Chad Andrews serves as Global Marketing Manager for the Telco, Media & Entertainment vertical at Dell. Formerly Director of Mobile Services at SIXTEEN19 and founding partner at Orbit Digital, he was responsible for design and implementation of next-generation technical solutions for hundreds of feature films, from Titanic to the Spiderman, Mummy, Narnia, DaVinci Code, and Bourne franchises. Chad lives with his wife and two sons in Austin, Texas.

Steve entered the digital world with a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Miami. After graduation, he spent 10 years working in the communications industry, mostly involving application development and support on mainframes. He escaped to the microcomputer world in the mid-1980s and never looked back. He turned his interest to geographical information systems (GIS) for the next five years, only to find himself back in the large corporate environment, doing PC and network support and application development.  During this time, he became involved in performance testing of multitier computer systems, and he has been doing that ever since, becoming an Application Systems Engineer (ASE) in the HP (formerly Mercury Interactive) Performance Center. He has tested systems as small as 20 users and as large as 80,000 in a wide variety of applications and architectures.

 He has written for several publications, electronic and "paper" based, and has recently joined Enterprise Efficiency as a technical blogger.

Mary Arendes works for Dell Inc. within the Enterprise Solutions Group (ESG) as Director of Customer Loyalty. She is responsible for driving strategy for, and implementation of, ESG's startup Customer Loyalty program. Her team's mission is to improve the health of Dell's customer relationships and drive useful customer insights into Dell's product development cycles. Mary has been with Dell for 10 years, leading various Customer Experience and Global Operations efforts. She has a Master of Arts in English from the University of Missouri, is Dell-certified in Six Sigma, and is Prosci-certified in Change Management. She lives in Austin, Texas, and spends most of her free time with her husband of 22 years and three children. She writes a monthly blog on Dell TechCenter. You can also connect with her on Twitter: @maryarendes.

Janet Asteroff is a business writer, editor, and market analyst working on global business trends in information technology and e-commerce. She has an applied academic background in the social sciences and humanities. A former Gartner Group analyst, she has been a consultant and writer for many companies including Merrill Lynch, IBM, and the Conference Board. Janet has taught writing, communications, human factors, and business management at Columbia, Polytech, and the College of Westchester. A published author and speaker, she holds a doctorate in Communications from Columbia University Teachers College, and can be found at www.asteroff.com and on twitter at @jastro.

In his role as Vice President of Enterprise Solutions, Strategy, and Technology, Praveen Asthana is responsible for defining Dell's overall enterprise product and technology strategy, as well as the planning, delivery, and marketing of next-generation enterprise systems and solutions. Prior to this role, he headed strategy, planning, and marketing for Dell's storage and networking divisions. Dr. Asthana has been at Dell since 2003.  Earlier, he was Vice President of Marketing at a Silicon Valley storage startup, Zambeel, and prior to that he spent a decade at IBM developing and marketing a broad range of storage products. He has published frequently on technology and strategy, holds two US patents, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (London).

Charles Babcock has been reporting on the major trends in computing for the past 20 years. Editor-at-large for InformationWeek, he covers the business application of Web services, virtualization, and cloud computing. Babcock is the former software editor and technical editor of Computerworld and editor-in-chief of Digital News. He is the author of Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution, due out from McGraw Hill on May 14. He lives in San Francisco, California.

Fern has been a certified public accountant, chief financial officer, and systems analyst for the past 30 years. Early in her career, she began as a user liaison with the engineers who invented packet switching. She was hooked! As she rose up the corporate ladder, she developed a unique perspective by managing CIOs and IT departments in a variety of companies. For the past 10 years, Fern has specialized in Internet high-volume transaction processing, payments, and merchant services. While riding out the state of the economy, she is tutoring the CPA exam and staying current in technology's impact on IFRS compliance. She hails from Pennsylvania and resides in NYC.

Rex Baldazo has spent 20 years in the technology world. He's done everything from Ada programming (the Fuel Management System on the F-22 Fighter) to technical writing (first at BYTE Magazine then CNET) and back to programming.

His current interests are related to the movement of data between companies, a field commonly called ETL (Extract, Transform, Load). In that capacity he writes a SQL code for Microsoft SQL Server and Web Services in C#. He is also probably the only technology professional on Earth who has only seen Avatar once, and doesn't really understand why everyone else loved it so much.

Sudarshana Banerjee

Sudarshana is a tech journalist and analyst. She has worked on both the business side and the tech side of technology. She specializes in simplifying complex tech issues for really smart people who may not have a hardcore IT background. Sudarshana founded and funded her own Web 2.0 startup and worked on folksonomy and declarative living. Then recession hit her; she shrugged, closed her company, and is now learning programming. She lives in San Jose, Calif., with her German Shepherd Sophie.

Susan Beebe works for Dell Inc. on the Global Communications team, where she is responsible for social business strategy as it pertains to PR and corporate communications. She co-manages Dell's corporate blog, Direct2Dell.com, and leads the @Dell team on Twitter. She was Dell's first "Chief Listener" and has played an active role in executing Dell's strategy to embed social media into the fabric of the company. Susan graduated from UCLA Law School and also is a certified Microsoft Engineer and project management professional (PMP). She is an entrepreneur: In 1996, she launched her first business, a high-tech, managed IT services consulting firm. For fun, she now advises startups on business and social media strategy. She is married, resides in Austin, and loves to get outside and go for walks with her husband. You can connect with her at http://SusanBeebe.com and @SusanBeebe.

Before becoming CIO at Infogain, Cliff Bell was CIO of Phoenix Technologies. He was also Vice President and Chief Information Officer at two Internet startups and previously served as Regional IT Director at Iomega, based in Singapore. He has held IT management positions at Bay Networks and Apple Computer. He holds an MBA in finance from Purdue University. Cliff is also active setting up CIO councils for companies looking for product and strategic direction. Companies he has helped included Fastscale (now part of EMC), Sandisk, Validity, Spikesource, ITgroundwork, Beyond Security, and many others.

Kirsten has been at Dell for five years in marketing roles within Corporate Accounts, Federal, and Consumer/Small and Medium Business.  Prior to Dell, she spent 12 years at General Motors, within supplier quality engineering, internal consulting, product planning, and manufacturing planning.  Kirsten is originally from Michigan and has engineering degrees from Kettering University and Purdue and an MBA from Harvard.

Dr. Myles Bogner has spent 20 years in the IT industry serving in all aspects of the software lifecycle. Since 2000, he's served as the Vice President of Research and Development for Asynchrony Solutions Inc. (www.asolutions.com), an information technology software and project-based consulting firm. He sets the technical direction for many of the company's most significant programs and initiatives including helping Fortune 1000 companies and the public sector define large-scale enterprise architectures and implement them in an Agile way. Myles is an advocate and practitioner of Agile processes and continually guides teams to apply Agile techniques. He leverages enterprise change management to help both government and commercial clients implement enterprise and service-oriented architecture, software engineering, infrastructure, and business process management practices. Myles earned his PhD from The University of Memphis, concentrating on artificial intelligence.

Paul Bonner spent the 15 years leading up to the dotcom boom in technical journalism as a magazine writer, columnist, editor, and book author, then migrated permanently into the application development field, serving as CTO and Development Director for several innovative, but alas short-lived, startups. Currently he is a Senior Application Architect with a large enterprise in the utility sector.

Mary Brandel is a professional writer and editor with 24 years of publishing experience. She is entrusted by clients to deliver engaging, insightful articles and business content on a range of topics, including career management, business/technology trends, management practices, and the use of technology to achieve strategic objectives. She writes and edits for Computerworld, Chief Security Officer Magazine, BizTech Magazine, Cognizant, Ouellette & Associates, and Triangle Publishing, among others.

Award-winning content strategist Patty Brown has over 25 years of writing, editing, and management experience at publishing organizations and Fortune 500 companies. She is the Founder and Chief Strategist at The Content Strategy Group, a content development firm. Her clients include multinational technology firms, financial and professional services firms, and leading publishers.

Brown previously served as senior manager of Thought Leadership with BearingPoint, a $3 billion management and technology consulting company. In that role, she developed and managed the company’s integrated content development program and high-volume thought leadership pipeline. Prior to this, she was senior executive editor for InformationWeek's monthly journal, Optimize magazine, and co-authored How Innovators Connect, a book on innovation with more than 40 interviews with Silicon Valley luminaries, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs including Ram Shriram of Google and Guy Kawasaki of Apple.

Dave Buchholz is a Principal Engineer in Intel's Information Technology group where he is responsible for investigation of future client technology adoption and engineering for approximately 100,000 clients. With 17 years of experience, he specializes in client OS, applications, imaging and virtualization/streaming technologies.

In addition, Dave is a specialist in client-side virtualization technologies and alternative platform technologies including alternative operating systems and usage models, consumerization, generation Y, and BYOC use cases. He is also the founder and current President of the I2I Emerging Technology Forum, which focuses on the forward-looking and emerging engineering spaces of the IT world. He joined Intel in 1996.

Justin Bustamante works for Dell Inc. on the Mobility Solutions team, responsible for go-to-market messaging. He has a bi-weekly newsletter and is spreading the word through blogs now. His focus is helping corporations and agencies embrace mobility as a solution. This spans across many arenas, such as hospitals, universities, and businesses alike. Mobility is an exciting space to be in and he is here to help curb your appetite! Justin enjoys being outdoors and spending time with his dog. He recently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Feel free to follow him on Twitter to stay connected: @Justin_BatDell

Based in Athens, Ga., Chris works at a boutique Web design firm, Boxkite Media. His responsibilities include everything from project management and sales calls to crafting Internet marketing and search engine strategies. He also blogs for the Atlanta-based social media marketing firm, MegaPlayer, where he rationalizes the business models of companies participating in the social Web. Chris's other writing credits include multiple front-page musings for Technorati.com and a technology news column in the Athens Banner-Herald. At night, he attends the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business where he is pursuing a Master's degree in Internet Technology. He obtained a BBA in 2008 also at UGA.

Ana Cantu is a journalist who has spent the last decade as an editor and writer at Newsday, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Los Angeles Times, where she was part of the team awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news. She started her career as a radio news reporter and DJ and moved into print and online media, serving as a writer for About.com. She graduated cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in linguistics and journalism and is bilingual in Spanish. As a writer and editor for Dell's market response team, Ana covers next-generation datacenters.

Pamela Cawthorn is Cybersecurity Innovation Leader within the Dell Services Innovation Group.  Reporting to Dell Services’ Chief Innovation Officer, Pamela focuses on cybersecurity and its development.  She previously was Service Line Manager for Security Services, and she worked for Perot Systems’ CTO focusing on Cybersecurity.  In prior roles, she spent over 10 years in IT consulting with IBM and other consulting firms and has managed McAfee Enterprise Support for all lines of their security products.

She also has more than 10 years of experience on the business side of the IT industry, having such roles as Product Manager for McAfee’s Enterprise Support services, Business Process Management Manager at Countrywide, and owner of two small businesses.  She holds an MBA from the University of Texas, a BS in Business Administration with a Specialization in Computer Information Systems from West Liberty University, and earned Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and Master Certified Novell Engineer (MCNE) certifications.

Achmad Chadran is a Storage Solutions Marketing Manager in Dell's Large Enterprise Business Unit. Before joining Dell, he held positions in IT and telecommunications including industry analyst, market consultant, and product marketing manager. Achmad  has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia and a Master's degree from Ohio University.  Follow him on Twitter @ a_SAN_a.

Brian Chee is an ex-federal (GSA-FTS/OIS) networking specialist who founded the Advanced Network Computing Laboratory at the University of Hawaii in the mid 1990s. With a goal of balancing the ivory tower computer science program with real-world experience, his students' projects have affected the direction of technologies like ZigBee Wireless and the Fedora Linux Distribution. As a member of the Interop Network Operations Center Team, Brian has had the opportunity to take his best and brightest students to tradeshow venues to help build the world's largest temporary network as a capstone for his lab program. He is also a Senior Contributing Editor with InfoWorld Magazine, contributing to some of the largest networking product comparative reviews conducted in the last decade. In the mid 1980s he become one of the first 10 Netware Certified Instructors outside of Novell and helped form a user organization that eventually became Netware Users International.

Marilyn has been covering technology for business, government, and consumer audiences for over 20 years. For the past two, she has been at the helm of Mouth of the River Media, a content development and social media marketing firm that helps Business-to-Business and Business-to- Consumer companies map audience information needs to business goals. Prior to founding Mouth of the River Media, Marilyn worked for nine years as editorial director at TechTarget Inc., where she launched six Websites for IT managers and administrators supporting enterprise Windows platforms and technologies.

Paul D'Arcy is Executive Director of Marketing for Dell's Large Enterprise business. He joined Dell in 2008 through the acquisition of MessageOne, where he was that company's VP and Chief Marketing Officer.

Shree Dandekar has been at Dell for the past 12 years in a number of roles covering software design, product development, enterprise marketing and technology strategy. Currently, he is Director,  Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Strategy responsible for developing and driving the strategy for Dell's Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing solutions.

Shree has obtained a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune, India;  he also holds master's degrees in Management Information Systems from Texas Tech University, in Computer Science from Texas State University and an Executive MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

Rishi Dave is the Executive Director of Online Marketing for Dell's Public and Large Enterprise Business Unit. In this role, he has global responsibility for implementing marketing strategies for Dell.com, social media, communities, and Dell's Premier portal. Previous to this role, he drove Dell's global Web analytics strategy and worked on Dell's CEO level strategy as part of Dell's Corporate Strategy group. Dave has spent his career in the technology industry with marketing, business development, and consulting roles in startups to large corporations including Bain & Company and eBay. He holds degrees in chemical engineering and economics with honors from Stanford University and an MBA in marketing from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Janet Diaz is a dynamic global marketing communications professional. She has 15 years of progressive, multi-function experience in the global marketing, branding, and strategic management field, with the bulk of her career spent in the IT industry. She is also an adjunct professor of undergraduate business courses at the Technological University of America. Janet holds a Master's degree in International Business Administration from Nova Southeastern University and a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a major in Marketing from Florida International University.

Ton Dobbe is Vice President of Product Marketing for the Netherlands-headquartered UNIT4, a $517 million organization with approximately 6,000 global customers in over 100 countries, and more than 3,400 employees worldwide. Mr. Dobbe is responsible for both global product strategy and global product marketing of both Agresso Business World and CODA Financials, two enterprise software solution sets accounting for more than 65 percent of the company’s revenue. He is chartered with directing the entire solution sets, as well as the market positioning strategies surrounding these products, and is responsible for engineering the company’s 2006 re-positioning of its product lines to focus on Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC). Mr. Dobbe reports directly to UNIT4’s Founder and CEO, Chris Ouwinga in The Netherlands.

Aurelian Dumitru has  been in the industry for more than 20 years. Over the years he has worked on a variety of very different assignments, starting back in the 80s with embedded programming when processors like 8080 and Z80 were the norm. He's done almost everything that a techie can ask for: analog and digital design (even schematic- and board-level), programming in a variety of languages (assembly, Fortran, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, C#, etc.), system-level design and integration, communication interfaces and protocols, industry standards involvement (RFID, USB, IPMI, DMTF, Cloud Management, etc.), custom software, and many other opportunities. AD has a Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering, with a specialty in radio communications and high-speed data communications.

Bob Evans is senior vice president and director of InformationWeek's Global CIO business unit, which he has been leading since its launch at the beginning of 2009. The Global CIO brand enhances InformationWeek's strategic focus on rapidly evolving and increasingly vital role of the CIO in today's high-volume, high-velocity global economy. Evans had been TechWeb's SVP and content director following several years as editor-in-chief of InformationWeek during its years of massive growth. Evans has been an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and speaks frequently at technology and business events and at universities. You can access his Global CIO columns at http://www.informationweek.com/authors/showAuthor.jhtml?authorID=1097.

The author of more than a dozen books, including novels and biographies, Keith Ferrell has also written more than 2,000 magazine, newspaper, and encyclopedia articles and essays on scientific, technical, historical, cultural, and political topics. From 1990 to 1996 he was the editor of OMNI magazine, the world’s largest circulation science magazine; additionally he was editorial director of the Compute family of books and magazines, as well as senior vice president of parent company Penthouse/General Media International. In 1994 Ferrell oversaw the launch of OMNI On-Line, the first major magazine to make the transition to Internet publication.

As a freelancer, Ferrell has written and co-designed several interactive computer games as well as articles, essays, and books. He has spoken to business, government, and educational audiences in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and has appeared frequently on television and radio throughout the world. His most recent novel is Passing Judgment. Ferrell also blogs on information security issues for Informationweek SMB. His personal blog can be found at http://cultivatingkeith.blogspot.com/.

Cormac Foster has done time as a NetWare admin (it was 1993!), a QA manager, a business analyst, an IT research analyst, and a tech journalist. He enjoys journalism the most, since it’s the only profession that lets him shake his angry fist of doom at poor management practices and lousy decision-making. He’s seen some good things, too, and on a sunny day, he might share some of his favorite best practices. When he’s not acting grumpy, Cormac lives in Southern California, and he really will learn to surf some day.

Curt has been a Silicon Valley technology executive for more than 25 years, and has run strategy, product development, and IT at AMD, Sun, Quantum, Phoenix Technologies, and Corel Digital Media. An expert on strategic planning, business process improvement, and organizational development, he now consults to companies helping them develop and execute growth strategies. His primary focus is on transforming organizations through better coupling of strategy and operations and better use of IT-driven innovation. A transplanted New Englander, Curt hopes he has shoveled his last driveway. His consulting Website may be found at PageMillStrategy.com.

Andrew has spent the majority of his career as a network engineer for companies such as State Farm Insurance, United Airlines and The University of Chicago Medical Center.  He is also the President and lead consultant at West Gate Networks, an IT consulting company based in Chicago.  Andrew has recently shed his on-call pager and decided to break out of the data center and wiring closets for a while.  He is currently living in Asia where he is doing remote IT consulting in the United States and locally in Asia.  In addition, Andrew is working on writing his second Cisco certification study guide that will be published by Sybex.

John Fruehe is the Director of Product Marketing for AMD Opteron^TM processors. Previously he held the position of  Director of Business Development for AMD's server division, where he led a team focused on securing design wins and assisting sales out with OEMs, system builders and the distribution channel.  As 15-year veteran of the enterprise market, Fruehe has held global marketing and sales management positions at key technology leaders including Dell Inc., Compaq Computer, Zenith Data Systems and CDW Computer.  He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Illinois State University.

Bob Ganley's role is to help speed the time-to-value for customer deployments by communicating workload-specific solutions for Dell storage products across a spectrum of media. His experience spans several generations of solutions architectures and includes various roles including engineer, product manager, and sales person. Bob focuses that experience to bridge the gap that often exists between understanding product features and addressing the challenges that those products help customers solve.  Follow him on Twitter @ganleybob.

Barton joined Dell last year as their cloud computing evangelist. In this role he works with customers, analysts and press as well acting as an ambassador to the cloud computing community. Prior to Dell Barton spent 13 years at Sun Microsystems in a variety of roles from manufacturing to product and corporate marketing. Barton began his professional career with a four year stint in Tokyo where he worked for Sony working with ISVs for their UNIX-based workstation. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Barton headed east for higher education and attended Williams College and Harvard Business School.

Chad Gillis has written about federal environmental battles, Haitian-born Harvard graduates, Everglades swamp culture, the virtues of authentic Mexican tacos, and the beautiful yet nasty Southwest Florida real estate co-op of the early 2000s. Author of thousands of articles, he's won numerous awards and accolades over the years and now covers global manufacturing for enterpriseefficiency.com. Chad also owns and operates a standup paddleboard company in Fort Myers, Fla., along with his beloved wife, Marcie. He enjoys playing guitar and ukulele, sailing, camping, anything paddle related, fishing, food that's above his class status, and fun people. He currently studies yoga and life in general.

Andy Good is an Information Security Specialist at Intel IT. He initially joined Intel in 2001 within a consultancy group and worked directly with external customers to showcase Intel's high-performance architecture. Andy has since worked on many security-related projects in IT, performing risk assessments and designing secure architectural solutions to protect systems and networks from cyberattacks. He has attained an MS degree in information technology and holds many certifications, including the CISSP, CISA, and PMP.

Markus Henkel is a geodesist and science journalist, whose main focus is super computing and consumer electronics. Mark writes regularly for the magazine, HPC Wire, the German newspaper, Handelsblatt, and for some IT blogs. He is also tutoring companies in the use of social media. He is known to be a Google critic.

Veronica Henry is a writer, entrepreneur, and burgeoning Web developer. Her 20-year IT career came to an end when her inner writer and entrepreneur inexplicably besieged her to give it all up. She is co-founder of myafricandiaspora.com, a cultural news and information Website. Veronica is a self-proclaimed girl-geek and Linux convert, who has held MCSE, GSEC, and PMP certifications. In her dreams, she is an international best-selling sci-fi and fantasy author, but in the meantime, she now spends her days writing, managing her Websites, and wreaking havoc on her Ubuntu laptop. Her Web site is at VeronicaWrites.com.

Steve Hilton is the lead analyst for Analysys Mason's Enterprise Solutions program, which explores the needs of the enterprise, small enterprise, and SOHO ecosystems. Steve has 17 years of experience in technology and communications marketing. Prior to joining Analysys Mason, Steve spent six years managing the Enterprise and SMB team at Yankee Group. He has also held senior positions at Lucent Technologies, TDS, and Cambridge Strategic Management Group. Steve is a frequent speaker at industry and client forums, and he maintains a brisk pace of market-outreach activities with the popular, business, and trade media. He publishes monthly articles in several respected trade journals for the enterprise and channel partner community.

Allan Hoving is a partner in HUBBA, a social media consultancy based in New York and Toronto. He founded the Executive Suite community on LinkedIn for ExecuNet and launched OMMA Magazine for MediaPost. Allan co hosts the Gamechanging podcast on BlogTalkRadio and conducts Webinars for large groups. His other ventures include PayCheckr.com, PDFchecker.com, and TheFrequency.tv, his current master's project at Quinnipiac University.

William (Bill) Howell is senior vice president and chief information officer for Accellent Incorporated. Bill joined Accellent in 2004 as its first CIO.

Bill is responsible for the effective and efficient delivery of information technology solutions and services to all of Accellent. Known for his expert project leadership skills, he has been called upon to lead most of the corporation's major initiatives, including the deployment of Oracle ERP, the closing of two factories, and the expansion of manufacturing into Asia. Before joining Accellent, Bill spent a decade in "big pharma" at GlaxoSmithKline, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Eli Lilly. He served in a variety of information technology roles, including vice president of IT architecture and emerging technologies and vice president of manufacturing information technology and process automation. Previously, Bill was on the faculty of the Graduate Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was responsible for the computer services organization. His areas of interest and research include project management and the management of technical staff, as well as how to work best with your manager. Bill also worked for Digital Equipment Corporation, at the time the second-largest computer manufacturer, and Mechanical Technology Incorporated, a manufacturer of coordinate measuring machines. Bill has a bachelor of science in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Duke University. He is married to Nancy, and they have a son, David, who is in sixth grade. They have a passion for boating and cruise the New England coast in warmer weather aboard "Attitude of Gratitude."

Scott Koegler was a CIO for 15 years and has been writing about technology for the last 18 years. He is editor of www.ec-bp.org, a newsletter that addresses supply chain technologies, and manages other newsletters at www.YourCompanyNewsletter.com. You can contact him at scott@koegler.net.

Sheryl Koenigsberg manages the Storage Solutions Marketing team for storage consolidation and data protection in Dell's Enterprise Solutions Group.  She also manages the briefing center in Dell's Nashua, N.H., Design Center, where visiting customers get deep  access to storage solutions and engineers.  Prior to this role, her principle focus was designing enterprise environments, most recently as a Storage Specialist in Dell's Large Enterprise business unit.  Sheryl holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Brown University and a Master's degree in Engineering Management from Tufts University.  Follow her on Twitter @storageDiva.

Polly LaBarre is a bestselling author, speaker, and entrepreneur who has contributed to the business conversation for over 15 years. She is an inspiring and provocative voice on the big ideas and important questions that will shape the future of organizations, work, and success. As a co-founder and editorial director of the MIX (Management Innovation eXchange), she is putting her passion for making the realm of human endeavor more productive, creative, and fulfilling to the test. The MIX is a pioneering open innovation project dedicated to reinventing management for the 21st century. The initiative, which aims to leverage the collaborative power of Web 2.0 to accelerate the development of Management 2.0, gathers celebrated thought leaders, in-the-trenches innovators, and maverick entrepreneurs from around the world to share breakthrough practices and advance important ideas about the future of organizations, work, and strategy.

Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win (which The Economist named a "Book of the Year" and called "a pivotal work in the tradition of In Search of Excellence and Good to Great" and has since been published in 16 countries around the world). She was a member of the original team of Fast Company magazine, where she was senior editor for the better part of a decade. More recently, she has been a business and innovation correspondent for CNN where she produced regular segments on big ideas and best-practices from the world of business and beyond.

Margaret Lewis has more than 25 years of experience in developing and marketing leading-edge computing solutions. She is currently director of Software Solutions for AMD where she leads marketing efforts for computing and graphics products with AMD's strategic software partners.

Prior to working at AMD, she was an associate director at the Maui High Performance Computing Center, focusing on solutions for the scientific and engineering communities, and a marketing manager for Novell's developer and database product groups. Lewis is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

Chris Lindquist is Online Editorial Director for a nonprofit consulting organization in New England. Previously, he's been Online Editorial Director for CIO.com at CXO Media, Technology Editor at CIO Magazine, Executive Editor, Software and Features/Reviews Editor at CNET, Features Editor at PC|Computing, Technical Editor at Electronic Entertainment, and Staff Writer at Computerworld.

Dave Linthicum is the founder and CTO of Blue Mountain Labs, focusing on emerging technology spaces including cloud computing. In addition, he is an internationally recognized industry expert and thought leader, and the author and coauthor of 13 books on computing, including the bestselling Enterprise Application Integration, and his latest book Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence. Dave keynotes at many leading technology conferences on cloud computing, SOA, Web 2.0, and enterprise architecture, and has appeared on a number of TV and radio shows as a computing expert. He is a blogger for InfoWorld, Intelligent Enterprise, and eBizq.net, covering SOA and enterprise computing topics. He also has columns in Government Computer News, Cloud Computing Journal, SOA Journal, and Align Journal, and is the editor of Virtualization Journal.

Dave's industry experience includes tenure as CTO and CEO of several successful software companies, and upper-level management positions in Fortune 100 companies. In addition, he was an associate professor of computer science for eight years and continues to lecture at major technical colleges and universities including the University of Virginia, Arizona State University, and the University of Wisconsin.

Linda Lisle is a social media community manager for the Dell Public and Large Enterprise segment.

Jim is the CEO and a Managing Partner with the Chelsea Group with over 30 years of experience in both senior business and IT roles. His consulting career has included roles as Global Vice President for DMR Group and later Fujitsu Consulting, where he ran an international consulting practice. Jim is an expert in a number of consulting disciplines, including Strategy, Performance Metrics, Lean & Six Sigma, Portfolio Management, and Program Planning. In Canada he is one of the most well known strategy and technology consultants who works both in Canada and internationally. He is an adviser to a number of Canadian high-tech startups, including the successful launch of Performance Advantage, now merged with the Chelsea Consulting.

Lafe Low has been a writer and editor for IT magazines for more than 20 years, dating way back to inCider – a magazine for the long-lost Apple II. Since then, he has moved on to many other notable technology publications, including CIO, InfoWorld, Redmond, Redmond Channel Partner, High Color, and ImagingWorld.

Low also has several industry awards under his belt. As features editor for CIO magazine, he won a Neal Award as editor of the best single feature. As Executive Editor of Redmond Channel Partner, he won a Neal Award as part of the launch team for the best new magazine. He recently rejoined 1105 Media as Editor-in-Chief of Technet magazine.

J. Craig Lowery, PhD is a solutions technology strategist in the Dell Office of the CTO, where he focuses on aligning and shaping the enterprise product strategies of Dell and its partners with respect to future anticipated software infrastructures. Before assuming this role, Craig founded and led the Dell engineering team responsible for bringing VMware ESX Server to market on Dell PowerEdge systems. He holds both an MS and a PhD in computer science from Vanderbilt University.

Nico Lumma works as a Social Media Director at Scholz & Friends in Hamburg, is blogging for several years on lumma.de and has actually not been offline since 1995. He is in the discussion group "Network Policy" of the Social Democratic Party executive committee and leads the party's research group "Digital Living And Working In Hamburg". Lumma was permanent expert of the committee of inquiry "Responsibility in the Media World" at the State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate in the years 2009/2010. In 2007 the magazine Tomorrow elected him unter the Top 20 Web 2.0 pioneers in Germany.

Grant is a techie by trade and now leads technical teams to deliver solutions within the complex world of forecourt automation. He stays fit and healthy through running, cycling, kayaking, mountain biking, and surfing (a fit body = a fit mind!). He is doing an MBA at Massey University in New Zealand, which is opening his mind to a whole range of new ideas and experiences.

Leigh is a Vice President at Sogeti USA (a division of Capgemini). His career spans 20 years in consulting and industry, during which he has held Chief Architect and CTO roles. Leigh is an expert in Business & Enterprise Strategy/Architecture, with a focus on creating efficient, dynamic organizations to deliver business innovation. Leigh was one of the authors of Capgemini's Integrated Architecture Framework methodology, and has written for a number of publications.

Peter Meade is a founding partner of HetzelMeade Communications in Carlsbad, California. Previously, he's been Conference Director for DSLCon, Executive Editor for X-Change, Senior Managing Editor at America's Network, Editorial Director of Voice Processing Magazine, and Associate Edtior for CMP Media.

Lionel Menchaca is a 16-year Dell veteran and chief blogger at Direct2Dell, Dell’s main corporate blog. Over the last five years, he has authored hundreds of posts on behalf of Dell. Since launching the blog in July 2006, he helped expand it into Chinese, Spanish, Norwegian, and Japanese and continues to work to further extend Dell’s global presence. Before launching Dell’s blog, Lionel was one of the main architects behind Dell’s blog monitoring process begun in April 2006. He works with a team within the company to coordinate activities and content across all of Dell’s internal and external social media properties. These initiatives have one thing in common: to open direct lines of communication between Dell employees and their customers to improve the products and services Dell offers.

Ron Miller is a freelance technology journalist, blogger, FierceContentManagement editor, and contributing editor at EContent Magazine. He has been writing about technology since 1988, and publishing credits include InsideCRM, CIO.com, Streaming Media Magazine, eWeek, BusinessWeek SmallBiz, and Network World. He has also written whitepapers, documentation, and training for a variety of corporate clients, big and small. He co-founded www.socmedia101.com in 2009 and contributes regularly to its content. You can learn more by visiting his blog at http://byronmiller.typepad.com.

High Mobley runs a network consultancy called qBang Solutions, which specializes in event and convention networking. He has been working in the IT industry since 1997 and spent most of that time focusing on open-source software. Other interests include consumer electronics, green technology, and volunteering on the Networld+Interop NOC crew. High can be contacted via high@13pages.com and @drhigh on Twitter.

Birgit is a writer living in Ohio. She has a BA in Liberal Arts with a major in Spanish from Denison University. Professionally she has worked several years in both software development and IT consulting as a human resources specialist and administrator. Her interests include health and fitness, traveling, blogging, and learning about new technologies, particularly in the context of social networking and the effects of technology in societies both in work environments and globally.

Josh Neland, OEM Solutions Technology Strategist, Dell
Josh Neland is a Global Technology Strategist in Dell’s OEM Solutions group, which helps manufacturers use Dell’s products and services as their own. He is responsible for new market research and helping existing OEM customers gauge the impact of emerging technology trends on their businesses. Josh has split the past ten years at Dell evenly between software development and marketing roles. Before joining Dell, he worked at various startups including Trilogy Software. He holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Franklin Flint, OEM Solutions Technology Strategist, Dell
A former professional musician, Franklin Flint has worked for Dell since 1995. At Dell, he has performed many roles ranging from Network Sales Engineer and Network Sales Support Specialist to Large Enterprise Systems Engineer, Global 500 IT Systems Consultant, and Large Acquisition IT Solutions Consultant in enterprise IT technical sales support. He joined the OEM Solutions Group as Senior OEM Solutions Consultant in 2001 and spent the first nine years working directly with Dell’s largest OEM customers. An industry expert in digital cinema and casino gaming technology, Franklin published articles in various trade magazines and was the strategy lead in Dell’s OEM technical sales organization. In early 2010, he moved into a Global OEM Marketing Technology Evangelist role where he generates thought leadership for the OEM PC industry, provides technical guidance on marketing programs, and develops technology strategy for the OEM organization.

Samantha Needham, OEM Solutions Online & Social Media Consultant, Dell
Samantha Needham has almost a decade of experience in strategic Web marketing, online application development, marketing communications, and social media consulting. She is an online and social media consultant at Dell OEM Solutions and has previously done startup work for businesses including Tripeezy and Netsential and led corporate marketing for Brink’s, Inc.

Ann Newman is the LE Client editor on Dell.com. She's been with Dell for about two years, and before that she was the lead feature writer in the IBM Server Group. Her favorite color is taupe.

Camille Nisich manages vertical social media programs for Dell's Public and Large Enterprise Online Marketing organization. She is an 11-year Dell veteran, having spent several years in both corporate communications and finance. Camille holds a BA in Communications from Virginia Tech and an MBA from the College of William and Mary.

Ken Oestreich is an electrical engineer by training and a technology marketer by choice – pursuing his passion for introducing new products and technologies into nascent markets. He has spent lots of time at "early stage" companies, as well as 10 years at Sun Microsystems and nearly three years with Cassatt Corp. Today, he works as Vice President of marketing at Egenera, challenging the conventional wisdom on how data center infrastructure is managed. Oestreich speaks frequently on data center and cloud computing topics, and he holds a BSE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Columbia University. He also publishes a personal blog, Fountainhead.

Diana Ost has two decades' experience in IT as a technology writer, analyst, consultant, and systems and network administrator. As a consultant with Dell, she writes and curates content for Dell.com for cloud computing, virtualization, and large enterprise data solutions, among others, and blogs on various topics. In her spare time, Diana blogs and tweets about writing and technology, plays in a musical duo in the Central Texas area, and photographs people, pets, and the great outdoors.

Mike Pace first encountered a computer at his local library when he was five years old. Ever since that day of carefully typing BASIC into the glowing green console of the Apple IIe, his personal and professional life has revolved around the technology industry.

Pace is currently the Systems Technician for Benchmark Group and is tasked with researching, implementing, and maintaining a wide variety of technological enterprise solutions for a growing user base consisting of architects and engineers. Pace is a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator and a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist focusing on Windows server virtualization and configuration. He is also a WatchGuard Certified System Professional, specializing in building remote site VPN connections with Firebox technology.

Rick Parker is the IT Director of Fetch Technologies, a solutions provider for enterprise clients who extract and analyze Website data. He has over 25 years of IT experience as a manager, consultant, and network administrator . At Fetch over the last two years, Rick designed and built the network that became the Fetch Private cloud. Previously he was the founder and CTO of Bedouin Networks, one of the first Infrastructure-as-a-service providers, and the IT Director for Vendare Media, a successful internet startup.

Freelance contributor to Enterprise Efficiency, long-time tech industry journalist and gadfly.

As a consultant at ICT presales of T-Systems Dr. Michael Pauly is responsible for the positioning and development of new dynamic ICT services into successful marketable solutions for both big and medium-sized business customers. Pauly is a T-Systems spokesman for cloud computing, and publishes regularly on the subject. He also blogs at cloudblog.t-systems.de. After a successful PhD in electrical engineering and information technology in 1998 at the RWTH Aachen, he worked first at the Fraunhofer Institute AIS in Sankt Augustin. In 2000 he moved to debis Systemhaus, where he was a consultant for data storage and backup. With co author Martin Reti he published 2010 "Instant Blog", a book that reflects cloud computing in a funny and thoughtful way.

Chris Peters is a Strategic Marketing Manager with Intel IT’s Industry Engagement Group.  Utilizing an integral knowledge of Intel IT operations, Chris works closely with strategic IT decision makers world-wide to share IT best practices with the goal delivering better business value. 

Intel IT provides the infrastructure and services required to design, manufacture, supply and market the products for the world’s largest semi-conductor manufacturer, supporting over $35B in annual revenue and one of the top 10 most valuable brands.

Prior to joining Intel IT, Chris was an End User Product Marketing Manager in Intel’s Server Product Group responsible for the business development of the Intel® Xeon® processor-based server platforms.

Chris has more than 21 years experience in business and technical fields ranging from Information Technology, manufacturing, supply chain, nuclear power and consumer products.  Currently residing in Washington State, Chris attended the University of Rochester and University of Connecticut earning a BS Physics and MBA respectively.

Dave Piscitello has been involved with Internet technologies for over 30 years and has developed standards and products for broadband access, routing, network management, and security. He is a co-author of three books, several Internet RFCs, and numerous articles, technology reviews, and editorials for print and online publications. Dave left private sector consulting and his company, Core Competence, to provide technical support for security and policy activities at ICANN, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. He works with several security communities to mitigate malicious use of the DNS and domain registration systems and publishes a popular security infoblog at http://securityskeptic.typepad.com.

Julie Pitta is a freelance journalist with more than 20 years of experience writing about high technology. Pitta opened Forbes magazine’s Silicon Valley bureau in 1993. As the magazine’s senior technology editor, she covered tech leaders such as Apple Computer, Oracle, and Intel. Pitta has also been a West Coast business correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, covering high tech from the paper's San Francisco office.

Robert Poe is a long-time technology writer specializing in telecommunications. He was part of the startup team of CommunicationsWeek International, and has written for VoIP News, VoIP Magazine, Upside, Business 2.0, America's Network, Daily Wireless, TelecomBeat, Datamation, High Technology, Tele.com, Investors Business Daily, Electronic Business, Electronic Business Asia, Slate, Salon, and Washington Monthly. He spent more than a decade in Asia, working in both Japan and Hong Kong. He is a contributing analyst for Heavy Reading, and is founder and editor-in-chief of VoIP Evolution, which covers cutting-edge voice and video communication technologies and services.

After graduating with a degree in business administration at RWTH Aachen Thomas Pracht focused in the IT-Business. He works as a Sales-Manager and Consultant and specialized himself in ERP and CRM systems, collaboration and desktop virtualization. From the desktop it was only a small step towards cloud computing.

Rob Preston, VP and Editor-in-Chief of InformationWeek, oversees the editorial direction of the world's leading business technology media brand. He works with an award-winning team of more than 30 writers, editors, and market experts to deliver practical and thought-provoking analysis on business technology issues and trends. InformationWeek helps 2 million Website users, magazine and newsletter readers, and conference attendees frame and define their business technology objectives and make technology purchasing decisions.

Preston's more than two decades in technology journalism span senior editorial management positions at TechWeb’s Network Computing, InternetWeek, CommunicationsWeek International, and CommunicationsWeek. Preston has a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from St. Bonaventure University and a Master’s degree in economics from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

As Director and CTO for the Enterprise Product Group at Dell, Paul Prince is responsible for Dell’s technology strategy and planning. He and his team lead technology development and integration across Dell’s Enterprise solutions portfolio, including servers, storage, networking, and software products. He has more than 20 years of industry experience in the planning and development of enterprise systems architectures. By leveraging the best ingredients from partners and the open industry ecosystem, Prince and the CTO team have been integral to Dell’s continuing focus on building and delivering effective and efficient customer solutions.

Alan Radding is a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and analyst specializing in IT and business. You have probably been reading his writing in the leading trade publications for the past several decades, including Computerworld, InformationWeek, BusinessWeek, InfoWorld, and more. He has also worked as a writer/analyst and ghostwriter for leading research firms like Gartner/Dataquest and IDC and major vendors like IBM, Nokia, HP, Microsoft, Dell, EMC, and many more. In addition, Radding has authored Knowledge Management: Succeeding in the Information-Based Global Economy, published by Computer Technology Research, ghostwritten IT and business books for leading consultants, and taught for 10 years at Northeastern University.

R. Scott Raynovich is an internationally recognized expert in technology, media, and investment markets. He has been quoted by outfits including Reuters, Dow Jones, Barron's, and the San Jose Mercury News. He has also been interviewed on CNN and National Public Radio.

From 2000 to 2008, Raynovich was the Editor in Chief, Editorial Director, and an equity partner at Light Reading, the leading online telecommunications news & analysis firm which grew from 0 to $20 million in revenues over the course of 8 years. It was acquired by United Business Media in 2005.

Prior to joining Light Reading, Raynovich was Investment Editor at Red Herring, where he started the New York Bureau and helped build the original Redherring.com Website. Raynovich has also written for Wired.com and the Prague Post. In an unfortunate journalistic accident, he was once published in the German magazine Der Spiegel, without pay.

Dr. Thomas C. Redman, Founder, Navesink Consulting
Dr. Thomas C. Redman (the Data Doc) is an innovator, advisor, and teacher. He was first to extend quality principles to data and information, in the late 80s. Since then he has crystallized a body of tools, techniques, roadmaps, and organizational insights that help organizations make order-of-magnitude improvements. More recently he has developed keen insights into the nature of data and formulated the first comprehensive approach to "putting data to work."  Taken together, these enable organizations to treat data as assets of virtually unlimited potential. Tom has personally helped dozens of leaders and organizations better understand data and data quality and start their data programs.  He is a sought-after lecturer and the author of dozens of papers and four books. The most recent, <i>Data Driven: Profiting From Your Most Important Business Asset</i> (Harvard Business Press, 2008), was a <i>Library Journal</i> best buy of 2008. Prior to forming Navesink in 1996, Dr. Redman conceived the Data Quality Lab at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1987 and led it until 1995.  He holds a PhD in statistics from Florida State University and holds two patents.

Alan Reiter has been analyzing wireless communications for 31 years. For 15 years he has been President of Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing, a consulting firm that helps wireless data businesses in the United States and abroad. The company examines wireless data products and services and develops marketing materials, whitepapers, tutorials and corporate Weblogs. Alan created the world's first wireless data newsletter, wireless data conference, and cellular conference. He was instrumental in developing the first cellular magazine and was part of the five-person team that managed the first association in the US for paging and mobile telephone services. He has been writing Weblogs for 10 years, and his first wireless data blog was named by Forbes as one of the top five technology blogs - a pronouncement with which he strongly disagreed but was nonetheless glad to promote. He writes a weekly blog, a three-times-a-week mobile blog, and records regular videos for Internet Evolution.

Martin Reti is a chemist and a Public Relations Manager. Over ten years he has experience in the IT industry. He currently works at T-Systems as a marketing manager for Cloud Computing. Reti is one of the authors of the BITKOM guidelines "Cloud Computing - evolution in technology, revolution in the business" and "Cloud Computing - what decision makers need to know" and writes for the cloud blog at T-Systems. With co author Michael Pauly Reti published 2010 "Instant Blog", a book that reflects cloud computing in a funny and thoughtful way. The avowed Schwabe is married and has two daughters.

Sarah Richardson is a member of the corporate communications social media team at Dell.

Suzanne Robertson came to Southern California determined to become a famous stand-up comedian. Funny in Oklahoma, she quickly learned that she was not even remotely amusing in Los Angeles. With a journalism degree from Oklahoma State University, she discovered her niche as a prolific freelance writer. Robertson lives with her husband and two young daughters in Tarzana, California.

Paulo Rosado is a founder of OutSystems and the company's CEO since 2001. An expert in Agile processes and the organizational changes required to embrace Agile delivery, Paulo has played a key role in helping pioneer new approaches to Agile methodology, successfully delivering more than 600 Agile projects across an array of industries including telecommunications, finance, insurance, manufacturing, retail, and biotech. Before OutSystems, Paulo was Executive VP of Global Marketing at Altitude Software, a CRM company present in 32 countries. Before joining Altitude, he co-founded Intervento, an e-business software infrastructure company, acting as its CEO until the company was successfully sold in 1999. Previously he worked in Silicon Valley for Oracle Corp, where he held multiple positions in R&D and Product Management. Paulo holds a Master's in Computer Science from Stanford University and a Computer Engineering degree from Universidade Nova, Lisbon.

Matthew Rosenquist is an information security strategist with Intel Corporation specializing in security strategy, measuring value, and developing cost effective capabilities which deliver the optimal level of security.  He is active in the industry, speaks at conferences, consults industry partners, and has published acclaimed white papers, blogs, videos and audio-casts on a wide range of information security topics.

http://about.me/matthew.rosenquist

Winston Saunders is Director of Data Center Power Initiatives in the Data Center Group at Intel Corp. Before joining DCG, he held management and development positions in Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group. Prior to Intel, he worked at Caltech and the EPFL. Saunders studied Physics as an undergrad at the University of Washington and holds a PhD. from UC Berkeley. Trying to distill every problem down to basic levels is a strong personal bias. In his personal time he enjoys cycling during warm months and skiing during cold ones. In between, you can find him on the hiking trails of Central Oregon.

Ivan Schneider is a writer and editor living in Seattle who specializes in financial technology, interbank networks and IT outsourcing. He writes case studies, whitepapers, company newsletters and presentation materials for global technology firms serving the financial services industry. Recent clients include TCS Financial Solutions, SWIFT and Fundtech.

Ivan studied information and decision systems at Carnegie Mellon University and then worked as a database developer. After earning an MBA at Vanderbilt, he began his second career as an editor for TechWeb's Bank Systems and Technology. In 2006, he moved West and established his own writing practice, while also pursuing interests in foreign languages, literature and culture.

Christian Scholz has a degree in computer science and since 1999 he is managing his company COM.lounge (http://comlounge.net) which is specialized on web applications, open source, social media and content management. He blogs on http://mrtopf.de about technical and political issue. Then, if time allows, He works at the Kantara Initiative on internet standards for the Identity Management on projects related to Open Date and open government.

Greg Schulz is founder of the Server and StorageIO (www.storageio.com) Group, a leading independent IT industry advisory, research, and consultancy firm. He has worked in IT operations, in systems development and design along with systems management, and as performance capacity planner and server/storage architect at various organizations. He has also worked for various vendors including manufactures and value-added resellers providing server, storage, and networking hardware software solutions. Prior to forming StorageIO, Greg worked for an IT analyst research firm covering networked storage hardware and software.

In addition to his analyst research and advisory consulting duties, Schulz has published thousands of articles, tips, videos, podcasts, columns, reports and whitepapers in addition to being a syndicated blogger. He is also a popular, sought-after keynote and seminar speaker appearing at events and venues around the world. Topic areas of coverage include server, storage, IO and networking hardware, software, as well as services from a virtualization, cloud, data protection (BC/DR/Backup), data footprint reduction (archive, compression, dedupe), optimization, productivity, and business-effective Green IT perspective among others. Greg is also author of the books Resilient Storage Network (Elsevier) and The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC). His blog is at www.storageioblog.com, and he can be found on twitter @storageio.

Karen D. Schwartz is a technology and business writer with more than 20 years' experience. She has written on a broad range of technology topics for publications like CIO, InformationWeek, eWeek, and Government Executive. She can be reached at karen@karendschwartz.com.

Mary E. Shacklett is an internationally recognized technology commentator and President of Transworld Data, a marketing and technology services firm. Prior to founding her own company, she was Vice President of Product Research and Software Development for Summit Information Systems, a computer software company; and Vice President of Strategic Planning and Technology at FSI International, a multinational manufacturer in the semiconductor industry.

Mary has business experience in Europe, Japan, and the Pacific Rim. She has a BS degree from the University of Wisconsin and an MA from the University of Southern California, where she taught for several years. She is listed in Who's Who Worldwide and in Who's Who in the Computer Industry.

James Sheppard is an entrepreneur, business leader, and efficiency junky first and foremost, and an enterprise software pro a very distant second. He spent years in the software business managing sales for a privately held enterprise software provider that knew a thing or two about efficiency. Then it was sold to Oracle and everything changed. He's firmly in the camp that technology is merely a means to an end and never the end in itself.

For the past 20 years, Sheppard has built businesses in industries ranging from shopping center development and real estate brokerages to IT and manufacturing, each time taking responsibility for leveraging pragmatic IT into business efficiency. His latest business venture, Vetrazzo, offers a sustainable alternative to granite and other quarried stone and has been heralded a leader in the sustainable building product movement by the likes of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, and Forbes.

Brad Shimmin brings over 17 years of IT industry experience to his role as Principal Analyst, Collaboration and Conferencing at Current Analysis. In addition to being a writer and editor for well-known industry publications, Brad has also served as a technologist and business analyst, having implemented several enterprise software applications within large-scale deployments.

In his role at Current Analysis, Brad analyzes the rapidly expanding use of collaboration software and services as a means of driving business agility and controlling corporate travel and infrastructure costs. Brad tracks desktop-bound solutions geared toward building employee productivity; network-based solutions designed to facilitate external relationships such as joint ventures, alliances, or outsourcing projects; and the rapidly converging consumer and corporate markets. Brad will address multi-channel delivery mechanisms, including SaaS, traditional on-site software, and appliances.

John E. Simpson operated nuclear reactors in the US Navy for nine years and then came to Intel to further develop his engineering experience. Three years in factory support followed by 13 years doing software development has increased his toolset to include systems, support, and data management. In 2010 John moved into strategy and architecture as an enterprise architect in Intel IT focusing on application development, mobilization, and collaboration technologies.

Eric is a technology writer and an analyst with Storage Switzerland with over 20 years experience in high-tech industries. He's held technical management and marketing/sales positions in the computer storage, instrumentation, digital imaging, and test equipment fields. He has spent the past 15 years in the data storage field, with storage hardware manufacturers and as a national storage integrator, designing and implementing open systems storage solutions for companies in the Western United States. Eric earned degrees in electrical/computer engineering from the University of Colorado and marketing from California State University, Humboldt. He lives in Colorado with his wife and teenage twins.

Gina Smith started covering technology for PC Week in 1988, and has been hooked ever since. Her works have appeared in such diverse publications as Glamour, Popular Science, and The Los Angeles Times. Her column in The San Francisco Chronicle won awards for investigative journalism during its 13-year run. Her weekly radio show, cohosted with Leo Laporte, ran for more than a decade. The first tech correspondent in TV history, Gina was on air as news correspondent for Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and other ABC News shows for most of the 1990s. Her most recent book, cowritten with Steve Wozniak, iWOZ, is a New York Times best-seller, and she was CEO of an early network appliance company, founded with Larry Ellison. She has served on the Board of Directors of the University of Southern California's School of Engineering, and currently serves on Jimmy Wales's nonprofit's board, civilination.org. A native Floridian, she lives in San Francisco, but wouldn't mind working in Hong Kong.

Nicole Smith is a writer, editor, and researcher  who has spent the past decade on the foreign, national, business, and metro news desks of the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and The Austin American-Statesman.  She holds a Bachelor's degree in humanities but also studied print journalism  and had a concentration in Spanish and Latin American area studies. As a PLE market response journalist, Nicole covers security, governance and compliance, and business continuity and disaster recovery.

Marc Speir is a multimedia journalist, armed with both a pen and pad along with a film camera to tell his stories. He was most recently a mobile and wireless technology reporter at RCR Wireless News, where he covered everything from cloud computing to an app that helps hunt the elusive Bigfoot. He previously worked in higher education within the offices of media relations at both the University of Texas at Austin and at Texas State University in San Marcos. Marc has written freelance articles for dozens of publications, both domestically and internationally, and has also worked extensively in film production, shooting everything from feature films and documentaries to commercials and news packages.

Marc holds a Bachelor's in government-public administration with a certificate in business foundations from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master's in journalism and mass communication with a concentration in new media technology from Texas State University. In his spare time he enjoys playing with his dogs, searching for the ultimate Tex-Mex, watching college football, and jogging leisurely on the hike and bike trail in downtown Austin. Marc can be reached for interview requests or comment at mailto:marc_speir@dellteam.com or 512.470.3619

I.T. Spy was abandoned at birth on the front steps of a lonely Midwestern data center. Cared for by a pack of feral sysadmins, her first words were "Hello, World!" and she learned to program her VCR before most kids could tie their shoes.

Today, she is the CIO of a major multi-national corporation, working on undisclosed projects at an undisclosed location. Her skills are legendary: she can field-strip a server with both hands tied behind her back and code assembly language in her sleep. She was all about Web 2.0 before there was a Web 1.0. Her coffee maker never blinks 12:00.

Her staff adores her, competitors refuse to utter her name, and her CEO just smiles mysteriously when he passes her corporate portrait.

In addition to holding every IT certification ever created, she also has a private investigator's license and commutes to work in an airplane she built herself. She can hear a pin drop at 50 paces -- or a rumor being whispered at 100. She's here to share the secrets that are too explosive, too controversial, and maybe too outrageous for anyone else to say. The only thing she won't tell you is her name.

So if you've got a juicy IT rumor or insider tip, Ms. Spy wants to hear about it. Don't worry, she'd sooner crash a server farm than reveal her sources.

Joe Stanganelli is founder and principal of Beacon Hill Law, a Boston-based general practice law firm.  His expertise on legal topics has been sought for several major publications, including U.S. News and World Report and Personal Real Estate Investor Magazine. He is also a professional communications and business consultant.  He has been working with social media for many years - even in the days of local BBSs (one of which he served as Co-System Operator for), well before the term "social media" was invented. From 2003 to 2005, Joe ran Grandpa George Productions, a New England entertainment and media production company. He has also worked as a professional actor, director, and producer.  Additionally, he is a produced playwright. When he's not lawyering, marketing, or social-media-ing, he writes scripts, songs, and stories. He also finds time to lose at bridge a couple of times a month. Follow Joe on Twitter: @JoeStanganelli. Also, check out his blog.

For more than 25 years, Jim Stikeleather has designed, developed, and implemented information and communications technologies that help businesses and institutions succeed. Organizations worldwide rely on him for guidance on digital infrastructures, evaluation of emerging technologies, and strategic guidance on applications. He participates in international technology standards bodies and has multiple book and industry-article contributions to his credit. Currently, Jim serves as Chief Innovation Officer for Dell Services, the IT services arm of Dell. Previously, he led technology startups and turnarounds as well as technology departments within large global enterprises. He was a founder of the Technical Resource Connection (TRC), which was acquired by Perot Systems in 1996.

Marc Stitt leads go-to-market strategies for Dell's virtualization and private cloud solutions.  Prior to joining Dell, he spent more than a decade leading product marketing and management teams focused on enterprise applications and systems management at Quest Software, Vizioncore, Surgient, and Cincom Systems.  Focused on deriving the true value of IT solutions, Marc is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences.  He holds a BS in Applied Science, majoring in Engineering Management, from Miami University.   

David Strom has written for dozens of IT publications and was a former IT manager at several companies during the early days of the PC revolution, during which he had the burden of dealing with miles of IBM Type 1 cabling. He has written two books on networking, built dozens of editorial Websites, was founding editor-in-chief of Network Computing magazine, and has spoken to a variety of audiences on technology topics around the world. He lives in St. Louis.

Rex Tibbens serves as Director, Services Strategic Initiatives, for Dell Global Services.  In this role, he leads key strategic initiatives for Services and serves as an advisor to Peter Altabef, President of Dell Services.  Prior to this role, he held global responsibility for new business development, platform development, and offer development of Global Services capabilities and offers.  He has played a pivotal role in the acquisition and integration of Dell's SaaS-based Modular Services business, as well as new startups such as Dell's Data Center Solutions Business.  Before leading Dell's Services development efforts, he held executive leadership positions in the areas of Services Strategy, Product Management, Platform/Offer Development, Technical Support, Deployment, and Services Operations.

 Mr. Tibbens has more than 20 years of proven leadership in a variety of disciplines and sectors.  During his 10-year tenure at Dell, he has led many diverse mature businesses and startups within the company, blending strategy and execution.  Prior to Dell, he was a strategy consultant with Mercer Management Consulting where he advised Fortune 500 clients, primarily on supply chain strategy, operations strategy, and growth.  Prior to Mercer, he spent nine years with Toyota in a variety of leadership positions in manufacturing, logistics, startups, program management, and consulting. Rex earned a Bachelor's degree in Finance and Industrial Management from the University of Kentucky and a Master's degree in Business Administration in Finance and Strategy from Case Western Reserve University. 

Scott Turner leads the development and execution of marketing plans for Dell’s Next Gen Service Provider group, which includes Systems Integrators; Telecom, Media & Entertainment (TM&E) companies; and Hosting Service Providers (HSPs). Prior to coming to Dell, he led new channel and vertical marketing initiatives in both public and private companies. With a background in management consulting, finance, and sales, his projects have included high-profile corporate turnaround projects, strategic channel development, and new line-of-business launches in Web 2.0, hardware, software, healthcare, and banking. Scott holds an MS in Operations Research and a BBA in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a Level II Chartered Financial Analyst candidate, and he is currently serving on the Finance Committee for the Dell JCAA and on the Selection Committee for the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (Central Texas RCIC).

Pablo has been involved in International Business for 20+ years - mostly in Europe, working for multinationals. He publishes the blog "The New Global Enterprise", focusing on new business technologies, markets, and international challenges. Pablo holds a MS in Electrical Engineering from The Ohio State University. His expertise is in IT Consulting, International Operations and Business Development. He provides consulting for large and medium businesses and develops channels for companies from abroad. Pablo loves the challenge of complex negotiations, developing business from scratch, and penetrating difficult markets. He also loves to travel, and whenever possible, goes fishing, camping and kayaking.

Aaron Weiss writes about a broad range of information technology for trade and consumer publications, consults on IT projects, and maintains a comedy blog at http://www.iwritefunny.com. He currently authors the popular monthly column "Ask the WiFi Guru" and recently published a book of scandalous cat pictures based on his Website, Live Nude Cats.

Fred Wells has more than 20 years of experience in the high-tech industry with responsibilities in engineering, quality management, and customer program management. He currently manages the Customer Engagement and Select 30 Customers programs in the PG Customer Loyalty group.

An award-winning journalist, researcher, and public speaker with two decades of business technology experience, Rusty Weston founded Third Set Media in the fall of 2006 with the idea of building an immersive new media platform dedicated to delivering world-class content in innovative ways. Weston's work has appeared in The Financial Times, InformationWeek, MSNBC.com, Fast Company, and Wired, among others. His freelance work also includes a range of thought-leadership pieces, social media initiatives, and public-speaking engagements. An early adopter of online journalism, Weston edited InformationWeek.com, which under his direction received the Jesse Neal Award, one of the nation's most prestigious journalism honors.

Jake Widman is a technology writer based in San Francisco. He covers Apple and Mac-related products and technology for InformationWeek, contributes regularly to iTWire.com and Computerworld.com, writes a design column for Layers magazine, and covers the wide-format printing industry for The Big Picture.

Preston Williams III is a visionary business information technology executive with Big 4, Fortune 500, Global 100, and entrepreneurial experience. The former IBM project executive founded GBC Global Services in 2002 to deliver scalable system solutions to small/midsized customers. He served as chief executive officer and managing partner until August 2004, when he became senior partner and chief information officer. Preston's experience includes serving as senior auditor with Price Waterhouse, controller for Lynn-Phill, and IT consultant with McGladrey & Pullen and Andersen Consulting. He was the first product manager for global data collection with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) and the first CIO at Langston University.

He studied comprehensive general management at the Harvard Business School and auditing with the London Institute of Chartered Accountants. Preston holds a CPA from the Liberian Institute of Certified Public Accountants and a Certified Implementation Specialist (CIS) certificate from Great Plains Software. He holds a B.Sc. in economics from Cuttington University College and a M.Sc. in regional planning from the University of Liberia. Mr. Williams is DUNSRight certified with Dun & Bradstreet and has a Signature Selling Methodology (SSM) certificate from IBM Global Services.

Mr. Williams is chairman of the GBC board of directors, recipient of the IBM Global Services Leadership Award, a member of the Global CIO Think Tank, and a moderator with the Internet Evolution Executive Clan.

Ron Woerner, CISSP, is a noted speaker and writer in the security industry and is the Director of Cybersecurity Studies at Bellevue University. He has 20 years of corporate experience in IT and security and has worked for HDR, TD Ameritrade, ConAgra Foods, Mutual of Omaha, CSG Systems, and the State of Nebraska. Ron earned a BS from Michigan State University and an MS from Syracuse University. He was awarded the CISSP, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and Toastmasters Advanced Communicator and Leader designations. He loves to talk to others who are passionate about security and privacy.

In his more than two decades as a technology editor, Alex has written for ACM Queue, Byte.com, McGraw-Hill's Electronics magazine, IEEE Spectrum, Mechanical Engineering, Supercomputing Review, and TechWeb. He's focused on microprocessor and high-end software technology, as well as networking, storage, and cloud computing. His most recent stint was as editor-in-chief of InformationWeek.com, where he ran day-to-day operations of the site and also commented on IT industry trends via his "Wolfe's Den" column. In 2002, he was the launch editor for WindowsforDevices.com, a site aimed at embedded developers. He spent the 1990s at UBM's Electronic Engineering Times, where he broke the nationally known story of Intel's Pentium floating-point division bug in 1994. Alex has appeared as an industry analyst on CNN, CNBC, Fox News, and MSNBC. He's a frequent panelist and moderator at industry conferences and has moved into the analyst realm in the past year, writing research reports on the state of server technology and on business-collaboration (a.k.a. Enterprise 2.0) applications. He holds a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Cooper Union. He can be reached at awolfe58@gmail.com.

James Woolwine has 25 years experience with a broad background in application development, information technology, professional services, enterprise business applications, and governance. He has many years of executive positions running application development, enterprise consulting, sales and information technology organizations at PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM, Wolters Kluwer, and small to mid-sized companies. He has worked with companies to improve processes in a broad range of areas including optimizing software development, enterprise application development and deployment, and innovation; operating as the bridge that brings business and technology together to solve business problems with technology and improve business performance.

Andre Yee is currently the Senior Vice President, Products, for Eloqua, the leading company in marketing cloud applications. He is responsible for all product-related strategy and operations. Andre was most recently the President and Chief Executive Officer for NFR Security, which he guided to a successful M&A transaction with Check Point Software. Prior to NFR Security, he was the Vice President of R&D for SAGA Software. He is a conference speaker and noted author of numerous articles and books related to enterprise architecture, middleware, security, and cloud technology. He is also listed as an inventor on two patents. Andre was recognized as one of InfoWorld's "Innovators to Watch for 2006." His experience includes playing key senior management roles in three private companies that have successfully achieved IPOs.