Scott Allen is a twenty-year veteran technology entrepreneur, executive and consultant, Scott Allen is the Entrepreneurs Guide for About.com, one of the top ten websites in the world with over 37 million readers, and a subsidiary of the New York Times. He offers current and future entrepreneurs guidance and resources to help them start and develop their new businesses. Scott is the coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, published by the American Management Association. He blogs at TheVirtualHandshake.com and LinkedIntelligence.com. He also co-writes a monthly column for FastCompany.com about virtual business relationships and social software. He is a contributing author to several books, including Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture and Get Slightly Famous .
Scott is a recognized authority, having been quoted or featured in ABCNews.com, The Washington Post, CFO Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Sales and Marketing Management, Networking Times, Southwest Airlines Spirit, Worth and other major publications, as well as appearing on radio and at industry conferences. He consults with businesses and individuals on the strategic use of social software and with social software companies on product design.
He has implemented solutions for clients including IBM and Amazon and has managed several remote teams. In his most recent corporate roles, he worked in the enterprise portal industry as VP of Professional Services and later VP of Product Management for Mongoose Technology and as Professional Services Manager for Viador.
Jay T. Deragon has been consumed with and focused on the emerging market of social networking For the last three years. He is considered one of the premier thought leaders in the social networking space and his blog - Relationship-economy.com is the repository of his publications. In addition, he founded Wireless Factors, which has as its mission to serve the networking needs of the global Wireless Communications Community - Wirelessfactors.com. He is also a co-founder of social networking groups with Margaret Orem, including: Link to New York - Linktonewyork.com and Link to Wall Street - Linktowallstreet.com
Jay has studied numerous platforms, features, functions and the markets behavior. His analysis and findings led him to believe that this space has tremendous potential for individuals, companies and entire industries. He espouses that there is an art and science to social networking that requires constant learning as the market matures.
From 2000 to 2005 Mr. Deragon was Chairman of XSVoice, a mobile application company that provided technology for live and on demand audio broadcast to mobile devices. XSVoice partnered with Sprint/Nextel and provided services to such media companies as NASCAR, Disney, ESPN, and hundreds of internet radio stations, and provided Homeland Security Alerts, Comedy broadcast, Horoscopes and a host of other premium mobile content. XSVoice was bought by a public firm in January of 2006.
During the dot com boom, he started several web initiatives and sold them while working with some of the best internet starts that are still successful today. Prior to 1992, he was a serial entrepreneur by founding operating and selling other businesses.
Margaret Orem is an entrepreneur with CEO operational experience in growing concerns, start-up businesses, and troubled companies. With a foundation in government, public, private, and non-profit entities, she has expertise in both restructuring and building new and existing enterprises.
Ms. Orem is CEO of Execsolution, Inc. - Execsolution.com, which specializes in executive search, deal flow and commodity trading introductions, and social network creation, development, and launching. She is a co-founder of social networking groups with Jay Deragon, including: Link to New York - Linktonewyork.com and Link to Wall Street - Linktowallstreet.com
Ms. Orem was the Founder and CEO of MGO, Inc., which conducted business as the Rhode Island School of Modeling, the Rhode Island Model Agency, and Model Choice Cosmetics. She previously served as CEO and President of Technical Career Institutes, Inc. located in New York City, and as Vice President of the New England Institute of Technology. Prior to that, the Trustee appointed her in Bankruptcy as President and Chief Operating Officer of Wilfred American Educational Corporation, which owned and operated both post-secondary educational institutions and a publishing company.
Inducted into the Tau Alpha Pi Honor Society, Ms. Orem holds an MBA with a concentration in Global Management and a B.S. in Behavioral Science.
Carter F. Smith is an educator, trainer, and consummate networker who enjoys provoking thought and encouraging the retention of information. His teaching method - perhaps best described as "edutainment" - uses a variety of media to include social networking websites and other contemporary communications formats. He has presented and trained on a variety of topics, and teaches primarily non-traditional students in both individual and cohort settings, in both face-to-face and online environments. Carter served in the United States Army for over twenty years, in a variety of positions. He trained several thousand senior military, mid-level managers, soldiers, and civilians over his twenty-plus year career. Upon his retirement, Carter entered the business community, where he employed his unique consultative teaching style and passion for strategic networking before returning to serve the Army in a civilian capacity.
In 2004, he left civil service to pursue a challenging career that blends education with training in an entrepreneurial framework. In addition to his training assignments while in the military and, since 1997, for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center's STAR Program, Carter has taught at the college level in a variety of disciplines since 1990.
Carter is a member of several professional associations, and has several gang and police related projects in development, including The Gangfighters Network and The Cop Connection Network.
Socialcomputing and the medium of social networks are creating a revolution that is similar to the industrial revolution of the 19th century in its impact on commerce, but on a global scope. This communication revolution includes the development of advanced communications tools and proxies, such as Skype.
Today politics, products, and services are virtually consumer/prosumer/user-led developments. Google is a major example of a user-generated brand where the users have suggested and embraced enhancements. Current technology is so pervasive that it has become quite significant in the political realm. With cutting-edge communication systems, national political groups and institutions in the United States of America are lobbying with influential bloggers to inform and educate the voter, as well as impact public opinion. There is an opportunity for the global community of users, consumers, prosumers, citizens, consumer brands, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and governments to play a critical role in forging this new carbon-neutral economy, The Relationship Economy (Searls, 2007).
