Speaker List

Program Option

The Digital Shift — Podcasting in 2023
So you think you need a podcast. Do you know what to do with it?

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Short Bio:

RADIO LOUNGE MARKETING – the Houston-based production facility for broadcast, film, on-location audio experiences and digital media.  Podcast training, production and distribution.  Voice coaching and the production of high-end voice talent demos.

When Ray Schilens started in the business, tape splicing was an art form and you either nailed the entire production with the perfect take or you started from scratch.  One thing that hasn’t changed since the days of analog recording is the power of creative behind the message.

Ray’s commitment to quality media content has earned him much respect by his contemporaries.  Overseeing all facets of a broadcast production facility and an organizational creative think tank, Ray has vast experience in various areas of advertising, marketing, and business leadership.  Ray’s extensive background covers five decades of broadcast programming and creative services management in Detroit, Houston, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale.  Ray’s combination of creativity, dedication to quality, his strength in client relationships, and training skills has driven his successful career.

For three decades RADIO LOUNGE MARKETING has been a labor of love that has generated award winning content for a variety of direct advertisers and agencies around the world.  With literally thousands of broadcast spots created each year, every day brings something new.  Ray has been an inspired leader of the RADIO LOUNGE team since its inception.

As a Podcast pioneer, Ray co-hosted The Advertising Show, with Brad Forsythe, debuting in September of 2001; a favorite stop of ad luminaries including George Lois, Luke Sullivan, Linda Kaplan Thaler, Pat Fallon, Rance Crain, Dick Orkin, Roy Williams, and others with a cutting-edge global perspective on all aspects of media and marketing.

Ray is Immediate Past-President of the American Advertising Federation, Houston. And VP on the board for F2F, the Faith to Form Music Foundation.

As an IMDb voice actor Ray is known for the character Chrovos in the TV Series short, Red vs. Blue.  Ray can be heard on regional and national advertising campaigns which include driving sales for luxury automotive brands such as Acura and BMW, entertaining audiences for The Houston, Syracuse and Tacoma Symphony orchestras, delivering a message of hope and healing for MD Anderson and Johnson and Johnson, teaching, narration and global corporate training from Lagos to Lake Charles, storytelling for experiential venues to the floor of the US Congress.  With a style best described as genuine, warm, and rich, in the style of Garrison Keillor and Donald Sutherland.

Beyond advertising, as a licensed pilot, Ray’s interests include flying to find the perfect $100 hamburger, golf on any course, at any time, and family time with his wife Kathryn, their two daughters and six grand kids in the sweetest town in Texas, Sugar Land.

Program Options

Topic 1: Designing for digital inclusion — who has the right to access?
In this session, I explain and examine the concepts of universal, inclusive, and equitable design in the digital realm, and how it applies to the products the we interact with everyday.

We’ll talk about how designer decisions impact the final product, which has implications for who uses the product. We’ll also talk about how we can spot inequities and discuss how these inequities may be addressed.

Topic 2:  Avoiding the Unintended Consequences of Design
Design teams have the best intentions for the products they create. It’s the unintended consequences that cause problems.

We don’t always think about what COULD go wrong, and it’s all because our brains are working against us. So how do we break this pattern? I explain the steps teams can take to address design issues before they
become an issue.

Topic 3: Foresight CAN be 20/20: Team Alignment in Complex Organizations
Too often we work on products with clear requirements, but how often are teams doing the hard work to work more effectively from start to finish.

Teams that “perform” are the goal, yet this often feels like an impossible task when the individuals on the team report to different managers or don’t have the trust needed to function as a cohesive unit. And the larger the team, the larger the challenge.

In this presentation, I walk through how product leaders can recognize when they are faced with this situation and what steps I’ve taken in my own company and with my clients to improve working relationships and establish trust.

Attendees will walk away with action steps they can take back to their own teams to align and produce better products despite the challenges.

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Short Bio:

Cindy Brummer is CEO and Creative Director of Standard Beagle Studio,
a user experience design agency in Austin, Texas.

Cindy founded Standard Beagle where she leads a small but mighty team
of UX designers and developers, helping clients make more delightful
experiences for their customers.

In addition to leading and growing her team, she mentors designers and
teaches as an adjunct instructor for the UX/UI boot camp program
through the University of Texas at Austin.

Cindy earned a Master of Professional Studies in UX Design from the
Maryland Institute College of Art and was selected as a Design Lead
for The Johns Hopkins technology Innovation Hexcite Fellowship
program.

She is also a contributing author to the book “97 Things Every UX
Practitioner Should Know,” published by O’Reilly in June 2021.

Visit her websites:
https://standardbeagle.com/
https://cindybrummer.com/

Program Options

Option A: Take This Job and #*@%:
When your clients, employers and coworkers are tap dancing on your last nerve, it can make you question every decision that led to this point in your life. Add in being tired and exhausted and it can seem impossible to stay motivated enough to do your job, let alone excel. Anissa Centers will guide you as you figure out why you really work. Once you figure out your WHY(s) you can consistently approach your career with the kind of focused purpose that helps you wring every single, available benefit out of the experience.

Option B: No is Not a 4-letter Word:
Become comfortable saying no or, at least not now, so you can focus on the highest payoff projects, maybe have a little time to yourself and even spend enough time with your family and friends that they don’t forget what you look like.

Option C: Not Even Your Mama Knows What’s Right for You:
So many of us live frustrated, dissatisfied lives with this nagging feeling that our lives could be so much better if we could just figure out what’s missing.

It’s easy to be so overwhelmed with outside stimuli—images and expectations and demands and opinions that you don’t even know what you really want.

When you reacquaint yourself with the one person who really knows what’s best for you, you’ll be able to make decisions that create the life you truly want.

Option D: Draw Boundaries Without Burning Bridges:
Work, family, friends—sometimes, they just ask too much. When you become comfortable saying no in such a way that you and they feel good about the experience, you create a winning situation.

*All of these talks can be presented in 20, 30, 45 or 60 minute forms. Anissa can also teach them as training sessions and interactive sessions of varying lengths where participants can work with her to directly address their specific challenges.

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Short Bio:

Anissa Centers takes people who are uncomfortable speaking on and off camera and turns them into powerful communicators.

She’s an Emmy award-winning broadcaster whose work has been seen by millions of people around the world and has worked with clients from small startups to Fortune 500 companies, showing professionals how to reach their full potential, producing noticeable results.

For decades, Anissa has interviewed Presidents, First Ladies, Senators, business leaders, world famous entertainers and others operating at the highest levels, allowing her to study success in every field. She combines all of that with years of personal development training to help you, finally, get what you want – whether it’s more confident speaking, self-assured decision making or more success – she is uniquely qualified to help you get the results you want.

Program Options

Option A: Personal Branding // Believe in Now:
Living your life with a sense of urgency to create the most positive environment for those you interact with.

Option B: The Power of Sales // Marketing in a Different World:
Strategies to engage consumers where they are in a post pandemic world.

Various other Sales and Marketing Topics
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Short Bio:

Dr. Shane Hunt is the Dean of the College of Business and a Professor of Marketing at Idaho State University. Shane is the recipient of the 2010 National Inspire Integrity Award from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, the 2010 Lt. Col. Barney Smith Award as Professor of the Year and the 2015 Honors Professor of the Year at Arkansas State University, and the 2019 National Teaching Innovation Award from the Association of Collegiate Marketing Educators. Shane’s research has appeared in The Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, The Journal of Business Logistics and he has presented to numerous organizations including the American Marketing Association and the National Conference in Sales Management.

Shane is also the co-author of three Principles of Marketing textbooks and a brand new Professional Selling textbook published by McGraw Hill that are being used by students across the country and throughout the world. After completing his MBA at the University of Oklahoma, Shane went to work for a Fortune 500 company in Tulsa, OK and spent eight years working as a pricing analyst, product manager, and business development manager overseeing numerous Mergers and Acquisitions initiatives before completing his Ph.D. at Oklahoma State University.

Shane lives in Pocatello, ID with his wife Jenifer and their two children, Andrew and Sarah.

Program Options

Option A: Personal Character and Leadership Development:

1. Integrity | The Well Ordered Life
2. Responsibility | The Nature of True Freedom
3. Humility | The Path of Service and Security
4. Empathetic Communication | The Heart of Leadership
5. Coactive Vision | The Priority of Leadership
6. Courageous Action | The Catalyst of Leadership

Option B: Culture and Team:

1. Team and Culture Dynamics |The Ecology of Great Groups
2. Structuring for Growth
3. Social Leadership | From Job to Mission

Option C: Productivity and Learning:

1. The Art of Follow-Through | Maximizing Your Personal Productivity
2. Two Are Better Than One | Cultivating Successful Relationships
3. The Critical Element of Personal Growth | The Process of Paying Attention
4. View From the Top | The Use and Abuse of Authority and Power
5. Making the Most of Your Moment | Developing the Spirit of Courage
6. Sustaining Success | Skills for Life-long Learning
7. Be Prepared | Leveraging Your Opportunities
8. Winning the War for Attention, Follow up, and Responsiveness

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Short Bio:

In 2002, Andy developed an award winning leadership program at USC in conjunction with their Leadership Center that spread to dozens of universities. The late Dr. Warren Bennis and Dr. Dallas Willard were on the advisory board. Prior to that he operated as a “solopreneur” doing leadership consulting, organizational development, and training facilitation.

Andy founded Expio LLC in 2011 to focus on digital marketing. Expio provides SEO, SEM, website design, ADA-WCAG consulting, maintenance and security, and social media management. Target clients are businesses or organizations over $10M in revenue that have multiple domains and locations. Expio has deep experience with Healthcare, Professional Services, and Tech/ Software Industries. Andy also continues to consult with companies on business development, leadership, culture, and marketing strategy.

Andy fronts a blues/ rock band called Roller Trio. He holds a BS Liberal Studies/ Music from Belmont University, Nashville; and an MA in Global Leadership, Fuller Seminary, Pasadena. He is on the board of TexChange Dallas and Amphibian Stage Productions in Fort Worth.

In 2011 Andy was honored as a Chamber of Commerce Top 20 Under 40 Business Professional.

Program Option

Hispanic Marketing:
Inside Look into A New Opportunity Brand vs. Advertising.
Do You Know the Difference?

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Short Bio:

De Leon is President of Boone DeLeon Communications, Inc. and has been with the firm since 1979. He supervises conceptualization, production and placement of the agency’s print, broadcast, publicity and promotional output. If he is not in the office running the Agency, he is traveling the country judging creative competitions or serving as a panelist for seminars on marketing, retailing, multicultural marketing and advertising.

Prior to joining Boone DeLeon, Leo was a broadcast producer for six years at Young & Rubicam, followed by two years as advertising director for Pace Management, Inc. Leo is a native Texan and earned a Bachelor of Science in Radio-Television-Film from the University of Texas at Austin.  He earned the professional designation as a Certified Business Communicator (CBC) in 1984.

A Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum and a graduate of the Center for Houston’s Future, Leo has served as Chairman of the American Advertising Federation of Houston, Chairman of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and President of Houston Proud among other positions.

Program Options

Marketers are From Mars, Creatives Are From Venus: How to Solve Your Earthly Problems

The language disconnect between creatives and marketers is the #1 cause of friction and misunderstanding in the marketing process. In a funny 45-minute session, marketers will learn why they can’t live with creatives (and certainly can’t take them to lunch). Creatives will learn why they’ve never wanted to take a marketer out for a beer. And both of them will learn why they don’t want to talk to Research.

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Me Write Good: Post-Modern Customer Communications

We’re in one of the four times in the past 1,000 years when English is going through a major revolution. “Post-Modern English” is a language you never learned in school: memes, icons, emojis, abbreviations and visuals. And a key question is: How do you use that language to communicate with customers without sounding phony? We’ll look at the language revolution, the new ways of communicating and the new rules for spelling, grammar, punctuation and more. Along the way, we’ll give you some tools you can use to stay in tune with your customers, your younger employees and your markets.

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Taming the Approval Process: How to Sell the First Draft of Anything

There is nothing more powerful than the human urge to edit, alter, revise, change, tinker with, emend improve someone else’s copy. While more and more marketing is being measured, quantified, evaluated and tested, companies have let the client, agency, vendor, freelancer, creative group relationship get out of control. In an engaging (and occasionally painful) 45 minutes, we’ll demystify and deconstruct the steps in getting work approved—and then providing 13 skills you can use to get it under control.

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Short Bio:

Four time Emmy Award winner Steve Lance has been hired and fired from some of the best and worst ad agencies in the business. Along the way he’s created some of the most memorable lines in advertising including Explore Your World for Discovery Channel, NBC Proud as a Peacock and Othello: A Minute To Learn, A Lifetime to Master. His Emmy Awards include his work creating The More You Know and his ten years promoting Shark Week for Discovery Channel. He’s the co-author of three books on advertising and marketing, including The Little Blue Book of Advertising, The Little Blue Book of Marketing and Breakthrough! He’s also the ghostwriter of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, “It’s Your Money.” Steve serves on the board of Share The Care and builds homes for a hobby.

Program Options

Making Things Up for a Living:
Get the inside scoop about how Angelo Antoline develops creative that works. He will discuss how he creates something out of nothing (and how you can too) to deliver creative solutions for branding, advertising and dimensional direct response for your clients. He promotes the power of a great headline, the importance of hierarchy in an ad, why sometimes using a client’s logo can produce less results and many other topics. He will exploit his own process and why it has made him successful. And you will be able to inject some of his processes into your own.

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The Benefits, The Challenges, The Goosebumps:
This program will introduce new ideas for you to engage with the community in which you serve and the benefits, challenges and goosebumps that come along with doing so. This discussion will also prompt you to look in the mirror and to ask yourself, “Am I doing my part to improve my career, my conscience and my community?” Let’s find out!

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Short Bio:

At the age of 26, Angelo started his own advertising agency called mundayMorning Creative Group. He started out of his home in a spare bedroom. He grew the agency to over 5 million in billings in just a few short years and occupied half of the 7th floor in his office building near Dallas before his agency was acquired by a large, national agency in 2010. Angelo became their Executive Creative Director – running the creative for their five locations across the U.S.

In February, 2013, he went back out on his own and started his current agency, SOMETHING SHINY. His agency is focused on brand development and strategy execution.

Angelo, a past Governor of the Tenth District, also serves as:

Vice Chair: AAF Central Region
Treasurer: Foundation for Advertising Education
Chair: Tenth District Communications Committee

Program Option

How to Tailor Your Brand Experience to the Decision-Maker, The Woman:
In this informative session, Katie will share her practical experiences as a female C-Suite Executive and Customer Experience Expert. She will educate the audience on the impact women have on household decision-making as the Chief Purchasing Officer and the most influential consumer in the world.  

Only three percent of the world’s creative directors are women, which means the journey the female consumer goes on during an advertising campaign is designed by men for men, yet she is the one deciding to do business with the organizations for which you create advertisements. Katie will educate the audience on the physiological differences between men and women which will outline why she buys, and she will share five applicable takeaways that will impact the way you approach future ad campaigns.

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Short Bio:

Katie knows the challenges organizations encounter as they strive to design a customer service program that is sustainable and has an impact in the marketplace. She also knows that developing a program is one small step to success, it is the tools and implementation plan that makes a program take flight.

Using her experiences as a CIO, building company infrastructure and designing customer experience programs, Katie is now a leading voice inspiring positive, actionable change in the dealerships, organizations and women she partners with. Katie has earned her Master’s in Adult Training and Development and is a Certified Training & Development Professional.

NOTE: Katie can do hour-long presentations or all-day workshops on a variety of topics. Visit her website to see more topics at www.katiemares.com.

Program Options

Increasing Cultural Awareness:
Visual communicators must engage in a global dialogue of design to differentiate between universally valid aesthetic principles and assumed truths from predominant design and marketing traditions. There is an identifiable shift in global communication to a homogenous design style imposing western cultural semiotics and structure on other cultures without thought to appropriateness or effectiveness. Examples as evidence of this growing issue will be displayed, as well as an easy-to-use checklist to make better choices.

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Global Design Thinking and How the Millennial Mindset is Changing the World:
Millennials (born late 90s-early 2000s) are now a large portion of the workforce and design management should harness the mindset of this generation. This talk reviews significant world events that inevitably shaped lives and viewpoints. Distrust of media and hierarchy echoed from GenX, so Millennials found other means of accessing information in a community. Instead of seeing categories in the world and “networking”, Millennials strive to work together and build “communities”. The ability to communicate with individuals on an international level – from social media to gaming – also caused a significant shift in the definition of “community” that is built from the Global Village. What Millennials do naturally is the working definition of the buzzword Global Design Thinking. As Millennials change the world with this outlook, they aren’t rebelling to make a statement. They are empowered and will do what they think is the right answer without asking permission to do so. This talk helps management in any discipline to recognize problem-solving skills and viewpoints of Millennials to work within and for the Global Village of the 21st Century. (presented by a GenX)

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Targeting Generations: Baby Boomers, GenX, Millennials
The generations are different for obvious reasons. HOW they are different is often overlooked. This talk reminds viewers of significant world events that inevitably shape lives and reviews the consequential positive and negative effects. The evolution of design and communication will also be shown to a present day beautifully messy post-postmodern style that divorces itself from the sterile computer. The audience will leave the talk with a more keen awareness to why visual styles and approaches work for different generations.

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Help Keep Creatives Creative:
A strange bunch we are. Copywriters and art directors must be able to speak in the hard communication of strategy while also being skilled in the soft communication of suggesting the sell. LET your creatives do what they do well or you will strangle them and end up strangling your advertising efforts. Creativity in all forms informs copywriters and art directors. It is not about wasting time and money, but about investing in the mental well-being of the magic that makes the sell.

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Guerrilla Marketing:
It’s cheap. It’s effective. It engages. And it’s the latest way to communicate with multiple demographics. Postmodern artists skillfully exploited it for social purposes, which cleared the frontier for the mainstream to wield its powers via advertising in today’s media landscape. Examples of successful (and brilliantly surprising!) guerrilla marketing will be shown and discussed in regards to how audience, strategy, and placement are affected. Return on investment will also be investigated as brand loyalty is built.

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Short Bio:

An obsession with the communicative aspect of art led Nikki Arnell first to advertising. Moving from Midwestern Indiana to Denver, Colorado, she began a decade in the fast-paced and exciting world of advertising. From design for local shops to art direction for mega-brands like Procter & Gamble and Coors Brewing Company, this time provided experiential education and awards. However, an unexpected teaching job while freelancing changed her desired career path and so she returned to school to earn a terminal graduate degree.

Ms. Arnell then took a position with Arkansas State University’s Department of Art + Design where she continues to push the expected in graphic design by balancing the commercial sell and gallery aesthetic. Since this time, she has presented research at international academic conferences from Lisbon to Tokyo while continuing to create freelance design and exhibit artwork. Grants received have also allowed her to continue studies in locations like Istanbul and Barcelona.

Ms. Arnell also greatly enjoys the invitation to speak to any national AAF chapter as she meets new people and sees new places! She happily resides in Memphis, Tennessee, a city that is alive with a deep culture and history worth studying every day.

Program Options

“Visual Storytelling”
A Sordid Tale of What to Tell and What To Not

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“Writing for Advertising”
What’s With All the Words?

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“I Smell Funny”
Use and Misuse of Humor in Advertising

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“Advertising Doesn’t Have to Suck”

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Short Bio:

Robert Campbell is Partner and Creative Director of 808inc., a Houston-based creative and production studio. Formerly a senior writer with BBDO Houston, Robert has created memorable, award-winning advertising for a variety of national and regional clients. He’s written for print, web, video, outdoor, bathroom walls—and has directed numerous commercials.

In addition to receiving a Cannes Lion, his work has been featured in Ad Age, Creativity, Adweek, AdCritic.com’s Top 10, TBS’s Funniest Commercials on Television and a BBC Documentary on Advertising, which he hasn’t seen.

Program Options

“Be Your Best on Your Next Journey”
There comes a time in our lives when we want or need to make a change. We realize we want something to be different, but we don’t always know why we want or need to make the change. Learn how to take practical steps to help you determine the why and to reach those goals most important to you.

The stages:

– Find Your Passion – What is it that you would love to do, even if you didn’t get paid?
– Choose Your Adventure – What is your personal adventure you want to embark on?
– Ignite Your Activity – How to put steps into motion so you can begin your journey.

Key strategies you will learn:

– How to transition to new habits so you can take that next bold step.
– How to overcome default behaviors that may be holding you back.

The program covers key emotional intelligence and personal leaderships skills in demonstrating how to “Be Your Best on Your Next Journey”

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Short Bio:

Chuck Inman has spent over 30 years excelling in sales, marketing, training and coaching. In his sales and marketing leadership roles he successfully launched key products and marketing campaigns on a global basis.

He is accredited and certified in teaching Leadership and Emotional Intelligence programs. Chuck has taught these programs to people from over 40 countries around the world while traveling throughout Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe.  He truly understands how to find your passion, pick your adventure and ignite your activity.

Chuck is a graduate from Northern Arizona University where he received degrees in Biology and Business. He has spent many summers on horseback with a packhorse in the Wind Rivers Wilderness Area of Wyoming as a guide and wrangler. He enjoys hiking and fly-fishing. As a father of two daughters and a grandfather of one adventurous grandson, he finds the lessons learned in planning a journey can be successfully applied in the family setting.

Program Options

Top 10 Lifestyle, Digital and Marketing Trends to Watch:
As customers’ attitudes, preferences and behaviors change, so must our tools for reaching them.  From mindful living to gamification to mobile-first design, it’s a whole new playing field out there. This presentation offers a fast-paced examination of the top ten trends marketers must keep an eye on – in order to stay relevant.

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8 Key Marketing Trends to Watch in Today’s Tech Driven Society:
The ongoing advances in technology impact how customers make purchase decisions. In turn, those changes drive how marketers must uncover new ways of reaching and engaging the customer. This information-packed presentation offers a detailed analysis of the top eight trends impacting marketers’ daily decisions.

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How Customer Experience Mapping Makes Good Sense and Great Customers:
Experience mapping brings a whole new light to the customer encounter analysis – for better or worse. From the customer’s initial awareness to the purchase and sales support experiences, this tool illustrates their journey. At which touchpoints do customers feel valued versus disconnected from your company or brand? What can you do to enhance their encounters? This case study presentation shows how several national brands use experience mapping to boost their image and customer loyalty.

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Rethinking Your Business Intelligence Approach:  5 Key Elements for Accessing Hard to Reach Customers:
It’s time to think differently about collecting business intelligence. Today’s technical environment allows your customers to easily avoid traditional surveys and phone outreach, so new methods are necessary.  This presentation – through real-life case studies – shows how new positioning processes and collection strategies help you break through to those “hard to reach” customers. You’ll walk away with compelling reasons and innovative ideas for rethinking your approach to research. 

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Marketing to the New Cultural Mix:
Significant shifts in America’s cultural mix are changing how marketers design promotional campaigns.  For example, the size and continued growth of America’s ethnic and lifestyle groups make it crucial to include them in any comprehensive marketing strategy. As generational segments – Baby Boomers, Millennials, etc. – grow older, they take on new beliefs, preferences and shopping styles. This presentation answers important questions such as: How is our cultural mix changing? What effect does it have on today’s promotional strategies? What changes can we expect for the future? You will walk away from this presentation with detailed descriptions of America’s key cultural consumer groups and the most effective strategies for reaching them.

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Short Bio:

Susan Saurage-Altenloh, president of Saurage Research, shares fascinating insights about today’s hottest marketplace topics with ad clubs around the country.

Her knowledge, warmth and wit have earned her an outstanding reputation among a long list of hosting organizations.  Susan’s bio and speaking references are included on this webpage.

Program

The Hottest Trends in Web & App Design (Panel Discussion)

Members of the Insite leadership team with will be addressing the four areas of website design and development that you need to know about:

Website Strategy.  We’ll be talking about the importance of it and where it needs to be addressed in the overall design and development process.

Compliance & Accessibility.  Ensuring that your website is compliant with ADA regulations, and thus accessible to any user, is not only the right thing to do but is also necessary to avoid expensive litigation.

Analytics. The digital world provides the opportunity to measure and analyze pretty much anything, but what are4 the most important data points you should be focused on?

Latest in UX & UI.  Making sure the user experience is the best it can be impacts everything from SEO to facilitating the overall consumer journey/path to purchase.

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Panel Bios:

Bren Taylor Montgomery – President
Bren champions compassionate leadership and believes transparent communication is vital to achieving success for her team, her company, and her clients. She is a tireless advocate for human-centered technology who daily challenges her designers, developers, engineers and artists to strike the perfect balance between the compelling and the complex.

Upon joining Insite on a full-time basis in 2011, Bren immediately brought a new depth of expertise in both finance and operations to the organization. In the decade leading up to that point, she owned and operated her own accounting firm, having left a career in the petroleum industry. Her prior experience upholding standards and ensuring regulatory compliance for clients like GOEX International, Halliburton and Baker Oil Tools also instilled in her a passion for detail-oriented work.

Bren’s attentiveness and care have proven invaluable in the years since, and she credits these character traits with helping her excel in the many positions she’s held during her tenure at Insite. Since 2017, she’s served as Insite’s President. In that capacity, she’s found fulfillment in nurturing the company’s core capabilities, empowering innovation and exercising her commitment to promoting the adoption of best practices.

Bren is an energetic mom of two who loves the outdoors. She is also a leader in her local community, frequently partnering with United Way. Whether at work or play, Bren believes that something positive can be taken from every experience. The key, as she observes, is to push onward and focus on what’s possible — not what’s unattainable.

Chris Isom: Director of Ongoing Services
As Insite’s Maintenance and Ongoing Services Director, Chris leads the team responsible for providing Insite’s strategic partners with long-term support and infrastructure services.

Chris’ extensive experience bridges the high-level and the hands-on. He’s been keeping code clean, up-to-date, and optimized since 1999, all while staying up-to-date on the latest developments in UI/UX, cybersecurity provisions, Google Analytics (in which he is Certified), and web compliance. Chris also has a knack for animation and sound, informed by his B.S. in Kinesiology.

When Chris is not busy taking care of his clients, he enjoys spending his time working the pool table and cooking delicious meals which he’s kind—and wise—enough to share with his ravenous coworkers. Asked to report an interesting fact about himself, Chris notes that, although he prides himself on thinking outside boxes, he has kept the packaging for every electronic item he’s ever purchased.

Cam Beck: Director of Strategy & Optimization
Cam has followed what he describes as a “circuit course career path” in rising to the position of Insite’s Director of Strategy & Optimization. That circuit has included a stint in the Marine Corps (following in both his father’s footsteps) as well as jobs in both graphic design and experience planning.

Throughout it all, Cam has honed his abilities to think architecturally and forge balance, vital skills he deploys every day in crafting strategic UX for a wide array of clients.

While he thrives in a structured workplace, Cam chooses to dedicate his personal time to his family (his wife and three children) and his creative pursuits. The latter includes running his own small business—OO-RAH.com, a company that produces custom shirts for military units. It, too, is a family affair, with Cam’s brother handling logo design and art director.

Program Options

Social Media Speaker/Trainer/Advisor:
Connect on LinkedIn

Friend on Facebook (Personal)

Like on Facebook (Fan Page)

Follow me on Twitter

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

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Short Bio:

Kevin Knebl, CMEC is an International Speaker, Author, Trainer and Joie de Vivre Coach™ whose clients include individuals and small, medium and Fortune 500 companies. He’s an in-demand, leading authority on Social Selling, Relationship Marketing, LinkedIn and Twitter with a healthy dose of Inspiration, Transformational Insight, and Humor blended in for good measure for conferences, conventions, company trainings, and many other events.

Kevin is the coauthor of “The Social Media Sales Revolution: The New Rules for Finding Customers, Building Relationships, and Closing More Sales Through Online Networking” (McGraw-Hill). Kevin is also a contributing author of “Learn Marketing with Social Media in Seven Days” (Wiley).

If you have read this far, you may just want to call him to say hello. He’s very positive and encouraging. Like….way positive and encouraging. Besides, you must be looking for something to do if you’re reading the fine print.

Program Options

Outed: LGBTQ+ Representation in Advertising
Beyond Pride Month, LGBTQ+ representation in advertising is minimal, despite them being the most diverse group of people on the planet.

Kurt Thigpen is “outing” the advertising industry’s standards and points out ways we can do better, as well as some displaying examples of advertisements and companies that are doing it right.

He’ll deliver takeaways on how you can create inclusive, diverse, and respectful advertising campaigns.

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Why Social Impact Marketing is Vital to Your Brand
With younger buyers prioritizing supporting causes – a brand’s social impact in the world could be a deciding factor in the buying behavior of your target audience.

Many want to know that your brand is human, that it cares about things like equal rights for all, protecting the environment, or ending poverty to name some examples. Basically, you aren’t in it just for the almighty dollar.

The causes their money ends up supporting at the end of the day is linked to their core values and principles.

That’s why executing an effective social impact marketing plan is crucial to a brand strategy.

In this talk, Kurt Thigpen will explain what social impact marketing is and how it can help grow your brand, put you in front of the right audiences, and earn devoted customers – expanding your bottom line in return.

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How to Make Your Website Truly Awful
Kurt has seen it all when it comes to web design, and sometimes he has to tell clients their baby is ugly.

In comedic fashion, Kurt roasts some of the worst websites on the internet to demonstrate what brands should avoid at all costs when building a website.

An example of a past short-form presentation at Ignite Reno can viewed here.

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Brand Building to Create Social Impact
In this talk, Kurt goes beyond fonts, logos, wordmarks, and color palettes when speaking about branding.

He knows that the brands that last forever are the ones that intentionally work to create a positive social impact.

Kurt shares key principles a brand should implement culturally, socially, and institutionally to create a social impact, which in turn will add to your bottom line by making you the industry favorite people won’t forget.

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Why Businesses Should Think Digital First
You’ve heard it before. “In these uncertain times,” it has never been more important than now to get your business into the digital world.

To quote Bruce Barton, “In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times, they have to.”

When others are cutting their advertising & marketing budgets out of fear & speculation – Kurt makes recommendations on how you can corner the digital market and double down and invest in digital advertising effectively so your business can thrive even in the worst of times.

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Short Bio:

Kurt Thigpen’s day job is the CEO of Ace Studios, a global social impact agency that believes in uplifting brands that do good.

He is also a writer, former elected official, mental health advocate, and is the current Lt. Governor of AAF District 14, supporting AAF chapters in northern California and northern Nevada.