Keynote Speakers

OPENING
Monday, July 26th

Terry Flannery

TERESA (TERRY) FLANNERY
Executive Director of Communications & Marketing
Office of UCM-Exec Director
American University

Opening Keynote Speech: Brand ArchiTECHture  ... Building Your Brand on the Web and Managing to Make it Thrive

      We’re done arguing about whose job it is to control an organization’s web presence.  If a brand is the sum total of experiences your customers have with your institution, then their digital experiences need to be as well managed as their virtual ones.  The net effect? Marketers have to be more tech savvy and technology experts need to become more brand savvy.  Professionals in both disciplines have been required to blend skills, training and resources to successfully deliver a user experience that meets the needs of our audiences.

      American University completely redesigned its web presence in 2009 through the leadership and partnership of its Marketing and IT units.  With highly distributed publishing and on-going responsibility for shared web governance, American has launched and maintained a distinctive presence in the higher ed sector.  Winning both the eduStyle.net and Web Marketing Association’s awards in 2009 for best higher education web site, the web site is distinctive for its user focus, high level of integration and consistency, and multi-media and Web 2.0 content to authentically convey the AU brand.

      As the site marks its one year anniversary and rolls out new features, Flannery will share operating principles that scale to institutions large and small, for successful delivery of a brand in the digital environment.  Examples from other sectors (Ford, Southwest Airlines) round out lessons learned for setting wild goals, developing loyal partnerships, confronting long-standing obstacles, dealing with compromise, leveraging big moments, keeping momentum and paying close attention to policy and governance as an on-going responsibilities.

Bio on Ms. Flannery:
  Terry Flannery has worked in higher education marketing for two decades. She is American University’s first executive director, university communications and marketing, and a member of the president’s cabinet. Establishing a full marketing program, beginning with market research to inform the brand strategy, she has also worked with a campus-wide committee to completely redesign the University website.

    Prior to her appointment at American, Flannery built a nationally recognized higher education marketing and communications program at the University of Maryland as assistant vice president. She also held positions in admissions and student affairs at Maryland, and was affiliate assistant professor in the College of Education.

    With expertise in marketing, branding, marketing research and assessment, Flannery serves as the chair of the CASE Institute for Integrated Marketing and Branding, and is a frequent speaker and consultant for higher education organizations.
 
    Degrees
    • PhD, College Student Personnel, University of Maryland
    • MEd, College Student Personnel, University of Maryland
    • BA, English University of Maryland

CLOSING
Tuesday, July 28th

Steve Dembo

STEVE DEMBO
Online Community Manager
Discovery Channel Education

Closing Keynote Speech: Learning to Speak Native: How education is being transformed in 140 characters or less

We live in an era that has seen the democratization of knowledge, the flattening of the earth, and the rise of wikinomics. The amount of information online keeps increasing while the barriers to accessing it continue to decrease. 21st century students aren’t merely products of these shifts, they are the instigators at the forefront of the next digital revolution. Are we prepared for students that live online in a state of transparency, defining ‘private’ as only being seen by a few thousand people?  It is more important than ever than we do more than just communicate with our audiences.  By taking advantage of new technologies we have the opportunity to engage our communities, learn from them, and even harness their collective power to dramatic effect.  We will explore how education professionals are are creating deep meaningful relationships through light frequent touches…. and losing their digital accent along the way. 

Bio of Mr. Dembo:
A former kindergarten teacher and school Director of Technology, Discovery Education’s Online Community Manager Steve Dembo is a pioneer in the field of educational social networking. Among the first educators to realize the power of blogging, podcasting, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 technologies to connect educators to one another and create professional learning communities, Dembo has been instrumental in the explosive growth of the Discovery Educator Network and its online presence at http://community.discoveryeducation.com/.

In 2006, Dembo was named one of the Top 100 EduBloggers by the Online Education Database. That same year, the Discovery Educator Network website, which was created and is managed by Dembo, was honored with an Award of Excellence from Technology and Learning magazine.

Dembo’s continued excellence in developing the online presence of the Discovery Educator Network was honored again in 2007 with a Distinguished Achievement Award for Instructional Website from the Association of Educational Publishers, and again in 2008 with a BESSIE Award for Best Professional Development Website. In 2009 the Discovery Educator Network was the recipient of the inaugural Best in Tech award for Professional Development and Resource Solutions by Scholastic Administrator magazine.

In addition to demonstrating continued innovation in serving Discovery Education’s online community, Dembo continues to be a prolific blogger whose personal blog and companion podcast, Teach42, continues to serve as inspiration for tens of thousands of educators around the world. In 2009 his blog was recognized as one of 20 Must-Read Education Technology blogs by ACE Online Schools and was nominated for Best Individual Blog and Best EdTechSupport Blog at the Edublog Awards. In addition, Dembo has been recognized as one of the top 50 educational bloggers by Social Media Explorer.

Dembo is also a dynamic speaker on the capabilities of social networking, the power of educational technologies and Web 2.0 tools, and the ability of digital content to empower teachers to improve student achievement. He has delivered keynote presentations at PETE&C, TRETC, the Maryland K12 Libraries Conference and the Connecting & Learning Conference, and has been a featured speaker at GaETC, MACUL, METC, FETC, and Tech Forum. He has conducted hundreds of virtual presentations and regularly hosts the Discovery Educator Network’s EdTechConnect and Discovery Connect monthly webinar series. Dembo also participated in the 2008 Nokia Open Labs as an expert on mobile phone integration in education.