Big Design Conference

Stephen P. Anderson

Stephen P. Anderson is a product strategy and design consultant who helps large companies create valuable customer experiences.

Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Stephen spent more than a decade growing and leading teams of information architects, interaction designers and UI developers in the creation of all types of interactive experiences, bringing value to clients such as Nokia, Frito-Lay, Sabre Travel Network, and Chesapeake Energy as well as smaller technology startups.

Stephen is passionate about elegant design, remarkable customer experiences and managing maverick teams– topics he loves to write and speak about. In addition to consulting, he is in the process of doing research for a book that will teach businesses how to attract and manage rockstars, superheroes and other misfits.

As time permits, Stephen enjoys sharing his thoughts at poetpainter.com.

Lane Becker

Lane Becker is co-founder and President of Get Satisfaction, a web startup dedicated to fostering new methods of communication and collaboration between companies and their customers. Previously, Lane was co-founder of Adaptive Path, a user experience strategy, research, and design consultancy, known for, among other things, coining the technology terms “blog” and “ajax.”

While with Adaptive Path, Lane ran the consulting business and, as the creator of the New Ventures program, developed strategic partnerships with early-stage startup companies to provide them with long-term support for their product ideation, design, and launch strategies. Lane’s presentation in the strategy will be something that everyone should enjoy!

Teresa Brazen

Teresa Brazen is a project manager for Adaptive Path and advocate for bringing User Experience Design to new audiences and industries. She came to the User Experience industry after years of working in the art and the non-profit world. She is a strong believer in communicating about User Experience without jargon. Her podcast, Tea with Teresa, is a place for conversations about User Experience (and other fascinating topics) where confusing industry language is explained or left out. By using accessible language, she believes we can engage in a conversation about User Experience with anyone from any business, background or industry.

In addition to her work at Adaptive Path, she continues her work as an artist, exhibiting paintings and video art in galleries throughout the Unites States and internationally (BrazenArt.com). Prior to joining Adaptive Path, she worked in communications, marketing and development for the National Black Arts Festival, the Woodruff Arts Center, and Camp Fire USA Georgia Council. She was also a project manager for Acoustiguide, overseeing the development of audio tours for museums and cultural institutions.

She is a firm believer that design can reduce our impact on the environment, improve our quality of life, and simply make our lives a little easier. She enjoys guiding projects that have widespread impact on communities.

Jim Carlsen-Landy

Jim has managed successful enterprise-wide initiatives in UI design & technology, and software process improvement. He has years of experience as a software project manager in supply chain management, manufacturing, communications, and defense with a technical background in user interface design and development, object-oriented design, and artificial intelligence.

Currently, Jim can be found managing a web design group at Sabre Airline Solutions, where his team provides solutions that help airlines to do their business. If you took a plane to get the conference, the software used to route, schedule, maintain, stock, plane/deplane, gate assignment, equipment turns, assign seats, and so on was probably something that Jim’s team helped to design.

Norm Cox

Norm is cofounder and principal of Cox&Hall. Educated in Architecture and Design at Louisiana State University, he began his career at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center in the late ’70s as a visual designer for the Xerox “Star”. This seminal personal workstation began a revolution in “user friendly” human-computer interaction by pioneering the now ubiquitous graphical user interface.

As a result of the industry-wide acceptance of this visually rich interface, Norm began his consulting practice in 1982 to expand his knowledge, talents, experience, and influence in this budding field of computer-human interaction design. He has been involved as a designer for numerous leading edge user interfaces for a broad range of domestic and international clients.

He is named as inventor on 29 design patents relating to interaction design, and is a frequent lecturer to businesses, universities, and design conferences. He has juried international design competitions and has been the expert witness in copyright infringement litigation relating to user interface design.

Garrett Dimon

Garrett is on a mission to make the Web a better place. Armed with usability and efficiency, he’s convinced that if it needs instructions, it doesn’t work. That’s why everything he does — from information architecture to site development — is elegant in its simplicity and a complete joy for the user. When he’s not obsessed with usability, he can be found playing basketball or crusading for better content. If it’s about the Web, he’s all over it.

Joe Dyer

Joe Dyer is a Senior Information Architect with Travelocity, in Southlake TX and has 11 years of design, information architecture, usability, and web strategy experience. Joe and his UX Architect wife have two small children who will soon know how to classify and categorize all their toys.

Joe has completed work for such organizations as USAA, Air Force Space Command, Texas Workers’ Compensation Commission, Maxwell Silver of New York and has taught Principles of Interaction Design as an Adjunct Instructor for ITT Technical Institute.

Giovanni Gallucci

Giovanni Gallucci is a recovering .NET programmer turned tech evangelist and social media consultant. Giovanni provides strategy for new developments in social media, search, online public relations and buzz marketing and functions as a strategic representative to top politicos, internet personalities, celebrities, and forward-thinking companies interested in breaking new ground in social media.

Giovanni is social media ninja for companies like SimplyInteractive.net, RadioTime.com, Viewzi.com, and MeritBuilder.com, is on the faculties of AdobeTV and xTrain.com providing training in social media, search marketing and podcasting. In addition to these ventures, Giovanni produces ViewziTV, and teaches social media marketing workshops to the public and in corporate environments through ExtremeSocialMarketing.com.

In the summer of 2009 Giovanni will be completing work on his first book “Missing Clicks - 7 Steps to Gain More Visitors.” There are also a few website projects in the works to be announced as they go live.

Giovanni also volunteers his time to several professional/community organizations like Barcamp Austin, the Gerson Lehrman Group, DFWIMA (Dallas-Fort Worth Interactive Marketing Association), POD (Podcasters of Dallas), preDevCamp, Social Media Club’s Dallas Chapter and the Microsoft Executive Circle.

Previously Giovanni was a founding partner of Dallas-based online marketing firm DexterityMedia (formerly Kinetic Results - an AdAge Top 20 Advertising Firm) and served as President and COO of Zunch Communications, a search engine optimization company in Dallas, Texas.

Marti Gold

Marti Gold is Associate Creative Director at Travelocity with extensive expereince in print and web design. Marti’s portfolio includes designs for magazine covers, restaraunt menus, print collateral, print advertising, web sites, and much more. Fun fact: Marti built some of the web design elements for the Phillip K. Dick website, who is the science fiction author best known for “Minority Report.”

Michael Griffiths

Michael Griffiths has been designing and developing new media for 17 years, and still suffers night terrors spawned from the 16 color VGA palette. Michael’s mix of strategic and conceptual design abilities, client facing skills and business sensibility make him a unique and valuable creative. He has built all forms of new media including computer based training, marketing CDs, kiosks, trade show media, web sites, hand held devices and apps. He has a unique understanding of developing for different media. Yes, even Power Point.

When not designing new media, Michael is teaching others how to do it. He has taught animation, digital imaging, and web design, courses at both University of Texas Dallas and Collin County Community College. He has found teaching to be the most effective and efficient way to corrupt the minds of fledgling designers. In his spare time, Michael publishes an award winning personal design/humor site with a daily readership of almost but not quite 2,000 very easily entertained humans. Michael also maintains his non digital art skills through hand made books, illustration and photography. Michael’s favorite color is the very web unsafe DFE9D0.

Caleb Jenkins

Caleb Jenkins is a Principal Consultant with Improving Enterprises, National Speaker for INETA, Microsoft MVP, featured presenter for xTrain.com and Adobe.TV, technical editor for Wrox Publishing and certified Scrum Master. Improving Enterprises, Inc specializes in delivering enterprise solutions, agile methodologies and mentoring on the Microsoft and Java platforms. Host, cameraman and editor for http://CommunityCast.tv; as a long time community leader and former Microsoft Developer Evangelist, Caleb is well known for his engaging speaking style, depth of knowledge and creative energy. As a Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, Certified Trainer and .NET architect, Caleb has helped to design and implement enterprise .NET Solutions for some of the largest companies in the world; American Airlines, Countrywide Mortgage, CGI-AMS, Dollar Thrift Automotive Group and Sunoco Inc. to name a few. Caleb lives in the Dallas area where he continues to date his beautiful wife and busies himself playing Candy Land and Xbox 360 with their four incredible children. Occasionally he writes curriculum, speaks at conferences, and writes code for silly things like Twitter applications. Eventually he’ll post some of the gazillion interviews that he’s recorded on CommunityCast or blog at http://developingUX.com

Chris Koenig

Chris Koenig is a Developer Evangelist with Microsoft, based in Dallas, TX. Prior to joining Microsoft in March of 2007, Chris worked as a Senior Architect for The Capital Group in San Antonio, and as an Architect for the global solution provider Avanade. As a consultant, Chris worked with a variety of clients from many vertical markets, ISVs and other solution providers on enterprise-class Windows and web-based applications. Today, Chris focuses on building, growing, and enhancing the developer communities in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. You can contact Chris through his blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/chkoenig, via email at chris.koenig@microsoft.com, or via Windows Live Messenger at chris@koenigweb.com.

Erica O’Grady

Erica O’Grady is the #1 Erica on Google - Most days She is currently a Social Media Consultant based in Houston, Texas. Wearing many hats - including Social Media Consultant, Award Winning Web Designer/Developer, Creativity Coach, Writer, Part-Time Tutor, Aspiring Film-Maker, BarCamp Enthusiast, World Traveler, and Grown-up Girl Scout, Erica Specializes in Community Marketing and is considered to be one of the foremost experts on Social Media and Technology. She is currently the CXO of Peanut Butter Media, co-founder of SheConnects.Me, and sits on the Advisory board for Knowbility.org, The Creative Space, & Westwood College. She blogs at: http://reinventingerica.com and is the On The Road Correspondent for The Business Maker’s Radio Show heard on Talk Radio 950 KPRC.

Ryan Plesko

Ryan is a marketing strategist and web designer/developer hybrid with a concentration on design, function, content, usability, and search engine optimization. He’s currently chairman of the Dallas Chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association and designed and developed the critically acclaimed chapter website (as well as this one).

He’s a founding member of The Creative Space, a coworking-inspired space full of tech creatives, developers, and entrepreneurs, a founding member of RefreshBCS, and played host to BarCampTexas. He has been involved in the planning and production of the BIL Conference, an open analogous version of TED, since it was a just an idea rattling around The Creative Space.

He believes people should never ever stop learning and is an avid reader of a massive amount of blogs, magazines, and books. He studies people and how they interact – both with each other and with the products and services they use.

He currently is working on two projects (both in stealth mode), a whimsical Twitter application, and is accepting selective client work. Find him on the web at RyanPlesko.com.

Adam Polansky

Adam Polansky is the Manager of the Information Architecture team at Travelocity where he concentrates on Internet applications and processes associated with the practice of IA.

He has been an Information Architect since 1997 and has over 20 years experience in media development. He has lead or contributed to the development of Web-sites for such companies as Dr Pepper, Radio City Entertainment, American Express, AARP, Intel, Microsoft, Sabre, Corporate Express, and Texas Instruments.

He is a contributing author to “Usability Success Stories – How Organizations Improve By Making Easier-To-Use Software and Web Sites” - Gower Publishing, 2006
A member of the IA Institute, he is also involved with the American Association of Information Science & Technology, where he served as an inaugural officer of SIG-IA. He is also a past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of the Usability Professionals Association.

Elysa Rice

Named after a purple billboard in Paris, Elysa was destined be a designer before she was even born. Elysa Rice is a native Texan who is a graphic designer by profession and hobby.

She believes having a keen eye for design is a blessing and a curse. She finds inspiration all around her, but hates bad design; she can not fully appreciate a restaurant with a poorly designed menu. When Elysa is not critiquing the typography of the world around her, she finds blogging as an outlet for her creativity. She started GenPink as a way to connect with fellow twenty somethings about the day to day challenges of the so called quarterlife crisis. Since the launch of GenPink, Elysa has become very involved with the large online community of other twenty somethings.

She enjoys all things related to technology and is a self-proclaimed blonde computer nerd. She has a great love of music, as well as art. She lives life to the fullest, making each day the best it can be.

Sharron Rush

Sharron is the co-founder and Executive Director of Knowbility, a nonprofit organization that grew from the first Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR) in Austin in 1998. Sharron leads the effort to replicate the AIR program in cities throughout the country. Because of AIR, professional Web developers from hundreds of state agencies and technology companies have learned about the benefits, tools, and techniques of accessible Web design. In addition to improving the accessibility of their own work, AIR volunteers use their accessible Web design skills to create sites for more than 500 nonprofit groups, affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals.

Sharron believes strongly in the power of technology to support the independence of people with disabilities – and in the value of dynamic, ongoing collaboration to strengthen communities. She has led Knowbility to national recognition, including appearances on the Oprah Winfrey TV show, “Best Practice” feature at the National Labor Skills Summit, and recognition for excellence and innovation by the Peter F. Drucker Foundation. In April of 2001, she was named one of the Top 25 Women of the Web and in March 2002, she received the Dewey Winburne Award for Community Service through Interactive Media. She is a ComputerWorld Laureate, an advisor to the SXSW Interactive Media Conference, was named Community Tech Champion by the Congressional Black Caucus and co-wrote the book, Maximum Accessibility which is recognized as one of the definitive accessibility resources. Sharron annually assembles the best minds in web accessibility to deliver training conferences that teach and define interactive accessibility from the basics to the bleeding edge.

Derick Schaefer

Derick Schaefer is the founder and Managing Director of Orangecast Social Media Marketing in Dallas, TX. Orangecast provides eMarketing solutions for a variety of industries including social media consulting, reputation management services, and blog strategies. Orangecast currently owns and operates two sports blogs, MidwestSportsFans.Com and DallasSportsFans.Com. They consult on or operate CorporateComplianceInsights.Com, GadgetScience.Com, and McCuistion TV. Prior to founding Orangecast, Mr. Schaefer spent 15 years in the software and technology industry including a 10 year career at The Microsoft Corporation. While at Microsoft his roles included Principal Consultant for Microsoft’s Consulting Services Division and a Sr. Director of Technology and Services Sales for Microsoft’s Global Accounts Organization. Orangecast speaks for the Collin SDBC, Collin College, and The State Bar of Texas on a regular basis. Orangecast is a corporate member of the DFWSEM.

Bill Scott

Bill Scott is author of Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions and director of UI Engineering at Netflix in Los Gatos, CA, where he plies his interface engineering and design skills. Scott is the former Yahoo! Ajax evangelist and pattern curator for the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library.

He has a long and glamorous history in the IT world, due mostly to his unique understanding of both the technical and creative aspects of designing usable products. His ramblings and musings can be found at www.looksgoodworkswell.com.

Dr. Paul Sherman

Paul Sherman is founder and principal consultant at ShermanUX. He has worked in the field of usability and user-centered design for the past 12 years. He was most recently Senior Director of User-Centered Design at Sage Software in Atlanta, Georgia, where he led efforts to redesign the UI and improve the overall customer experience of the Peachtree Accounting desktop application and ePeachtree web-based app.

While at Sage he also designed and implemented a customer-centric contextual innovation program that sought to identify new product and service opportunities by observing small businesses “in the wild”. He also led efforts to modernize and make consistent Sage North America’s product user interfaces.
In the 1990’s he was a Member of Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies in New Jersey, where he led efforts to develop cross-product user interface standards for several telecommunications management applications. As a consultant he has conducted usability testing and interface design for banking, accounting and tax preparation applications, Web-based financial planning and portfolio management applications, and ecommerce Web sites.

Paul received his Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focused on how pilots’ use of computers and automated systems on the flight deck affects their individual and team performance. Paul is Past President of the Usability Professionals’ Association, was the founding President of the UPA Dallas/Fort Worth chapter, and serves on the UPA’s Board of Directors and Executive Committe. He is also contributor and editor of the Gower book Usability Success Stories: How Organizations Improve by Making Easier-to-Use Software and Web Sites, published in October 2006. He writes a regular column for the online user experience magazine UXmatters and has presented at conferences around North America as well as Asia, Europe, and South America. Email Paul at paul@shermanux.com.

Dr. Janet Six

Dr. Janet Six is the Principal of Lone Star Interaction Design in Wylie, Texas. Her interests are the design of easy-to-use products and information visualization. Her work has appeared in various academic publications and IEEE Spectrum. She was the winner of the prestigious IEEE Dallas 2003 Award for Outstanding Young Engineer. She is also the Managing Editor and Columnist for UX Matters, a web magazine that is a premiere source of information and inspiration for UX professionals.

Ben Smithee

Ben Smithee is a Market Researcher, who has worked with Fortune 500 in domestic and global markets. Recently, Ben has started his own company called Spych Market Analytics, which targets its Market Research into youth markets. The Spych team has young moderators trained in the latest technology and methods, including social media and viedographic research to uncover market trends in the social networks.

Ben’s team will be conducting market research and videography at SxSW Interactive. Plus, the Synch team will be conducting video interviews, in-session market research, posting videos to the Big (D)esign Blog page, tweeting, and asking loads of questions for attendees and speakers. If anyone will have the pulse of the conference, it will be Ben.

Dr. Christina Wasson

Christina Wasson is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Texas. She was one of the early practitioners in the field of design anthropology; in the late 1990s she worked for E-Lab, the first design firm where all client recommendations were based on ethnographic research. She wrote the seminal article “Ethnography in the Field of Design” (2000), as well as other publications on design anthropology and related topics. She was a founding advisory board member for the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (www.epic2009.com), and has been a keynote speaker at various national and international events. In her research, she has worked with organizations such as Motorola, Microsoft, EDS, the Field Museum, and the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. At UNT, she led the development of the first and only online master’s program in anthropology in the United States. She was educated at Berkeley and Yale.

Dr. Susan Weinschenk

Dr. Susan Weinschenk has over 30 years experience as a consultant worldwide and is Chief of Technical Staff and Services at Human Factors International. Her areas of expertise include persuasive interface design, neuropsychology, user centered design, and generational differences.

Dr. Weinschenk has a Ph.D. in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University. Susan has had 4 books on user experience published, and her most recent book is Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? published by New Riders. She is a highly rated workshop and keynote presenter.

Todd Wilkens

Todd Wilkens is a senior practitioner and manager of Adaptive Path’s Austin, Texas studio. His research, strategy, and design experience ranges from online communities to consumer electronics to brick-and-mortar retail experiences. With academic training in sociology, information science, and computer science, Todd is well-versed in social science theory but he’s happiest getting his hands dirty in the challenges of business and design decision making. Todd publishes and speaks regularly on design research and human-centered design generally. He also teaches courses and workshops internationally in design research, interaction design, information architecture, and sociology at professional events as well as at several universities and colleges.

Robert Wiseman

With 30 years of IT experience, including 22 years in the travel industry, Robert joined Sabre as Chief Technology Officer in May 2006 from Cendant TDS in Denver. In his first 2 years at Sabre, Robert’s focus was on infrastructure standardization/centralization, cookie-cutter architecture, virtualization, and SOA have resulted in both increased cost efficiencies and improved time to to market for Sabre’s products. While at Cendant, Robert and his team were regonized with four Gold medals from the Computerworld Smithsonian Institute for leading a major restructuing of Candant’s Travel Distribution Services division, implementing a full SOA framework running Galileo’s Web Services and a cookie-cutter architecture, based on Linux/Intel, which presented Cendant TDS with over $100 million in cost avoidance savings. Prior to his tenure at Cendat, Robert was the SVO of Future Technologies at Orbitz, CTO of FairAir.com, and Director at Delta.com for six years.

Joanne Wright

Joanne is a lead information architect with Travelocity, currently involved with design for Internet, mobile, and application interfaces. After spending 20 years in operations and marketing for wholesale and retail travel for companies such as Braniff, American Express Travel, Texas Instruments, and Dr Pepper, she left the workforce to make a career change.

She returned to school full-time, completing associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in rapid succession. After receiving her degree from University of Michigan’s School of Information, she (ironically) returned to the travel industry with a completely different focus, improving the customer experience. Her current passion is improving self-help. Joanne is a member of the Usability Professionals Association and contributed to a peer-reviewed publication on the use of computers to change smoking behavior.