2012 Speaker Bios L-Z
Jim Lin, BusyDadBlog.com
Jim Lin is a marketing professional with two kids and a blog. To the outside world, his blog is a repository of lighthearted parenting adventures; to Jim, it is a roadmap that helps him piece together where he’s been the past few days, when he suddenly wakes up drooling and disoriented in the office. He enjoys parenting, Scotch and training Muay Thai, all of which explain the above.
Missy Maher, edelman.com
Missy Maher, Executive Vice President and Director of Modern Family Foresight, offers a deep knowledge of how to market to the modern family “mom” in today’s complex world. She currently provides strategic oversight to clients including Pull-Ups, Huggies, Kraft Singles, Velveeta. She helps connect brands to moms by creating conversations, building awareness and offering solutions to address challenges of everyday life. She is connected to a taskforce of 30+ Edel-moms who provide a steering light.
Julie Marsh, coolmompicks.com, coolmomtech.com
Julie Marsh is a project manager by trade and a mom of three, which means that she alternates between kicking butts and wiping them. A military veteran and survivor of the music industry, Julie now handles operations, business development, and advertising sales for Cool Mom Picks, dubbed “the online arbiter of cool for the swingset crowd” by Parents Magazine and named One of the 3 Best Blogs for Parents by Real Simple Magazine.
Frederick Marx, warriorfilms.org/boys-become-men
Academy and Emmy nominated filmmaker Frederick Marx (HOOP DREAMS) has worked 35 years in film and television. Mission: “Bearing Witness, Creating Change…” Creating transformational stories that transform lives. His latest, JOURNEY FROM ZANSKAR, features the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere. Others – the feature film THE UNSPOKEN, the documentary mini-series BOYS TO MEN?, and the upcoming sequel BOYS BECOME MEN – all express deep concerns about teen boys realizing mature masculinity.
Ron Mattocks, clarkkentslunchbox.com
Ron Mattocks is a father of five and author of the book, Sugar Milk: What One Dad Drinks When He Can’t Afford Vodka. In addition to his job as Social Media Strategist at LyntonWeb, he’s a regular contributor at Babble, and The Huffington Post while also posting on his own blog, Clark Kent’s Lunchbox. Ron lives with his wife Ashley in Houston, Texas where he leads the secret life of a history nerd and comic book geek.
Andrew J. Mellen, andrewmellen.com
Andrew J. Mellen is a professional organizer, speaker, and best-selling author of Unstuff Your Life!. “The Most Organized Man in America,” he’s addressed audiences from TEDxKnoxville to NetApp’s Silicon Valley campus. Media appearances include The Nate Berkus Show; O, The Oprah Magazine; HGTV; ABC; NBC; CBS; CW11; Martha Stewart Living Today; Oprah & Friends; Great Day Houston; Ladies’ Home Journal; GQ; Woman’s Day; Family Circle; Live Well Network; USA Today; InStyle; All You; Fine Living; Better TV; DIY Network; and NPR.
Stacy Morrison, fillingintheblanks.com
Stacy Morrison is currently Editor in Chief of BlogHer.com. She is former editor in chief of Redbook magazine, Modern Bride and ONE: Design magazines, and also held executive positions at Marie Claire, Time Out New York and Condé Nast Sports for Women. She has received many awards for her advocacy and prevention work in the areas of domestic violence, sex abuse and child abuse, and is a board member of ViolenceUnsilenced.com. Her memoir, Falling Apart In One Piece (Simon & Schuster, 2010), has been optioned by Lorne Michaels/NBC.
Stephen Newman, culturemap.com
Stephen has more than 20 years experience in entertainment and media. As CEO of CultureMap, Stephen is building a new kind of digital company equal parts media, technology and services. CultureMap publishes a daily digital magazine in Houston and Austin (and soon beyond) that offers 24/7 coverage of culturally relevant news and information across all digital platforms. He’s previously spent years as a member of the senior management team at New York Times Digital and at CNN. He’s the proud father of two sons, Will (8) and Ben (5).
Clay Nichols, DadLabs.com
Clay Nichols is a co-founder of DadLabs.com where he blogs and produces videos, recently winning the International Academy of Web Television Award for Best Educational Series 2012. An author of “Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts” (MWP), “DadLabs Guide to Fatherhood: Pregnancy and Year One” (Quirk Books), plays, feature articles, and a regular column for Austin Man and Austin Family Magazines. Father of three, husband to Kim, he resides in Austin, Texas.
John Cave Osborne, johncaveosborne.com
John Cave Osborne is an author and writer whose work has appeared on such sites as Babble, YahooShine, TLC and the Huffington Post. He was also referenced by Jezebel one time, but he’s pretty sure they were making fun of him. His eponymous site, JohnCaveOsborne, earned a spot on Babble’s inaugural list of top 50 dad blogs. He lives in Knoxville Tennessee with his wife, Caroline, and their five children.
Polly Pagenhart, lesbiandad.net
Polly Pagenhart has explored gender and parenthood “at the crossroads of mother and father,” both in print (Confessions of the Other Mother) and online, primarily via her blog Lesbian Dad, since 2006. She has also contributed to Lesbian Family, BlogHer, and Parenting. Her earlier print publications have been in LGBT studies and multiculturalism (in Tilting the Tower: Lesbians/Teaching/Queer Subjects), as well as feminist pedagogy and popular culture (in Feminist Teacher). She directs conference programming for BlogHer.
Casey Petersen, collectivebias.com
Casey Petersen is the Director of Social Media Analytics for Collective Bias, a Social Shopper Media Agency. Casey’s experience in delivering real-world ROI on Social Media Campaigns through proven tactics and building brand relationships with online influencers has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, the New York Times Online, and Mashable.
Manny Puentes, lijit.com
Manny has almost fifteen years of experience building large-scale networks including over five years in the online advertising industry designing and implementing ad serving platforms for Lijit Networks and MatchLogic. He has also built collaborative communication systems including a global multimedia architecture for Raindance Communications‚ (NASDAQ: RNDC) web conferencing service that earned him a patent in collaborative communications.
Jerald Reichstein, BouncingPixel.com
Jerald Reichstein is President of Bouncing Pixel, an interactive design studio. For more than a decade, he has been creating interactive content for children with partners at major medical institutions, government agencies, and universities. In addition to producing award-winning animation and games, Bouncing Pixel designs and develops online social networks for many emerging startups. Jerald is a lifelong entrepreneur, having founded many online communities including Collectica, Military Connections, and Playnormous. He serves on the boards and volunteer committees of several startups, incubators and professional organizations.
Bruce Sallan, BruceSallan.com
Bruce is a dad, writer, radio host, and founder of #DadChat (Thursdays 6-7pm, PST). His book, “A Dad’s Point-of-View: We ARE Half the Equation” is at Amazon, iTunes, and BruceSallan.com. His A Dad’s Point-of-View Facebook Page is bit.ly/FBDadPage.
Jeffrey Sass, Dadomatic.com
Jeffrey Sass has 30 years of experience in the technology and entertainment industries. A frequent speaker and panelist at mobile, music, social and digital media events, Jeff has had articles published in Forbes, AdAge, DMNews, Mobile Marketer and others. A father of three, Jeff has been co-editor and writer for www.Dadomatic.com since 2008 and co-host of the Cast of Dads podcast since 2009. Jeff’s blogs include Sassholes.com, SocialNetworkingRehab.com and WunderkindPodcast.com. Jeff also served as a Sony DigiDad and
Intel Advisor.
Matt Schneider, nycdadsgroup.com
Matt Schneider is an at-home dad and lives with his wife and two boys in New York City. Matt is a founding member and co-organizer for the NYC Dads Group. He plans workshops, screenings, and lectures with parenting, family, and education experts on behalf of the group in addition to his regular contributions to the group’s blog and social media endeavors. Matt serves as an advisor to the ThirdPath Institute, a non-profit that works with individuals, families, and organizations to integrate work and life.
Stephanie Smirnov, devriespr.com
As president and chief creative officer of DeVries Public Relations, Stephanie oversees creative and strategic planning for clients such as P&G, Boston Beer and E&J Gallo. She has over two decades of consumer PR experience and speaks regularly about brand-blogger relations at conferences such as Mom 2.0, Blissdom, EVO and BlogHer. She chronicles the ups and downs of bi-cultural marriage at her personal blog LikeTheVodka.com. Find her on Twitter or Google+.
Jeremy Adam Smith, jeremyadamsmith.com
Jeremy Adam Smith is an award-winning journalist who covers parenting, masculinity, science and technology, urban life, and politics. He is Web Editor of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center and author or coeditor of four books, including The Daddy Shift, Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood, and The Compassionate Instinct. Before coming to UC Berkeley, he was a 2010-11 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University. You can follow him on Twitter at @jeremyadamsmith.
Lance Somerfeld, nycdadsgroup.com
Lance Somerfeld has been an at-home dad for three years, and resides in New York City with his wife Jessica and their three year old boy, Jake. Lance founded the NYC Dads Group in November, 2008. The goal of this diverse community of 500+ caring dads is to provide engaged, active, and involved fathers an opportunity to socialize and support each other as they navigate parenthood. Before choosing to stay home with his son, Lance worked in Corporate Finance and as an elementary school teacher in the Bronx.
Jason Sperber, daddyinastrangeland.com
Jason Sperber has been a SAHD for almost seven years and has been blogging about it for six. His work at daddy in a strange land and Rice Daddies, the group blog by Asian American dads which he co-founded, led to a brief stint as a newspaper.com community manager. He’s also been featured in stories about SAHDs in Time Magazine and on The Today Show. He writes from Bakersfield, CA, where he lives with his family physician wife and two daughters.
Mike Spohr, thespohrsaremultiplying.com/newborn-identityAuthor of the “daddy blog,” The Newborn Identity, since 2008, Mike lives in Southern California with his wife, Heather, ice cream obsessed two year old daughter, Annabel, and froufrou dog, Rigby. He is also the Executive Director of Friends of Maddie, a charity started in honor of his late daughter, Madeline, that helps the families of NICU babies.
Glen Stansberry, gentlemint.com
Glen is a web developer, designer and writer. He’s been blogging at LifeDev.net since 2006, and co-founded the LifeRemix blog network in 2007. Most recently, he co-founded Gentlemint.com, a bookmarking site focused around manly content. Gentlemint has been featured in Forbes, TIME, Mashable, Wall Street Journal, and others. Glen currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his beautiful wife and daughter.
Michael Stern, zocalogroup.com
Michael Stern is a Senior Vice President at Zócalo Group, where he counsels food/beverage, hospitality and consumer packaged goods clients on how to start sustainable conversations that lead to recommendations, including Frito-Lay, Subway, Unilever, FedEx, Kellogg’s, Kimberly-Clark and Philips. An active Jayhawk, Stern earned a BS in Journalism from the University of Kansas, and an MBA from DePaul University in his hometown of Chicago, Ill., where he lives with his wife Amanda and daughter Jilly.
Dave Taylor, AskDaveTaylor.com
Dave Taylor is an internationally known business and tech expert and editorial director of the popular AskDaveTaylor.com blog. He’s also a professional film critic, prolific writer and award-winning speaker. More importantly, he’s a proud – albeit occasionally exhausted – single dad to three amazing children, 15, 11, and 8.
Matt Thomson, klout.com
Matt Thomson is the VP of Business Development & Platform at Klout where he focuses on strategic business development and corporate development. Prior to Klout, Matt was GM for Business Products and Analytics at Lithium, and Product Manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. He also did the MBA thing at MIT Sloan.
Karen Walrond, chookooloonks.com
Karen Walrond is a writer and photographer, and creator of the award-winning site Chookooloonks.com. Karen is the author of The Beauty of Different, a book that will convince you that the thing that makes you different might just be your superpower. Having contributed to several major national publications, she is a sought-after keynote speaker, and has appeared television and other news media, including appearing on CNN.com, PBS and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Roland C. Warren, fatherhood.org
Roland C. Warren leads National Fatherhood Initiative in its mission to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion growing up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers. Under Roland’s leadership, NFI accomplishes its mission through activities such as its award-winning public education campaign to its cutting-edge programming for fathers. Roland has two decades of experience in the business world and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Roland and his wife Yvette have two sons.
David Wescott, itsnotalecture.blogspot.com
David is vice president in social media for APCO Worldwide, a Washington DC-based, global public affairs firm, where he develops the firm’s outreach strategies to bloggers of all stripes. He spent five years working a legislative assistant and economic policy adviser to a United States Senator. He also managed a pediatrics department at a public hospital in Boston in the mid-90′s. He is the author of the blog It’s Not a Lecture, and is a contributor to Science Cheerleader, Earth and Industry, The Broad Side, and Global Voices Online. He lives in Durham, NC with his wife, son, and dog.
Danielle Wiley, swaygroupllc.com
The creation of Sway Group was a dream of Danielle’s for nearly two years. Her experience in the agency world and her relationships within the blogosphere give her the ideal combination of context and savvy required for the creation of groundbreaking social media campaigns. Most recently, Danielle was SVP, Director of Strategy at Edelman Digital in Chicago. In this role, she oversaw the client work and IP in the categories of community management, trend watching, insights, monitoring and influencer outreach.
