Twitter Boot Camp

Event Chair Kat Meyer
(@KatMeyer) is a 15-year veteran of the publishing industry whose background includes both editorial and marketing experience working for a number of regional and national trade and academic publishers. She is currently the Chief Content Wrangler for Next Chapter Communications, a PR and marketing consultancy serving members of the book publishing community.

Reggie Bradford, founder and CEO, Vitrue
(@ReggieBradford) -- Reggie Bradford brings nearly two decades of technology leadership and experience to Vitrue, the company he founded in 2006. Vitrue provides Fortune 1,000 brands a comprehensive social media marketing approach, delivering cost-effective solutions for marketers to connect with consumers in social ways by empowering consumers to help build brands through their online actions. The company boasts a growing roster of customers that represent some of the world's leading media companies and consumer brands.

Carri Bugbee, owner, Big Deal PR
(@CarriBugbee) - Carri Bugbee is a marketing strategist, writer and PR pro. She won a Shorty Award for tweeting as the "Mad Men" character Peggy Olson and has spoken about Twitter methodologies at many conferences and events. Carri has launched 25+ twitter accounts in multiple business categories, including packaged goods, restaurant/hospitality, professional services, community building, politics, education, travel, non-profit, music and entertainment, event and personal. She owns Big Deal PR, is a partner with Supporting Characters and leads the Portland chapter of Social Media Club. She also has profiles on nearly every social networking site as CarriBugbee.

Megan Calhoun, founder, TwitterMoms.com
(@TwitterMoms) -- TwitterMoms, a site Redbook called "the hot new obsession among Web-savvy moms," is an active community of influential, tech-savvy, social media moms. Nearly 98 percent of TwitterMoms members are active Twitter users, and nearly 80 percent are active bloggers. They come to TwitterMoms.com to connect on a variety of topics, ranging from pop culture to business advice. There are more than 300 special interest groups on the site. As the founder, Megan's role is to oversee the community and connect brands to social media moms in engaging and impactful ways. Megan is a former sales and marketing executive, where her clients included Fortune 500 companies. She is the author of a children's book, mother of two, and lives with her husband in Ross, CA.

David Deal, vice president of marketing, Razorfish
(@davidjdeal) -- At Razorfish, David Deal's responsibilities include leading the marketing team and collaborating with the agency's social media experts to help Razorfish embrace Social Influence Marketing. David also writes a blog about marketing and pop culture, Superhypeblog.com. Before joining Razorfish, David was a marketing executive at Internet services firm Lante, and before that he founded Andersen Consulting's global industry analyst program. David also worked as an editor in the book publishing industry and helped develop a book about rock singer Jim Morrison. David's personal passions are his family, writing, books, movies, and music. He holds a bachelor of science in journalism from the University of Illinois.

Marla Erwin, interactive art director, Whole Foods Market
(@wholefoods) -- As early as her initial job interview with Whole Foods Market, Marla began advocating for a strong presence on Twitter, and has since become a driving force behind the company's social media efforts. In less than a year, Whole Foods Market has grown to become the top retail business on Twitter, and is often cited as an example of a business "doing Twitter right." Before turning her attention to social media, Marla worked as an art director, interaction designer, and usability and accessibility consultant. When not haunting the Whole Foods cheese department, she also tweets as @marlaerwin.

Beth Harte, principal, Harte Marketing & Communications
(@BethHarte) -- Beth is a top-ranked Twitter user in the Philadelphia area and got there by conversation, engagement and sharing alone. Beth speaks on how to use social media to engage communities and increase business. Her blog, The Harte of Marketing, is featured in AdAge's Power 150, a globally recognized ranking of top media and marketing blogs. Not known to drink the social media kool-aid but embrace practical and effective implementation, Beth Harte is the principal of Harte Marketing & Communications, a marketing, PR and social media consultancy that specializes in strategy, planning and measurement of traditional and online marketing initiatives.

Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos
(@zappos) -- Tony originally got involved with Zappos as an advisor and investor in 1999, about two months after the company was founded. Over time, Tony ended up spending more and more time with the company because it was both the most fun and the most promising out of all the companies that he was involved with. He eventually joined Zappos full time in 2000. Under his leadership, Zappos has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service.

Amy Martin, Digital Royalty
(@DigitalRoyalty) - Amy Martin recently spent three seasons with the Phoenix Suns developing and monetizing their digital media platform. During her time with the Suns, she was responsible for concepting, executing, measuring and monetizing the first organized professional sports tweet-up. Digital Royalty, Amy's new business venture, focuses on digital integration and social media strategies to help corporate brands, sports leagues/teams and athletes build their digital universe. Her most recent example of social media success is the growth of Shaquille O'Neal's digital brand via Twitter, implementing measurable strategies such as "Random Acts of Shaqness" and "Twitter Tag."

Sarah Milstein, co-founder, 20slides, co-author "The Twitter Book"
(@SarahM) -- Sarah Milstein, co-founder of 20slides.com, is a speaker/writer/consultant specializing in Twitter for business and is co-author, with Tim O'Reilly, of "The Twitter Book." Previously, she was on the senior editorial staff at O'Reilly, where she founded the Tools of Change for Publishing conference (TOC) and led the development of the Missing Manuals, a best-selling series of computer books for non-geeks. She's also written for the series, co-authoring "Google: The Missing Manual." Before joining O'Reilly in 2003, Sarah was a freelance writer and editor, and a regular contributor to The New York Times. She was also a program founder for Just Food, a local-food-and-farms non-profit, and co-founder of Two Tomatoes Records, a label that distributes and promotes the work of children's musician Laurie Berkner.

Eric Mueller, Flashlight Worthy
(@EricMueller and @FLWbooks) -- Eric Mueller has over 25 years of technical experience creating and launching online sites. In the late '80s he managed communities on CompuServe and the (then-brand-new) America Online. In 1995, Eric helped found PlanetOut, the world's largest gay and lesbian community. From there, he joined AOL to launch and manage their award-winning site Entertainment Asylum (the content arm of the gargantuan AOL Entertainment channel). Since 2000, Eric's consulting company, Themepark, has consulted for dozens of companies and created sites for Tesla Motors, SIRIUS Satellite Radio, and Klutz Press, among others. His current project is Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations, a book-recommendation site with over 56,000 passionate, book-loving followers on Twitter. Flashlight Worthy recently won the Shorty Award for best entertainment site.

Ted Murphy, founder, IZEA
(@tedmurphy) - Edward "Ted" Murphy is an energetic, creative individual with a passion for innovation and zeal for change. A serial entrepreneur, Ted has founded six companies since 1994 and has a reputation for disruptive creativity. Immediately prior to IZEA, Ted founded interactive agency MindComet, the company that created PayPerPost under his direction. PayPerPost was spun out of MindComet in 2006 and later became IZEA. Ted is largely recognized as the father of paid blogging and the catalyst behind the sponsored conversation industry. Ted's enthusiasm for the unconventional has earned him the ear of some of the world's largest marketing organizations including FOX, Bombardier, General Motors, SeaWorld and Disney.

Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media, Inc.
(@timoreilly) -- Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O'Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the Web 2.0 Summit, the Web 2.0 Expo, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, and the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Tim's blog, the O'Reilly Radar, "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is an activist for open source and open standards, and an opponent of software patents and other incursions of new intellectual property laws into the public domain. Tim's long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.

Eric T. Peterson, founder, Web Analytics Demystified
(@erictpeterson) -- Eric T. Peterson has worked in web analytics for over 10 years as a practitioner, consultant, and analyst. He is the author of three best-selling web analytics books, Web Analytics Demystified, Web Site Measurement Hacks, and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators, and one of the most widely read web analytics writers at www.webanalyticsdemystified.com. Mr. Peterson is currently building a strategic web analytics consulting practice to provide guidance to companies working to maximize the return from their investment in web analytics. More recently, Mr. Peterson has created what can only be called "Google Analytics for Twitter," the Twitalyzer (www.twitalyzer.com). The application has been cited on CNN and by social media thought leaders like Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, and Pete Cashmore.

David Puner, communications manager, Dunkin' Brands, Inc.
(@DunkinDonuts) - David Puner has been with Dunkin' Brands - the parent company of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins - since July 2007, supporting media and public relations. In Oct. 2008, Dunkin' Donuts launched on Twitter in a collaborative effort by the company's communications and interactive marketing departments, with David (aka Dunkin' Dave) alliterally initialed at the helm. Recently, from somewhere within the blogosphere, @DunkinDonuts was referred to as "extreme twittering." For Dunkin' Donuts, Twitter has become an essential place to be. Before DD, David worked as a writer/reporter/blogger for various mediums, which included contributions to The New York Times, Salon, ESPN's Page 2, ESPN Classic's "Cheap Seats," GOOD, and History.com. Before that, he was a TV producer with stints working for David Letterman, Colin Quinn, and A&E/History Channel.

Helen Klein Ross, partner, Supporting Characters
(@AdBroad and @BettyDraper) - Helen Klein Ross has spent 25+ years as an award winning
writer/creative director at top ad agencies in San Francisco
and New York, including Ogilvy, FCB and TBWA\Chiat\Day. She is the writer of AdBroad, an Ad Age Power 150 blog with over
4,000 followers from the advertising and digital marketing communities, and a Twitter page that has been cited for excellence by Adweek. She is also the creator of @BettyDraper and provides daily entertainment to an audience of
18,000 by tweeting the inner thoughts of several characters
from the AMC television series Mad Men. Her work as @BettyDraper was a finalist for entertainment at the recent Shorty Awards and she has spoken on Twittertainment to industry leaders at SXSW and DigitalLA at WGA, Hollywood. Recently, she joined with other Mad Men tweeters to form Supporting Characters, a strategic consortium to help entertainment marketers and others leverage their brands using social media.

Steve Rubel, SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital
(@steverubel) -- Steve Rubel is responsible for keeping Edelman and its clients in the vanguard. He studies global technology, media and online trends and shapes them into actionable insights and marketing communications strategies. His Micro Persuasion blog on digital trends, which launched in 2004, today has 50,000 daily readers and has been cited as a must-read by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNET, PC Magazine and Forrester Research. He is actively followed by more than 17,000 on Twitter and writes a bi-weekly column for Advertising Age.

Laurel Touby, founder, mediabistro.com
(@laureltouby) - The original idea for mediabistro.com was cooked up in 1994, when Touby - who was still contributing to Glamour magazine at the time - and a friend decided to host a mixer for media people. The parties quickly grew, and soon Touby had 4,000 of New York's top media talent on her email list. After creating a Web site in 1996 and adding features such as job listings, bulletin boards, classes, e-classes, media and a freelance marketplace, Touby's business began to take off. Today, the site also includes news, events and "learn" emails, as well as media industry blogs. More than 850,000 media professionals have registered for various mediabistro.com services around the world.

Mike Volpe, VP of Inbound Marketing, Hubspot
(@mvolpe) -- Mike Volpe is VP of inbound marketing at HubSpot, an Internet marketing software startup, where he leads the company's lead generation and branding strategy through inbound marketing, including blogging, search engine optimization, video marketing, and social media. Mike is a cutting-edge B2B inbound marketer who ranks in the top 0.1% of all users on Twitter, speaks at numerous conferences, hosts the weekly live marketing video podcast HubSpot TV, and blogs frequently.