Jim Banister

Jim is CEO of SpectrumDNA Studioes, Inc., a studio based in Park City, Utah, developing web/wireless “engines of engagement,” including the SXSW-award winning wordplay engine, The Addictionary; the new white-label mobile-social networking engine, PlanetTagger; and the groundbreaking semantic web platform for building contextual browser apps, OptEngage. More at http://spectrumdna.com

He is the author of the book “Word of Mouse: The New Age of Networked Media” (Agate Fine Print, August 2004).

The common thread of Jim’s career is in engaging audiences through a mix of content and technology, and generating revenue doing it. Jim created and managed TRW’s Engineering Visualization Center; producing award-winning television and film programming; designed and built the multi-media and post-production system for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Project; and created the XQuest television/cross-media franchise. He also spent five years at Warner Bros. Online, where he was a prime-mover in the company’s digital media strategy and programming development, first as VP Production & Technology, and ultimately as Chief Development Officer.

Karen Bantuveris

Karen Bantuveris is the founder & CEO of VolunteerSpot, a time and sanity-saving online coordination tool that powers the good work of busy moms, teachers and grassroots community leaders. Frustrated by the ‘little things’ that often prevent parents from participating at school (‘reply-all’ email overload, disorganized clipboard signup sheets, and constant phone-tag), Karen launched VolunteerSpot in 2009 to simplify the volunteer experience. VolunteerSpot has quickly grown mom-to-mom and group-to-group, boosting turnout with more than a quarter-million users nationwide. Karen is passionate about increasing parent participation in schools, engaging parents to fund education technology, and using new media tools to inspire social action in the ‘real’ world. Karen lives in Austin, TX with her husband and daughter.

Blog: VolunteerSpot
Twitter: @volunteerspot

Amy Bellgardt

Amy Bellgardt is a SAHM of two boys and a wife to an insanely handsome jingle writer. She started her blog, MomSpark.net, in 2008 as a way to connect with fellow moms who were experiencing the same joys and challenges of parenting. Mom Spark now consists of six writers and has a wide range of articles for moms that include recipes, product reviews, arts & crafts, travel, blogging advice, and an active community forum.

Amy also founded the successful MomMadeThat.com, an online listing registry for mom businesses, in an effort to promote moms with small home businesses. Mom Made That! currently has over 200 business listings and was just recently recommended by Etsy.com as an economical method of advertising.

Twitter: @momspark
Blog: http://momspark.net

Drew Bennett (BenSpark)

In 2005 Drew Bennett aka “BenSpark” hit upon his calling, BenSpark.com, a Photo-A-Day blog capturing his daily life in photos and blog posts for 5 consecutive years. Drew also creates video reviews of children’s books on his blog Read To Me, Dad. When not in front of or behind the camera Drew is a speaker, blog and social media consultant, video blogger and a writer for the Blog World Expo blog, Dad-O-Matic, BloggingTips.com and RoyalTutorial.com. Drew has also worked with major brands such as Sears, Philips Norelco and Nikon. He is also a co-host of the podcast Geek Dads Weekly.

Blog: BenSpark.com, readtomedad.com
Twitter: @benspark

Lizzie Bermudez

Lizzie Bermudez is the Founder and Host of LizzieBtv.com, a website created to share life as a real mom not a super mom. With the use of quick, short video segments, Bermudez offers a glimpse of the ups and downs of motherhood. She is also a regular Parenting & Lifestyle contributor to ABC-7′s, The View From the Bay in San Francisco. Bermudez is an Emmy Award-Winning broadcast journalist and recipient of several other awards. She’s a public speaker and has given talks on “finding balance,” social media and creating online video content. AND she’s mom to two daughters, ages 2 & 5.

Blog: LizzieBtv.com
Twitter: @lizzieBtv

Maya Bisineer

Maya is an entrepreneur, writer, a social media and technology geek. After more than a decade in technology and business in larger companies, Maya founded Memetales – a platform that gives writers, illustrators, educators and creative moms tools to publish their children’s stories, crafts and activities on to various platforms and engage a passionate community. Maya is Director of Education at Social Media Club, Seattle; sits on the advisory board for the Digital Arts Program at The Everett Community College and was heavily involved in the production of the tech conference Gnomedex 9.0. She regularly speaks (Ignite Seattle, 140confNY, 140confLA), moderates and leads panels and training sessions related to technology entrepreneurship and Social Media. Maya writes at Simplemom.net in addition to her own blogs. The best part? Her 2 adorable little girls and the best husband in the whole wide world!

Blog: thinkmaya.com
Twitter: @thinkmaya

Ciaran Blumenfeld

Ciaran is a mother, a manufacturer, a writer and a dreamer. She’s the designer of Francie Pants, a founding member of the Socialluxe Lounge, the publisher of Momfluential Media and contributes to numerous sites. All of these endeavors have one thing in common, creativity. Ciaran taps into her creativity, finding the points where our stories intersect and finding new ways to help brands tell their tales. She loves life on the digital frontier but firmly believes that the social is still way more important than the media.

Blog: Momfluential Media, Francie Pants, ciaranblumenfeld.com
Twitter: @momfluential

Lucrecer Braxton

Lucrecer is an award winning photographer, artist, impatient crocheter and writer who draws inspiration from her insane love of Jesus, everyday life and the interesting things her three little people say. She is the founder of the Art Slam, an inspiring site where she offers up creative food for the soul through her writing, photography and art journals. Mixing traditional and digital art, Lucrecer’s creations have been featured in multiple print and online publications and landed her a position as one of twelve featured PenScrapper artist with Wacom. In her spare time, she loves reading, spending time with her kids and soaking up all that life has to offer.

Blog: Art Slam
Twitter: @lucrecerb

Connie Burke

In January 1985, a large group of pop stars descended upon Hollywood to record “We Are the World” for charity. Connie Burke was not among them. Instead, she hung her fresh college degrees, (in advertising, English and journalism) in the Technical Center offices of General Motors, where she honed her communications and PR chops. When GM needed to add a voice for their social media efforts, Connie decided it was time to step out of her darkened cubicle and into the light. While Connie hasn’t yet won a Grammy for her social media efforts, she has achieved Silver Elite travel status & doesn’t get charged for extra bags.

Blog: ILChevyMissions
Twitter: @connieburke

Stefania Butler

Nationally recognized blogger Stefania Pomponi Butler (aka CityMama) is co-founder and principal of the women-centric social media agency, Clever Girls Collective, LLC. As a long-time blog editor/producer and social media professional, she is often invited to speak on blog-and social media-related topics. Named one of Forbes’ Ten Mommy ‘hood Gurus, Stefania has an extensive background in partner marketing/co-branding and social media consulting. Her recent honors include being named one of Babble.com’s Top 50 Mommy Bloggers, being selected as a Parents’ Magazine “Power Mom,” and being “nominated” as One of 10 Social Media Women That Deserve a Vanity Fair Article. Stefania lives in Palo Alto, CA. Ask about the Clever 1000, her agency’s network of social media influencers!

Blog: CityMama, clevergirlscollective.com
Twitter: @citymama

Neil Chase

Neil Chase is Vice President for Publishing at Federated Media, where he works with more than 100 of the best independent publishers on the Web. He has worked as an editor and page designer at The San Francisco Examiner, The Arizona Republic, CBS MarketWatch, and The New York Times and was an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Neil has also been a consultant for dozens of companies and organizations and has run publishing projects at events ranging from journalism conferences to Woodstock (no, not that one, the 1994 one).

Blog: Federated Media
Twitter: @chaseneil

Jenny Cisney

As a Chief Blogger and Sr. Social Media Manager, Jennifer Cisney has been with Eastman Kodak for twelve years. She has a broad knowledge of the various Kodak businesses and in depth experience with the corporate website, kodak.com. Her contributions to Kodak’s online experience have been inspirational photography, design expertise and creative content. She helped create and now manages the corporate blogs. After launching Kodak’s social media initiatives, she oversees Kodak’s presence on social media sites Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Flickr. Jennifer has been a speaker at such social media conferences as BlogWorld, BlogHer, Marketing to Women, 140 Characters Conference and The Inbound Marketing Summit. Jennifer was also recognized as one of Advertising Age’s 2009 Women to Watch.

Blog: kodak.com
Twitter: @KodakCB

Adam Cohen

Adam Cohen, founder of dadarocks.com, is a NYC based daddy blogger. While enjoying the company of his wife and toddler son, he manages to be the Director of Web Services at New York Law School and a social media entrepreneur. Adam has extensive technology and communications experience with non-profit organizations, as well as a New Media Design and Imaging degree from Rochester Institute of Technology. His ability to leverage the Internet to create synergies among his blog visitors comes from his passion for fatherhood, social media and sharing.

Blog: dadarocks.com
Twitter: @dada_rocks

Catherine Connors

Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic in Toronto. She’s the author of the award-winning parenting blog, HerBadMother.com, the co-founder and editor of the Bad Moms Club, the featured parenting blogger at Beliefnet, the moderator of Her Bad Mother’s Basement, and a contributing editor at BlogHer. Catherine’s writing has appeared in a variety of on- and off-line publications, numerous books, and maybe a few papyrus scrolls. She still dabbles in her academic work, which concerns women and mothers in the history of political philosophy, and that stuff almost always comes out on scrolls, which are totally more noble than the Internet, seriously.

Blog: HerBadMother.com, www.blog.beliefnet.com/theirbadmother, www.thebadmomsclub.com, www.canadamomsblog.com, www.coolmompicks.com
Twitter: @herbadmother

Allison Czarnecki

Allison Czarnecki is the founder and chief editor of the popular family lifestyle blog Petit Elefant where she writes about traveling with kids, fashion and style for women, recipes and crafts, home and garden, all on a realistic budget. Last summer she spearheaded the crazy fantastic SocialLuxe Lounge party at BlogHer which primped and pampered close to 700 women on the eve of the conference. She had only a few nervous breakdowns in the months leading up to BlogHer, which ended up being completely worth it, as the party was a smashing success. She lives in Utah where she is the happily married mother of two school aged children.

Blog: Petit Elefant
Twitter: @petit_elefant

Jane Devin

Jane Devin is a writer on a one-year road trip across America. Her sponsors include General Motors and Verizon Wireless. Her stories appear online at findingmyamerica.com and on the Huffington Post. Jane’s varied background includes a thirteen-year career in advertising and marketing, single motherhood, and — like Charles Bukowski, Walt Disney, and Bill Nye before her — an inspiring stint at the USPS — if inspiring means “get me the hell out of here.” Jane was raised mostly on the West coast, accidentally landed in Minnesota for 15 years, and now divides her time between a Chevy Malibu and roadside hotels.

Blog: findingmyamerica.com
Twitter: @janedevin

Michelle Dozois

Michelle joined Parenting.com as partnerships editor in July 2008, exactly one day after moving to NYC. Her primary focus there is bringing traffic to the site through content syndication deals with sites like CNN.com and MSN.com, as well as engaging with the brand’s fans and followers on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Prior to joining Parenting, she was an editor at Wondertime magazine in Northampton, MA. When she’s not working, she’s busy Flickr-ing, Tumblr-ing, and Tweeting about organizing and lifehacking, home and product design, all things NYC, and of course magazines and social media.

Blog: organizingthesoup
Twitter: @organizing_soup

Helene Dujardin

Helene Dujardin is a former pastry chef with a Masters in History. She grew up in Provence, and moved to Charleston, SC in the late 90s where she now works as a food photographer and food stylist. Her photography is an expression of her passion for seasonal fresh ingredients, as well as travel, and people. Helen dedicates herself to the art of food photography and food styling as is evidenced in her stunning work in such publications as: Garden & Gun, Charleston Magazine, Charleston Home, House Calls, and the upcoming cookbook “Deliciously Organic” by Carrie Vitt (September 2010 release), and her award-winning blog Tartelette.

Blog: Tartelette
Twitter: @SweetTartelette

Leslie Flinger

Leslie Flinger has been part of the blogging and development community since installing Moveable Type for a graduate project back in 2003. Since then she’s taught Web Design, Programming and Applications both online and in-seat. She started freelance web work in 2004 after graduating from Western Washington University with a Masters in Information Technology where she bucked the system and studied PHP instead of Java. She’s done hundreds of sites in ExpressionEngine and is an authentic spokesperson for the community itself.

She lives north of Seattle with her husband and two kids. She hopes to own chickens one day and grow her own vegetables. She’s just sort of that saucy.

Blog: mrs.flinger.us
Twitter: @mrsflinger

Christine Frietchen

Christine Frietchen joined the company shortly after its launch in 1999, and is the “voice” of ConsumerSearch. As Editor-in-Chief, Christine overseas more than 5,000 content pages in more than 400 subject areas from mattresses to LCD televisions. She leads a staff of editors and a network of 50 freelance writers and researchers.

Prior to joining ConsumerSearch, Christine was a tailor in a Broadway costume shop for seven years. She holds a BFA from the University of Kansas.