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Speakers

We’re bringing together a top-notch mix of cross-disciplinary intranet experts.

Shel Holtz

Principal, Holtz Communication + Technology

Shel Holtz is principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, which provides content and communication strategies for organizations’ online efforts. He has worked internationally with some of the largest organizations in the world. Shel has authored or co-authored six communication-focused books. He is the co-host of the first and longest-running PR podcast, “For Immediate Release.” He blogs at blog.holtz.com.

Thomas Vander Wal

Principle and Sr. Consultant, InfoCloud Solutions.

Thomas has more than 20 years of experience designing, developing, and improving metadata systems and services that drastically improve an organization’s ability to find, organize, and use information and knowledge much more efficiently. This depth of experience and knowledge has him continually stated to be one of the very few experts on tagging services as well as the integration of them into formal taxonomies. Thomas is known for having coined the term “Folksonomy”, meaning a collaborative classification system jointly managed by many people.

Gentry Underwood

Founder + CEO, Orchestra Inc.

Gentry Underwood is founder of Orchestra, a Palo Alto-based web startup whose simple app helps people get more done together. Gentry was Head of Knowledge Sharing at world-renowned innovation firm IDEO. He is a frequent speaker at events like Web 2.0 Expo, Enterprise 2.0, and Xerox Parc Forum. He has a BS in Symbolic Systems and Human-Computer Interaction (Stanford University), an MA in Psychology (Santa Clara University), and an MS in Community Research and Action (Peabody School, Vanderbilt). Follow @gentry on Twitter.

Toby Ward

CEO, Prescient Digital Media

The founder and CEO of Prescient Digital Media, Toby is a senior Internet and intranet consultant with particular expertise in the area of Internet and intranet planning and communications. Toby has led his company to many awards in recent years including an illustrious Webby Award. His clients include: Harvard, HSBC, Sony, Pepsico, RBC, USAA and dozens of others.

Andy Jankowski

Director, Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF) North America

Andy Jankowski is the Global Director of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum. During the last 16 years he has served as an advisor for Oracle, JPMorgan Chase, Ernst & Young and Andersen in the areas of enterprise communication and collaboration. He is a frequent conference speaker, a student of positive psychology, and an avid road cyclist. Andy enjoys connecting people and dots.

CV Harquail

Consultant, Authentic Organizations

CV Harquail is an “entrepreneur of insight”, uniquely positioned at the intersection of organizational change, management practice, and communications media. She brings together academic research expertise, change agent experience, and new media fluency to help organization members and leaders think differently about the relationships between technology, organizations, individuals and systems. CV has her PhD in Leadership & Organizational Behavior from the Ross School of Business at The University of Michigan. She was a professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia before moving to Montclair, NJ and starting her consulting practice. She continues to teach and speak to MBA & EMBA students, to corporate groups, and to professional & scholarly groups.

Stowe Boyd

Web Anthropologist

Stowe is an internationally recognized authority on social tools and their impact on media, business, and society. He is best known for his commentary on the social revolution at www.stoweboyd.com, and his public speaking on his research on work media, social business, the social web, publicy, social cognition, networked identity, and the future of work. Stowe is at work on a new book about the rise of a socially augmented world, called ‘A Liquid, Not A Solid; A City, Not A Machine’.

Rachel Happe

Co-Founder / Principal, The Community Roundtable

Rachel Happe (@rhappe) is a Co-Founder and Principal at The Community Roundtable, a peer network for social media, community, and social business leaders. She has over fifteen years of experience working with emerging technologies including enterprise social networking, ecommerce, and enterprise software applications. Rachel has served as a product executive at Mzinga, Bitpass, & IDe, and as IDC’s first analyst covering social technologies. Rachel started her business career as an analyst at PRTM. Rachel is a GigaOm Pro Analyst and serves on Social Media Today’s Blogger Board, the Enterprise 2.0 Conference Advisory Board, and as an Isis Parenting Fellow.

Mark Fidelman

General Manager, VP of Sales Americas, Harmon.ie

Mark Fidelman’s experience includes more than two decades of technology sales and marketing with organizations including A.T. Kearney, EDS, CT Space and Autodesk, most recently serving as Executive Vice President of Sales and Customer Success with enterprise social knowledge base provider MindTouch, Inc. He is also a contributing writer to multiple publications and holds a patent on a system for tracking mobile electronic loyalty cards.

Tanis Roadhouse

Intranet & Collaboration Manager, MD Physician Services

Tanis Roadhouse is the Intranet and Collaboration Manager at MD Physician Services. After spending the majority of her career as a technical writer, Tanis completed a Master’s degree in Organizational Communication and joined MD Physician Services as a business analyst. She became an intranet manager after working on the intranet project throughout the ideation, requirements, vendor selection, and implementation phases. Tanis is active in a wide variety of activities including running, swimming, scuba diving, and downhill skiing.

Deane Barker

Content Management Practice Director, Blend Interactive

Deane Barker is a founder and the Content Management Practice Director of Blend Interactive, a design and development firm in the Midwest. Deane has worked with companies all over North America on Web and intranet strategies, and content management implementations. He speaks at several content management conferences annually, and has been writing and speaking in the field for the last decade.

Alasdair Stuart Bell

President, BTE Consulting

Alasdair is the President of BTE Consulting, an Ottawa-based Intranet and Internet consulting firm, with over fifty projects to his credit. Alasdair typically plays the role of translator (i.e. information architect, business analyst, user-needs researcher), working with business owners to understand the needs of the audience and then articulating the requirements in a way that everyone can understand and implement. Repeat clients describe him as a team player, knowledgeable, professional and enthusiastic. He hopes he can also claim to be a great dad.

Bryan Robertson

Sr. Analyst and Analytics Lead, OpenRoad

Bryan Robertson has 14 years of internet industry production and management skills, including tenure as the Executive Producer of myTELUS.com, one of Western Canada’s most trafficked portals. There he championed the use of user-centred design methods, and managed relationships from Canadian Press to Yahoo! Bryan leads the Analytics practice at OpenRoad where he guides web analytics programs, tool implementations, and analysis for clients such as BC Hydro, ICBC, and the World Bank.

Chris McGrath

Co-Creator, ThoughtFarmer

Chris McGrath is a long-time intranet consultant and co-creator of ThoughtFarmer social intranet software, which is used around the world by companies like eHarmony, Fokker aerospace, the Guardian News & Media, Mountain Equipment Co-op and Steelcase. Chris is a certified usability analyst with Human Factors International and is a graphic designer by trade.

Darren Gibbons

President, OpenRoad & ThoughtFarmer

Darren has guided and led OpenRoad since co-founding the company in 1995. A unique blend of strategic thinking, technological know-how, and great people skills, Darren maintains a presence in many of OpenRoad’s projects. His hands-on approach has helped organizations like the BC Supreme Court, Electronic Arts, Intrawest, and the Workers Compensation Board achieve success with innovative and powerful web applications. Darren majored in Applied Physics at Simon Fraser University. He has been a guest speaker on topics ranging from Java to network security and is co-author of a book on JavaBeans 1.1 published by McGraw-Hill.

Gordon Ross

Vice President, OpenRoad

As a partner at OpenRoad, Gordon has played a key role in refining the firm’s development methodologies. His portfolio at OpenRoad includes a wide range of work with clients like BC Hydro, the City of Vancouver, ICBC, the Ministry of Attorney General, Ministry of Transportation, and the Vancouver Public Library. Gordon earned a BA in Communications at Simon Fraser University. He has taught IT project management and e-business topics for Simon Fraser University and lectured at BCIT and the Vancouver Film School, and presented at OpenGovWest, LegalIT Conference, and the Social Intranet Summit.

Selma Zafar

Senior User Experience Designer, OpenRoad

For 12 years, Selma has designed innovative and usable software and hardware. She led the usability and overall user experience for products and websites for Nokia, Microsoft, Telus, Tourism British Columbia and Ronald McDonald House Charities.  With OpenRoad, Selma works with companies in both the government and private sector, most recently leading the user experience design work on the redesign of Mountain Equipment Coop’s website mec.ca. Some of her project activities included leading strategy workshops, content audit, creation of new information architecture and wireframes and planning and conducting usability testing.