Doug Williams
Yvonne DiVita
Adam Christensen
Deborah Colton
Jessica Murray
Peter Burris




Doug Williams
Doug Williams is the founder of Doug Williams and Associates. DWA (www.dougwilliams.com) is a 12-person Internet Marketing company located in Vancouver, WA, specializing in web design, search engine marketing, blog marketing, web database programming, hosting and consulting. With a website ranked #1 for small business consulting, Doug’s business helps other business owners improve their bottom line.

Doug’s blog, www.webdesignseo.com, focuses on how businesses can use web marketing, blog marketing and web traffic strategies. He is also the author of “Biz Blog Marketing,” published in February 2008, available on Amazon.com.

Doug is experienced in designing and implementing strategic plans and business systems. His key strength is the ability to originate and implement change. Doug has expertise in financial, operations and general management in companies experiencing rapid change in both high growth and start-up situations. He has served on the Board of Directors for four companies.

Prior to becoming a consultant, Doug spent 26 years in management, with 22 of these years in senior management positions across a wide range of industries. During this time, Doug defined and put into place many key business systems and improvement strategies to create profitable operations.

Doug has an MBA from Pepperdine University and an undergraduate degree in Biology and Chemistry from CSU Northridge.

FREE book with event registration: Biz Blog Marketing by Doug Williams





Yvonne DiVita
Yvonne DiVita is the founder and president of Windsor Media Enterprises, LLC, a new media publishing company that specializes in print-on-demand book publishing technology, professional business blog creation and social media.

Starting as a web content writer in the early days of the Internet, she later helped champion several technology start-up companies. After writing and publishing her first book, “Dickless Marketing: Smart Marketing to Women Online,” Yvonne decided to become a publisher herself. Today, her focus is on helping aspiring authors – especially those writing business books – make wise publishing choices.

Yvonne authors numerous blogs: www.lipsticking.com with a focus on the women’s market, www.ahablog.com on publishing, www.wmeblogs.com about blogging, www.windsormedia.blogs.com/books on her authors’ books and www.beneaththecover.com/author/btcyvonne about the print-on-demand publishing process. She also writes and manages www.scatchingsandsniffings.com, a petblog sponsored by Nestle’ Purina PetCare Company. Recently she helped launch another Purina blog for their new pet health insurance at www.purinacareblog.com

Yvonne is the current President of the Rochester Chapter of Women in Communications, VP of Web Communication for the Rochester Chapter of the American Marketing Association and former President of the Rochester Professional Consultants Network. In 2004, she was honored as an “Up and Coming Businesswoman” by the Rochester Women’s Network. She is often quoted on the Internet regarding marketing to women, business blogging, and self-publishing, and is a frequent speaker of these topics at both local and national forums and conferences.




Adam Christensen
Adam Christensen is the manager of IBM's social media communications, responsible for managing IBM's global adoption of Web 2.0 and driving the cultural change within the communications function. Adam also leads IBM's blogger relations efforts and is the community manager for the network of IBM's internal and external bloggers.

Prior to his current role, Christensen held a number of positions within IBM in internal, executive and external communications. Before joining IBM, Adam held similar positions at Brodeur Worldwide in New York City and Novell, Inc. in Provo Utah.

Adam is a graduate of Brigham Young University. He currently resides in Stamford, Connecticut, with his wife and four children, but still pines longingly to move back to the milder winters of his youth in Southern California.




Deborah Colton
Deborah A. Colton is an Assistant Professor of Marketing and International Business at the E. Philip Saunders College of Business at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Currently, she teaches Internet Marketing, Principles of Marketing and Global Marketing at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Additionally, she teaches online for RIT’s distance learners. She was one of the first Saunders faculty to teach an online course and her courses incorporate some of the most recent Web-based marketing techniques.

Deborah appreciates the truly global nature of the Internet. Thus, her expertise bridges Internet marketing and global marketing topics. Two of her mainstay areas are international e-tailing, which examines drivers of online retail success across national borders, and blogging as a marketing tool.

She has published research studies in the Journal of World Business and Journal of International Marketing and has presented at the national conferences of the American Marketing Association and the Academy of International Business. A number of her studies have received “Best Paper” awards.

Deborah received her Ph.D. in International Business and Marketing from the University of South Carolina. She earned her MBA from RIT and a BA in International Business Studies from the University of Buffalo. Prior to joining academia, Deborah spent ten years in marketing for Spalding and Troyer Race Cars. She is a member of the American Marketing Association, the Academy of International Business and Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society.




Jessica Murray
Jessica R. Murray, Hiring Partner at her own firm, practices in the areas of intellectual property and general business law. She represents vendors and users in software licensing transactions, and is experienced in trademark registration practice and copyright issues. She also represents start-up and established companies in a variety of business and financing transactions.

Jessica has been practicing since 1989, following graduation from Cornell Law School and Dartmouth College. A member of the Intellectual Property Section of the New York State Bar Association, she has spoken at Monroe County and New York Bar Association seminars on various intellectual property and corporate law topics.

She is active in numerous groups: the Monroe County Bar Association Business Law Council (of which she was a past Chair), the Intellectual Property and Diversity Committees of the Monroe County Bar Association, and the Greater Rochester Association for Women Attorneys. Jessica serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Youth Services, Inc., as well as the Board of Directors of the eBusiness Association and the Board of Directors of the Ad Council of Rochester. She is active in the Dartmouth Club of Rochester, the Bivona Child Advocacy Center, and is a member of the Leadership Rochester Class of 1997.

The Rochester Business Journal honored Jessica as one of the “40 Under 40.” A long-time culinary enthusiast, she has a recipe published in Gourmet magazine. You can also find her Rochester restaurant recommendations online at www.freewebs.com/nogreenpepers.




Peter Burris
Peter serves Technology Product Management & Marketing professionals and helps them transform B2B marketing capabilities to provide direct value to customers, thereby improving engagement efficiencies, sales effectiveness, channel partner orchestration, and customer input to product strategy and planning activities. He is a leading expert on evolving Web 2.0 infrastructure, with a focus on how requirements to utilize Web 2.0 technologies to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiencies translate into different combinations of modern server, storage, database, and middleware architecture, technology, and products.

Prior to joining Forrester, Peter was a highly regarded IT industry consultant and analyst, including executive research and business positions at META Group (now Gartner) and IDC. He was the lead author of META Group's influential adaptive infrastructure strategies program. He has been extensively quoted in leading media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, NPR, and the Palo Alto Daily News. He also has written columns for CNET, ZDNet, and the IT Manager's Journal.

Click here to view Peter’s full bio.