CES, OMMA and the Producers Guild (PGA). He is an adjunct professor for Syracuse University’s Los Angeles campus. Session:
|
 |
Blerime Topalli Founder Brand Band Inc. |
 |
Scott Walker President Brain Candy, LLC Pasadena, California
Scott Walker likes playing in the collaborative sandbox of commercial entertainment, co-creating value with audiences, and advocating transmedia storytelling. He primarily achieves this as President of Brain Candy, LLC , a company he co-founded in 2008 to explore new models for participatory entertainment. The company's first internally developed participatory property, Runes of Gallidon, was officially launched in 2009. Scott is also active in the transmedia and participatory community. He co-founded Transmedia Los Angeles in December of 2009, co-founded a transmedia advocacy group in February of 2011, and recently launched Shared Story Worlds, a site devoted to collaborative entertainment properties with participatory elements. Scott has spoken often about participatory entertainment and transmedia. He’s been a panelist at Digital Book World 2011, a featured guest on the Transmedia Talk podcast, and a guest speaker at Disney’s Imagineering R&D. Scott’s professional career spans several industries and includes the successful launch and sale of Capital West Finance, Inc, a finance company.
|
 |
Lance Weiler The WorkBook Project Philadelphia, PA
Lance Weiler is a critically acclaimed award winning writer/director. He’s been recognized as a pioneer because of the way he makes and distributes his work—WIRED magazine named him “One of Twenty-Five People Helping to Re-Invent Entertainment and Change the Face of Hollywood.” He has successfully self-distributed his films The Last Broadcast and Head Trauma to more than 20 countries while grossing over 5 million dollars in the process. The Last Broadcast, which he co-wrote and co-directed, became the first film to be distributed digitally to theaters in 1998. Always interested in experimenting with new ways to tell stories and reach audiences, Lance developed a cinema ARG (alternate reality game) around Head Trauma. More than 2.5 million people experienced the game via theaters, mobile drive-ins, phones and online. In recognition of these cinematic gaming innovations, BUSINESSWEEK named Lance “One of the 18 Who Changed Hollywood.” Others on the list included Thomas Edison, George Lucas, Steve Jobs and Walt Disney.Session:
|
 |
Mike Wiese Director of Branded Entertainment JWT New York, NY
Mike Wiese is Director of Branded Entertainment for global advertising agency JWT. Mike leads the creation of original programming and entertainment solutions for clients across the network, working in all formats, including digital entertainment, scripted and unscripted television, documentary film, music and live events. He also oversees the creation of original entertainment initiatives owned by JWT, establishing new business models for the agency. Recent projects include the launch of “The Bing Bar,” Bing’s live experience with the Sundance Film Festival; development of a Bing-branded Web series with celebrity chef Mario Batali; executive producing a documentary film with Academy-Award winner Fisher Stevens for Rolex, to air on the BBC; brand extensions for Macy’s acclaimed CBS TV special “Yes, Virginia”, including a DVD, and storybook via HarperCollins; development of Macy’s “Million Dollar Makeover” reality series for Facebook; packaging MTV International with Smirnoff for the global Nightlife Exchange Project; and current development of digital content, music experiences and television properties for Macy’s, Johnson & Johnson, Royal Caribbean, Unilever, Nestlé and the U.S. Marine Corp across JWT offices in North America, Singapore, London and Cairo. He is also Co-Executive Producer of “Project Five,” a television event movie, premiering on Lifetime in October to support the fight against breast cancer. The film is executive produced by Jennifer Aniston, Paula Wagner and Marta Kauffman, featuring an all-star cast, and inspired by a JWT case study for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Mike has been an industry leader in launching highly acclaimed and award-winning branded entertainment. His work has won Gold Lions, “best short film” recognition at film festivals, and been lauded as one of the funniest commercials ever by Adweek. Credits prior to JWT include “Terry Tate: Office Linebacker,” the top-rated Super Bowl commercial and viral smash Web series for Reebok; the TV special “Big Green Lies” with Fine Living Network and Seventh Generation; “The Angie Martinez Show” with BET for Procter & Gamble; creation of MyTrainerBob.com, a social network for Bob Harper of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” with Clorox; the Samsung Mobile film series “Across the Hall,” starring Adrian Grenier (of HBO’s “Entourage”); development of an original animated television concept for Nike, with legendary Spider-Man creator Stan Lee; and the launch of the Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival, which resulted in the feature film Cry Wolf released through Universal Pictures. Outside of JWT, Mike has actively developed film and TV programming. He is co- creator and consulting producer for the reality series “Storm Chasers” on Discovery and TLC’s “BBQ Pitmasters,” each produced with Original Media. |
 |
Gabe Zichermann CEO Gamification Co New York, NY
Gabe Zichermann (b. 1974) is an entrepreneur, author, highly rated public speaker and gamification thought leader. He is the chair of the Gamification Summit and Workshops, and is co-author of the book “Game-Based Marketing” (Wiley, 2010) where he makes a compelling case for the use of games and game mechanics in everyday life, the web and business. Gabe is also a board member of StartOut.org and facilitator for the NYC chapter of the Founder Institute. A native of Canada and resident of NYC, Gabe frequently muses about games and the world at http://Gamification.Co
|
 |
Vivi Zigler President, Digital Entertainment NBCUniversal Vivi Zigler was appointed President, NBCUniversal Digital Entertainment, in June 2008. In this role she reports to Ted Harbert, Chairman, NBC Entertainment. In this role Zigler is responsible for leading the NBCUniversal Digital Entertainment team, which is comprised of the NBCUniversal Digital Studio and NBC.com. Additionally, Zigler lends her support and expertise to all of the NBCUniversal entertainment websites. Previously, Zigler was Executive Vice President, NBC Digital Entertainment & New Media. Earlier, the veteran NBC marketing executive was promoted to Executive Vice President, Current Programs, NBC Entertainment, in June 2005, where she oversaw the production of NBC’s slate of comedy and drama series. Her much-lauded previous experience in marketing allowed Zigler an extra dimension to increase NBC’s promotional, casting and story opportunities in the Current Programs department. In March 2003, Zigler was named Senior Vice President of Marketing & Advertising Services for The NBC Agency -- and also oversaw Marketing and Advertising for Bravo. Her role was later expanded to include heading all marketing for the Bravo cable network as a member of the new Bravo senior management team. While in the position, Zigler was in charge of overall branding and marketing for Bravo, including the successful campaigns for “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “Celebrity Poker.” The end result saw Bravo attain unparalleled ratings peaks during her term. In December 1999, Zigler was promoted to Senior Vice President, Advertising Services, The NBC Agency. Until then, Zigler also served as Vice President, Affiliate Advertising & Promotion Services, NBC Entertainment, since November 1996. In that position, she was responsible for leading the Marketing & Advertising Services department of The NBC Agency, which included: the consumer marketing and special projects group for NBC, the network’s affiliate promotion services department, and media planning and buying for the NBC network and media planning operations for all clients of The Agency. Before joining NBC, Zigler was Director of Marketing & Advertising at KING 5 television in Seattle, Washington, where she oversaw all promotion, graphic design, press and publicity, public affairs and community relations for the station. Prior to that, Zigler held a number of positions at KSBY-TV in San Luis Obispo, California, including three years as Station Manager. Zigler received her Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. |
