Register here!
___________________________________________
Sessions: Security Issues in Meetings Technology
Speaker: Jonathan Dodson, CIO, Certain Software
Jonathan Dodson brings more than ten years of experience in Information Technology to the Certain Software team. Mr. Dodson joined Certain Software in January 2002 after the acquisition of Certain Registration. As CIO, he sets the technology strategy of the company, oversees technology infrastructure, and coordinates operations of Certain’s core applications. Mr. Dodson has also lead, designed, and implemented several enterprise systems for public utilities, leading internet networking manufacturers, and other private businesses. Mr. Dodson also keeps Certain in step with the evolving e-commerce and PCI data security developments. Mr. Dodson has expertise in advanced security and encryption technologies as well as a degree in Physics from Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
___________________________________________
Sessions: Meetings Spend Consolidation & Management Tools Part I & II
Speaker: Debi Scholar, CMP, CTE,
Co-Chair of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Groups & Meetings Committee,
Meeting & Event Services Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P.
Debi Scholar is the Co-Chair of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) Groups & Meetings Committee which leads the hospitality industry in Strategic Meetings Management initiatives. In addition to being the Director of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Meeting & Event Services team, Debi also participates on the Meeting Competitive Advantage Forum (MCAF) which is a best practice and benchmarking team composed of 20 Leaders in the Meetings Industry from Fortune 100 companies. She is a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP), Corporate Travel Expert (CTE) and a Certified Technical Trainer (CTT).
Debi's team, Meeting & Event Services (MES), recommends meeting locations, contracts with suppliers, plans and implements meetings in addition to webcasts for PwC Partners, staff and clients.
___________________________________________
Session: The APEX Toolbox: Bringing Standards to Event Management
Speaker: Richard W. Hunter, Director, APEX, Convention Industry Council (CIC)
Rich Hunter is the Director of the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) initiative for the Convention Industry Council. In this position, he is responsible for driving adoption of the APEX standards in the meetings, conventions, and exhibitions industry, its practitioners, and software developers. He brings to his position highly refined business and project management skills. Rich most recently worked for six years at Hewlett-Packard as a program and product manager for HP global initiatives.
___________________________________________
Session: Database Management Tools
Speaker: Dale Beckles, President and CEO, Arcaneo
Dale Beckles is the President and CEO of Arcaneo. During his 20 years in the software industry, Dale has held a number of senior management and consulting positions with industry leaders. His positions have included: Director, Business Development, Computer Innovations (ComputerLand); founder and General Manager, Lotus Development (Canada); Vice President, Marketing & Sales, Digital Research; Product Development Partner, Software Publishing; Marketing Consultant, Apple Computer; and MSDN Regional Director, Microsoft Corp. Most recently, Dale was President and CEO of Valadeo Technologies Corp., a software company providing web content infrastructure products for the web hosting industry. Prior to Valadeo, Dale also founded Developer's Workshop, a software tools company, and Fusion International, a contract product development company for large software firms.
___________________________________________
Session: Web casting /Video Conferencing Tools
Speaker: Jonathan Merril, MD, CEO, Astute Technology
Dr. Merril, the CEO of Astute Technology, has focused on creating digital archives and webcasting meetings since 1997 when his company webcast the first medical conference. He has developed patented technologies for enabling the rapid and high quality transformation of presentations into electronic formats for ‘anytime, anywhere’ viewing. Using a publication model and work-flow to conferences- the company provides over 10,000 hours of conference searchable multimedia content in electronic format (with video, slides and audio). Dr. Merril pioneered the use of on-site DVD production to meetings- enabling sales of archival meeting sessions on the show floor within 24 hours of presentations. He has worked with associations and commercial enterprises to strategically determine the best methods of integrating media broadcast/archives into their conferences to enhance the on-site experience and enable virtual participation. In addition, Dr. Merril has developed successful models for creating ‘found revenue’ as a result of live and archival streaming media. He has also created content specific media channels and on-line continuing education that further leverage conference content.
His efforts in educational media software won Discovery Magazine’s award for Innovation and has been featured in National and International Publications and Press including features on CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, as well as trade and professional peer reviewed medical publications.
___________________________________________
Session: Audio Visual Products/Services
Speaker: Bill Kubiak, Director of National Accounts, Swank Audio Visuals
Prior to joining Swank Bill was Vice President of Technical Operations for a Chicago area Event Production company. Bill began his career in the AV industry working for a national audio-visual staging company starting out as a staff technician and progressing through the ranks, eventually becoming the general manager of the companies' hotel services division. Bill has worked with corporate clients for over 20 years supplying them with their Event Technology needs. An active member of ISES and MPI, Bill served as President of the Chicago Chapter of ISES and serves on various committees for both organizations. He achieved his CSEP certification in 2002 and won an Esprit Award in 2000 for “Most Creative Solution”.
___________________________________________
Session: Housing/Room Block Management
Speaker: Scott Blasik, Regional Director, Passkey
Scott Blasik is a Regional Director, Business Development for Passkey International. In his role, Scott serves as a proponent of technology to help hotels and planners mange room blocks in a collaborative environment. Scott has assisted hotels and planners to increase group pick up pace by as much as 50% while reducing the risk of attrition.
___________________________________________
Session: RFID Lead Retrieval/ Attendance Verification Tools
Speaker: Karl S. Ludwig, PE, IT Director, Dietze Enterprises, Inc.
As an electronic engineer and licensed Professional Engineer Mr. Ludwig has 25 years of system design and development experience. He has been developing and applying cutting edge identification technology with Dietze Enterprises Incorporated since 1989. Among his developments for use by associations and their trade shows and conferences are advanced badge printing and scanning systems for 1-dimensional and 2-dimensional barcodes, magstripe and smart cards, and now radio frequency identification (RFID). The key to the success of these systems is their ease of use and low cost. Small and large organizations have benefited by using this technology at their events to improve both the attendee and exhibitor experience. Through Mr. Ludwig’s efforts and leadership Dietze Enterprises has become the premiere provider of these state of the art systems.
___________________________________________
Session: Tradeshow Tools
Speaker: Rich Stone, CEO, ACT Inc. / EXPOCAD
Rich Stone is the CEO of ACT. ACT/EXPOCAD is the industry leading software supplier to the exposition industry. Rich has been with ACT for 20 years and has been involved in the IT field for 35 years. Rich has presented and taught for ASAE, ESCA, and IAEM. Rich has worked within the exposition industry for 18 years, holds multiple US and international patents.
Richard is an adventurer and has backpacked many exotic places throughout the globe, holds multiple US and international patents, has served on numerous industry panels and committees and recently recognized by Tradeshow Week ® as a Who's Who in the exposition industry.
___________________________________________
Session: Event Marketing Tech Tools
Speaker: Ed Lemire, Executive Vice President Marketing, Acteva
Ed is currently the Executive Vice President at Acteva – Online Registration & Payments. Since joining the company in early 2005, he has played a key role in developing their target market initiatives; setting the company’s strategic product directions; enhancing the marketing, sales, engineering and support operations; building new pricing and packaging strategies; leading the development of new product enhancements; and managing all corporate marketing, product marketing, lead generation and market awareness functions for the company.
He is a 22 year veteran of the software industry with over 12 years in executive roles in the areas of marketing, product, sales, international operations and business development at companies such as Acteva, FORTEL, TIDAL Software, Unitech Systems, HarrisData and Pansophic Systems. Ed has provided marketing leadership to enter new markets, introduce new products, establish strategic relationships, acquire new technologies and expand internationally. Ed has won awards for his marketing programs and has worked with sales teams to consistently produce results exceeding 100% of quota. He is an accomplished speaker and writer with papers presented and articles published to regional, national and international audiences. Ed graduated Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems and a Bachelor of Science in Finance.
___________________________________________
Session: Audience Polling/Response Tools
Speaker: Mark A. Fite, President/CEO, Option Technologies Interactive, LLC
Mark A. Fite is President of Option Technologies Interactive, a division of iDNA, Inc. He has spent more than twenty years as a corporate manager and business development leader. Mark has been involved in founding and growing six companies focused on various aspects of meeting and classroom technology and has held senior leadership roles at firms involved with presentation software and hardware, survey systems, staging, video production and satellite communications. Mark has been a leader in the interactive response business since 1991 when he helped to co-found MeetingNet Interactive Systems, Inc., a pioneer in offering wireless handheld group response systems.
___________________________________________
Session: Web Meeting Tools
Speaker: Luis F. Solis, CEO/President, GroupSystems Corporation
Luis Solis is a national business leader in corporate growth. His focus has been on the acquisition and management of small and medium-sized companies, and equity investments in information technology companies to address strategic opportunities. His client relationships are based on the achievement of ROI (return on investment) due to business transformation, streamlining, or both. He is an expert in Homebuilding Supply Chain strategy.
Mr. Solis' broad experience encompasses extended roles as operating executive, functional consultant, program office leader, project team leader, management consultant and private equity investor. He achieved his 20-year track record in the High Tech, Industrial, Consumer Goods, Homebuilding and Pharmaceuticals industries. He is best known for leveraging supply-chain management to increase revenue and profit as the President and Managing Partner of Symbius, a supply chain consulting firm. Mr. Solis' private equity record was established at McCown de Leeuw & Co. and GE Capital.
Mr. Solis holds both a Master of Business Administration and a Juris Doctorate from Stanford University, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the California Bar.
___________________________________________
Session: Association and Member Management Tools
Speaker: Bob Mossadeghi, Co-Founder, Morant Information Systems
Bob Mossadeghi is one of the founders of Morant Information Systems, a company who has been exclusively engaged in developing, implementing, supporting and selling turn key software solutions to trade and professional associations, societies, and other membership organizations since 1983. He is currently the director of projects and managing partner of the company.
During the course of more than two decades in Morant, Bob has been involved with over 400 Association Management System projects. More than 90% of these projects included Conference Management and Conference system technologies.
A graduate of Syracuse University with an Engineering Degree, Bob has served on GWSAE and ASAE Technology councils and has written articles, volunteered and been a speaker in a number of organizations in the Association industry.
___________________________________________
Session: Attendee Management–Registration
Speaker: John Broadus, Vice President, SignUP4
John is currently Vice President of Sales for SignUp4.. He has been in sales for 15 years and has been involved in a variety of industries from music (has a platinum record) to merchandising from email marketing to event management. John oversees all of SignUp4 sales and partner relationships and heads their Strategic Meetings Management practice. As a member of the management team, John helps set SignUp4's strategic direction and long-range planning as well as execution on a day to day basis.
___________________________________________
Session: Networking/Matchmaking Systems
Speaker: Michael Hatch– Sr. VP of Marketing and Sales, a2z, Inc.
Michael Hatch is Sr. Vice President of a2z Inc., a developer of web-based event software that helps associations and independent trade show organizers to create easy-to-use, state-of-the-art event web sites, that help them to automate, manage and market their expos, booth sales, and conferences easily and effectively all online.
Before moving to the ‘virtual’ world and joining a2z Inc., Mike spent nearly 25-years in the ‘real’ exhibition industry, managing two major corporate exhibit programs for both AT&T, and Holiday Inns International and working closely with the Trade Show Exhibitors Association.
Mike also owned and operated two successful exhibit design and production companies that served over 10,000 exhibitors during a seventeen year span, and produced over 50 successful trade shows and education conferences during the same period.
Mike is an award winning exhibit designer, marketing consultant, professional speaker and trainer, and a recognized expert in online event management and marketing, successful exhibiting and trade show marketing.
___________________________________________
Session: eRFPs/Site Selection Tools
Speaker: Greg Whitaker– PricewaterhouseCoopers, Meeting & Event Services Project Manager
Greg Whitaker, Six Sigma Green Belt, is the PricewaterhouseCoopers Meeting & Event Services Project Manager focusing on numerous complex projects to improve processes and reduce spend. PricewaterhouseCoopers was an early adopter to meetings management technology and implemented a tool in early 2002. Greg has extensive experience with eRFP and SMMP initiatives and has worked in the Meeting's industry for 10 years.
___________________________________________
Session: Online Travel Systems for Meetings
Speaker: Huy Tran, Solutions Consultant, Concur
Integration with an online booking system is the next technology push in online meeting planning. Significant cost-savings have been realized by many companies that have learned to integrate their meetings travel with their registration process. In addition, your attendees will enjoy the benefits of a one-stop shop when signing up for your next meeting.
___________________________________________