Futures of Entertainment C3 CMS MIT
Speakers
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Futures of Entertainment 2 will bring together a mixed industry and academic crowd. This is not simply another industry gathering, but an opportunity for industry and the academy to have a serious conversation about the future of entertainment. The diverse topics and the unique mix of speakers give the conference both broad coverage of the new media and entertainment space, and deep engagement across industry and disciplinary boundaries.

Speakers include:

Panel: Mobile Media

  • Marc Davis is Social Media Guru at Yahoo! Inc. His work focuses on creating the technology and applications that will enable daily media consumers to become daily media producers. His research encompasses the theory, design, and development of digital media systems that leverage contextual metadata and the power of community to enable people to produce, describe, share, and remix media. From 2002 to 2006, Marc Davis served as Assistant Professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information, where he directed Garage Cinema Research and co-founded the UC Berkeley Center for New Media. At Garage Cinema Research, Davis and his students developed and deployed Mobile Media Metadata (MMM) prototypes for context-aware mobile media tagging and sharing, and technologies for video capture, tagging, and remixing. In 2005, Davis worked with Yahoo! Inc. and UC Berkeley to create Yahoo! Research Berkeley, where he served as Founding Director. In 2006, Marc Davis joined Yahoo! as Social Media Guru to formulate strategy and take action to invent and realize the future of social media and mobile media. Davis earned his B.A. in the College of Letters at Wesleyan University, his M.A. in Literary Theory and Philosophy at the University of Konstanz in Germany, and his Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory.
  • Bob Schukai is vice president of wireless and broadband technologies for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., (TBS, Inc.). In this capacity, he is responsible for global research and development activities for TBS, Inc. in the areas of mobile/wireless, broadband, Internet protocol television (IPTV) and games. Prior to joining Turner in early 2005, Schukai spent more than 18 years working for Motorola, Inc., in the United States and United Kingdom. Most recently, he served as director of global 3G strategy and business development for Motorola, overseeing global strategy and business development activities for 3G handsets. While at Motorola, he was also involved in research and development; engineering; design, development and management; and product marketing and strategy. Schukai holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in electrical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and a Master's degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University. He is a 20-year member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a technical and professional association of more than 365,000 individual members in approximately 150 countries. Schukai also represents parent company Time Warner, Inc. in the Open Mobile Alliance broadcast and mobile advertising working groups, which is tasked with developing globally interoperable standards for mobile telephony. Schukai is also is in his second year of serving as a mentor through the Menttium 100 program which is designed to provide cross-company partnerships for high potential, high performing women in business.
  • Alice Kim is Senior Vice President of Digital Distribution and Partner Relations for MTV Networks. In her role, Kim manages distribution deals and partnerships across wireless carriers, online portals, video aggregators, and emerging media players for MTV Networks’ diverse brands. Most recently, Kim served as Vice President of Carrier Relations and Distribution for MTV Networks. In that role, she cultivated and managed all existing distribution partnerships and carrier relationships, mobile marketing initiatives and partnerships, and business development Under Kim’s direction, MTV Networks has forged successful mobile distribution deals with every major domestic wireless provider and MVNO, as well as relationships with several direct-to-consumer partners. Prior to joining MTV Networks in 2005, Kim served as Vice President of Business Development for Enpocket, a leading provider of mobile media, mobile marketing and mobile advertising services, and Vice President of Corporate Development for PreCache, a digital media distribution technology. She began her career as an investment banker at Dean Witter and held a succession of financial analyst positions at CIBC Capitol Partners and Dolphin Equity Partners. Kim holds a Masters in Business Administration from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.
  • Anmol Madan is a Ph.D candidate at the MIT Media Lab, in the Human Dynamics Group with Dr. Alex "Sandy" Pentland. Anmol's research is around building perceptual, "socially-aware" mobile phones and wearables. By mining patterns of activity, proximity and media consumption, he's trying to create the next generation of mobile media applications that comprehend the user's social behavior. Anmol's past work has received attention from several hundred media sources worldwide, including CNN, BBC, Wired, Slashdot, NPR etc. He has published academic papers, received awards from the MIT 50k Entrepreneurship Competition and MIT Enterprise Forum and has been involved with two startups in the mobile space.

Panel: Metrics and Measurement

  • Bruce Leichtman is the president and principal analyst of Leichtman Research Group, Inc., (LRG) which specializes in research and analysis on the adoption of products and services in the media, entertainment and broadband industries. Leichtman is responsible for LRG's five annual industry research studies, and he has conducted research for, and consulted with, dozens of organizations throughout the industries. He is a frequent public speaker at conferences and events, and his insights often appear in the media, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Investors Business Daily, NPR, and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Prior to founding LRG, Leichtman served as Vice President of Media and Internet Strategies for the Yankee Group, and launched the firm's Media and Entertainment practice. He has also served as director of marketing for Continental Cablevision, where he worked on the deployment of new products and services, and provided competitive analysis and positioning. He received a B.S. degree in communications management from Syracuse University and an M.B.A. from the University of Rochester. In April 2008, Leichtman will run in his fifth consecutive Boston Marathon to help raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
  • Stacey Lynn Schulman is senior vice president of Turner Entertainment Ad Sales Research, based in New York. Schulman, one of the leading research professionals in the media and advertising marketplace, works both at the company-wide level and with ad sales teams at the various Turner channels. Schulman spent ten years working for The Interpublic Group of Cos. in a variety of executive research and marketing positions, most recently as president of consumer experience practice for the company. While with the company, she also served as executive vice president of Initiative, a media agency within the Interpublic family, and played an integral role in Initiative's exclusive research partnership with MIT, which resulted in breakthrough research on a number of key industry issues, including consumer behavior, interactivity, and media convergence. She began her career at Katz Communications where she conducted programming and local market research before moving on to CBS as a Senior Research Analyst. Schulman is a former president of the Radio and Television Research Council (RTRC) and is a member of the Media Rating Council (MRC). She has been honored with numerous industry awards, including her selection as a "Wonder Woman" in the cable industry by Multichannel News, a "Media All-Star" by Mediaweek, and a "Media Maven" by Advertising Age.
  • Maury Giles is responsible for the creation and application of proprietary research and analytical tools as the as Vice-President and Director of Accountability and Analytics at GSD&M Idea City. He directs a group that provides consulting, design, and advanced analytics in the areas of ideation, message and copy testing, media and marketing strategy, channel and connections planning, and marketing return on investment. At GSD&M Idea City, Giles has led the application of non-traditional modeling techniques to media and marketing strategic planning. He came to GSD&M Idea City from Wirthlin Worldwide (acquired by Harris Interactive), where he held key positions in brand positioning and strategy, communications assessment, and ROI metrics and tracking. Giles is a David Ogilvy Grand Winner award recipient, the highest accolade in market research excellence and has 12 years of experience in the industry. He holds a B.A. in communication studies and journalism from New Mexico State University.
  • Jim Nail works as Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer for TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony. He is a thought leader and frequent speaker on how companies can tap social media like blogs and social networks to gain consumer insight and develop stronger bonds with influencers. He has an extensive background in integrated marketing through his 22-year career that spans online marketing, market research, brand advertising and direct marketing. Jim was an analyst at Forrester for eight years, focusing on how marketing strategies and tactics must adapt to technology-driven changes in consumer media consumption habits. Prior to joining Forrester, he helped launch Web advertising network AdSmart, where he served as director of marketing. He spent 15 years planning and managing integrated marketing campaigns at leading advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather Direct, Draft Worldwide, Bates USA and Hill Holliday. Jim is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

Panel: Fan Labor

  • Mark Deuze holds a joint appointment at Indiana University's Department of Telecommunications in Bloomington, United States, and as Professor of Journalism and New Media at Leiden University, The Netherlands. His most recent book, Media Work (published in 2007 with Polity Press), analyzes the experiences of media workers in the news, advertising, film, TV, and digital games industries in the United States, the Netherlands, South Africa and New Zealand. His Weblog can be found here.
  • Catherine Tosenberger has an MA in folklore from Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. in children's literature and folklore from the University of Florida. Her doctoral dissertation was on Harry Potter online fanfiction. She has presented papers on fan cultures, folklore, and adolescent literature at a number of conferences, and is a contributor to the National Public Radio program Recess! Tosenberger is a longtime participant in a number of online fandoms, including Harry Potter, House M.D., and Supernatural.
  • Jordan Greenhall, co-founder and CEO of DivX until July 2007, grew the company from a startup with a few employees into a recognized digital entertainment company positioned at the center of multimedia convergence. He currently serves as Chairman of the DivX Board of Directors. While attending Texas A&M, Greenhall met fellow Aggies and DivX co-founders Joe Bezdek and Tay Nguyen. A few years after graduating, they reunited and together with Jerome Rota and Darrius Thompson they founded DivX. Before DivX, Greenhall was Vice President at MP3.com, where he developed and implemented the company's business and content development model. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1997. In addition to serving the DivX Board, Greenhall also sits on the board of directors to Eyespot, a service devoted to making uploading, organizing and sharing video easier for people.
  • Elizabeth Osder leads product and programming for Buzznet.com as senior vice president of audience. Prior to joining Buzznet, she was Sr. Director of Product at Yahoo!, responsible for local, search, and social media products for Yahoo!'s global news and information sites. Osder's work at Yahoo! Media Group was preceded by her role as Director of Product Development for Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM). Since the early 1990s, she has been an editor, producer, and consultant for publications, broadcasters and online services, starting with BBS's and early online services. Osder served as global managing partner for iXL/Scient's Media & Entertainment Practice, Director of Product Development and Content Development Editor for New York Times Digital, and Executive Producer for Advance Internet. She began her career as a freelance photojournalist and photo editor for the Associated Press. Osder is a founding board member of the Online News Association and has taught in the graduate Journalism programs at USC Annenberg, Columbia, and NYU. In 2001-2002, she was awarded a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University where she studied technologies and communications. Osder holds an M.A. from The University of Missouri School of Journalism and a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College.
  • Raph Koster, president of Areae Inc., got started in virtual worlds back in the days of the text MUDs in the early 90s, working on LegendMUD. He was creative lead on the original Ultima Online and lead designer for UO Live and Ultima Online: The Second Age while working for ORIGIN and Electronic Arts. He then went on to be creative director on Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, for Sony Online Entertainment. From 2003 to 2006, he served as Chief Creative Officer at Sony Online. Koster is also the author of the acclaimed book A Theory of Fun for Game Design, and somehow finds the time to write constantly on his popular blog.

Panel: Advertising and Convergence Culture

  • Mike Rubenstein is an Art Director at The Barbarian Group, where he has worked for the past five years, working on a number of web campaigns and broadcast materials including shorts of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, commercial spots for Super Deluxe.com, and most recently a music video for the band Freezepop. He previously worked at Arnold Worldwide and graduated with a BFA in New Media from Emerson College in 2002.
  • Baba Shetty is chief media officer at Hill Holliday, where he oversees the work of connecting consumers with brand ideas across all channels, branded entertainment, and all digital marketing capabilities. Hill Holliday media and digital clients include Liberty Mutual, Chili's Grill and Bar, CVS Pharmacy, and Dunkin' Donuts. Shetty's career has spanned many aspects of business strategy, including brand management and consumer research. Prior to Hill Holliday, he led interactive marketing at Fallon Worldwide. Before Fallon, Shetty was a research director and principal analyst at Forrester Research here in Cambridge. While at Forrester, Shetty advised clients on a variety of interactive topics, including Web site design best practices, digital marketing, and CRM. His research and perspective have been featured in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and Business Week, and he has appeared as a guest commentator on the television network CNBC. Shetty also spent a decade in client-side marketing, most recently at BMW's North American headquarters. While at BMW, he served as director of marketing communications, managing all U.S. advertising, direct marketing, and database marketing. Shetty was a member of the team responsible for the "GoldenEye" launch of the Z3 roadster, and was involved in the inception of the BMW Films project.
  • Tina Wells, CEO of Buzz Marketing Group, earned her B.A. in Communication Arts graduating with honors from Hood College in 2002. Currently a Wharton School of Business student for marketing management, Wells continues to create innovative marketing strategies for numerous clients within the beauty, entertainment, fashion, financial, and lifestyle sectors. She has worked with clients including: St. Martins Press, SonyBMG, And1, Sesame Workshop, and Time Inc.; Tina's long list of honors include Essence 40 Under 40 Award, Billboard's 30 Under 30 Award, and AOL's Black Voices Black Female Entrepreneur's Award, just to name a few. She is currently working on a book series aimed at tween girls, and is prepping for the launch of BuzzMG's new trendsetter site, buzzspotter.com. Wells resides in Southern New Jersey with her vast collection of shoes.
  • Faris Yakob is a senior strategist and the Digital Ninja at communication strategy agency Naked Communications. After graduating from Oxford University, Yakob fell through management consultancy and journalism before landing in communications planning. As a strategist he has worked on brands such as Coca-Cola, Orange, Sony, Yahoo!, and Virgin Mobile, in Sydney, London, and New York and helped some of them win some awards. As Digital Ninja, he helps midwife digital ideas at Naked. Yakob writes about brands, media, communications, technology, and that for a variety of publications including the Financial Times and writes a blog called Talent Imitates, Genius Steals, one of the top 5 advertising blogs in the UK. He was recently awarded the President's Prize for best paper for his vision of the future of brands by the Institute of Practioners in Advertising (IPA). He sometimes talks about this sort of thing at conferences and univesities. Yakob is proud of being a geek and has been reading comics and playing games for more than two decades. However, he still feels odd about writing about himself in the third person.
  • Bill Fox is senior vice president of Fidelity Communications and Advertising, the internal advertising agency for Fidelity Investments, which is the largest mutual fund company in the United States, the No. 1 provider of workplace retirement savings plans, and one of the nation's leading online brokerage firms. In this role, Fox is responsible for driving the creation and production of targeted communications for Fidelity's myriad of businesses. He is charged with delivering Fidelity's message to both institutional clients and retail investors across a broad range of mediums--from print and interactive to podcasts, audiovisual productions, and Fidelity publications. Prior to Fidelity, Fox worked for external agencies and has extensive experience managing international advertising. He has worked and lived in Asia for seven years and Latin America for five.

Panel: Cult Media

  • Danny Bilson has supplied 165 hours of original large-canvas television episodes and pilots for major Hollywood studios through his production company, Pet Fly. Bilson and co-writer Paul De Meo created and executive produced these various series, while Bilson directed pilots and key episodes. Their work includes The Flash (Warner Bros./CBS), Human Target (Warner Bros./ABC), Viper (Paramount/NBC/First Run Syndication), The Sentinel (Paramount/UPN), as well as film such as Trancers and Zone Troopers, the latter of which Bilson directed. The team wrote the screenplay for Disney's The Rocketeer and contributed drafts for Paramount's The Italian Job and have more recently been working on the screen story for DC Comics character Sergeant Rock with Warner Bros. He also directed an episode of the reality series On the Road in America and the action unit of Dukes of Hazard 2. Bilson and De Meo also work in comics, most recently relaunching The Flash for DC and releasing the original graphic novel Red Menace. Bilson has also worked in video games since 1999, serving as co-producer of Electronic Arts' The Sims. As VP of Intellectual Property Development for EA, Bilson provided creative direction, concept design, story, and scripts for franchises such as , James Bond 007, and Medal of Honor. After leaving EA, Bilson has focused on developing transmedia stories and serves as a faculty member at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, where he leads the interactive fiction section.
  • Jeff Gomez is the CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, a content development and production studio based in New York City. An expert in the field of transmedia development and creator and producer of highly successful fictional worlds, Gomez exponentially increases the value of intellectual properties by preparing them at early phase to be extended across a wide variety of entertainment platforms. He has written and produced elaborate trans-media universes (including content such as feature and episodic animation, video games, comic books, novels, and web portals) for 20th Century Fox, The Coca-Cola Company, The Walt Disney Company, Acclaim Entertainment, Mattel, Hasbro and Scholastic. Gomez has worked on such properties as Turok, Dinosaur Hunter, Magic: The Gathering, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hot Wheels, Pirates of the Caribbean, Disney Fairies, and Coca-Cola's Happiness Factory.
  • Jesse Alexander is a co-executive producer and writer on Heroes, NBC's epic saga that chronicles the lives of ordinary people who are discovering they possess extraordinary abilities. He is also an executive producer on the exciting new Heroes spinoff, Origins. Previously, Alexander was an executive producer on ABC's Alias, alongside college friend J.J. Abrams. Abrams then enlisted Alexander as a co-executive producer on ABC's Emmy award-winning drama Lost. Other past projects include the film Eight Legged Freaks, starring David Arquette, and Sony Playstation's Apocalypse video game, featuring Bruce Willis. His first professional job as a writer was creating a new opening sequence for Pamela Anderson's Barb Wire at Dark Horse Entertainment. A self-admitted "fan boy from way back," this Santa Barbara native began his career creating Super-8 movies with his Star Wars action figures. Alexander studied film at Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and the American Film Institute.
  • Gordon Tichell is the EVP of Business Development for Walden Media, a motion picture production company specializing in family entertainment. In this role, he oversees Walden's education, outreach, and interactive initiatives, working with teachers, museums, and national organizations to develop supplemental educational programs and materials associated with its films and the original events and/or novels that inspire them. Over the last 10 years, Tichell has also worked for USA Films, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, and Working Title Films. Currently commuting between Walden's Los Angeles and Boston offices, he has developed a very strong yet antagonistic relationship with the Boeing 757.

Opening comments from:

  • Henry Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of nine books on various aspects of media and popular culture, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture and From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. His newest books include Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. Jenkins recently developed a white paper on the future of media literacy education for the MacArthur Foundation, which is leading to a three-year project to develop curricular materials to help teachers and parents better prepare young people for full participation in contemporary culture. He is one of the principal investigators for The Education Arcade, a consortium of educators and business leaders working to promote the educational use of computer and video games. He is one of the leaders of the Convergence Culture Consortium, which consults with leading players in the branded entertainment sector in hopes of helping them adjust to shifts in the media environment.
  • Joshua Green is the Research Manager of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT, where he is also a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Comparative Media Studies program. Green leads a team of researchers exploring the changing media landscape and the ramifications of convergence and participatory culture for content production, advertising and branding practice, and the way we understand media audiences. Before coming to MIT, he worked as a researcher in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at QUT in Brisbane, Australia. He has published work on participatory culture and the relationship between producers and consumers, television scheduling strategies, the history of Australian television, and the construction of the cultural public sphere. He is currently preparing work on the formation of the participatory audience and television branding in the context of participatory culture. Green holds a PhD in Media Studies from the Queensland University of Technology.
  • Jonathan Gray is Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University. He is author of Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality (Routledge, 2006) and Television Entertainment (Routledge, 2008), as well as co-editor of Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (NYU Press, 2007) and Battleground: The Media (Greenwood, 2008). He also co-edits the academic journal Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture, and is co-author of the new blog, The Extratextuals. Gray's current book project is about the various forms of hype, synergy, transmedia extensions, merchandising, fan productions, and so forth that surround and create film and television as we know them.
  • C. Lee Harrington is Professor of Sociology and Affiliate of the Women's Studies Program at Miami University. Her research interests include television studies, fan studies, and sociology of law. With Denise Bielby, she has co-authored Soap Fans: Pursuing Pleasure and Making Meaning in Everyday Life (1995) and co-edited Popular Culture: Production and Consumption (2001). With Jonathan Gray and Cornel Sandvoss, she has co-edited Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World (2007). Harrington's work appears in sociology, communications, and inter-disciplinary journal outlets. Her current research projects focus on issues of aging in soap opera and media framing of death row inmates who elect execution.
  • Jason Mittell is Assistant Professor of American Studies and Film & MediaCulture at Middlebury College. He is the author of Genre and Television: From Cop Shows to Cartoons in American Culture (Routledge, 2004), and essays in a number of journals and anthologies. He is currently writing a textbook on television and American culture, and a book on narrative complexity in contemporary American television. He writes informally about television on his blog, JustTV.
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