Speaker Bios

A strategic thinker, Mark Federman has more than 25 years' experience in the high-technology industry as executive, manager and consultant spanning disciplines including applied research and development, marketing, sales, operations and strategic leadership. Mark is dedicating much of his time to his current research, namely, developing an emergent model of the "organization of the future" that is consistent with our present conditions of ubiquitous connectivity and pervasive proximity, or "UCaPP."

Until recently Mark played the role of Chief Strategist at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, and continues his private consulting practice. He is the author (with Derrick de Kerckhove) of McLuhan for Managers - New Tools for New Thinking, published in September, 2003 by Viking Books.

Mark's current blog is What is the (Next) Message? in which he uses a McLuhan lens to observe the world, as well as conduct a conversation about his ongoing research interests.

In Thomas' more than 18 years as a professional in information services and web he has worked in many industries and in many roles. He has always been the problem solver and the person who can see the big picture and put it into details to get it accomplished.

Thomas coined folksonomy in 2004 as part of his interest with how a novel approach to tagging aids a person refinding information and is also used to augment other information structuring methods so to help other people find information. In May 2007, Thomas announced in his blog, Off the Top, that he has signed with O'Reilly to write a book, initially titled Understanding Folksonomy.

Thomas also presents and trains at many conferences, workshops, and in-house events. Thomas has presented and led discussions across the U.S. and Europe on a broad range of topics including: folksonomy, Personal InfoCloud, social software, information architecture, design, web standards, ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), tagging, and designing for use and reuse of information across devices.

Susan West Klein is director of Technology Support Services in the Office of Information Technology at North Carolina State University. Technology Support Services provides a variety of technology support and consulting services for the NC State University campus community, including help desk services and support for desktop computing, enterprise applications, learning spaces and student computing. Susan received a BS in Animal Science from NC State University and is a Certified Public Manager. She has worked at NC State for 22 years in a variety of roles, including sheep husbandry, microcomputer support and technology support management.

Stan North Martin is director of Outreach, Communications & Consulting in the Office of Information Technology at North Carolina State University. The Outreach, Communications & Consulting unit coordinates a wide range of activities and provides training, consulting, media production and information services to enhance the use of technologies at NC State. Stan has been at NC State 15 years. Before becoming director, he was heavily involved with campus classroom technology issues, had coordinated NC State's residential network support services and was a student media adviser. Stan received a BA from Goshen (IN) College and an MA from UNC-Chapel Hill.