Robert Luhn

Speakers

Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel, Publisher, Peachpit Publishing Group Tony Bove, Author Christian Crumlish, Author Steve Elliot, Prentice Hall Brian Favro, President, Labyrinth Publications Whil Hentzen, Hentzenwerke Bob Jacobson, Author Scott Knaster, Author Robert Luhn, Executive Editor, O'Reilly & Associates Ross Mayfield, CEO, Socialtext, Inc. Gordan McComb, Author Robert McDowell, VP Business Critical Solutions, Microsoft Chris Negus, Author Joe Phillip, Computer Book Specialist, IPG William Pollock, Founder, NoStarch Press Karen Post, Branding Diva Steve Rhodes, Author John Rizzo, Author Wendy Sharp, Corporate Press Editor Uwe Steinmueller, Publisher, Photographer, Digital Outback Photo Dave Taylor, Author Rodnay Zaks, Sybex

Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel, Publisher, Peachpit Publishing Group Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel is Vice President of Pearson Technology Group and Publisher of Berkeley-based Peachpit Publishing Group, home to the world's leading computer book imprints, series and authors specializing in design, graphics and creative computer use, including Peachpit Press, New Riders, Adobe Press, Macromedia Press, Apple Pro Series, lynda.com H.O.T., Avid Educational Series and TechTV, among others. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Masters from Indiana University-Bloomington, Aldrich-Ruenzel got her start in graphics as a night-shift typesetter and proofreader at UW's Daily Cardinal. Her first real job publishing for graphics professionals was editor of one of the few trade magazines in the late 70s for "commercial artists" other than Print and CA, called Art Product News.

Prior to joining Peachpit 8 years ago, Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel was Group President for all graphics products, services, new media and training at Dynamic Graphics (DG). Many of Peachpit's first authors taught DG workshops and wrote for DG publications prior to writing books for Peachpit. Aldrich-Ruenzel first joined Dynamic Graphics in 1984 to start Step-By-Step Graphics magazine, the internationally recognized how-to magazine for graphic designers, Step-By-Step Digital Design, the award-winning newsletter for desktop designers, and ynamic Graphics magazine. Nancy has served on the boards of international graphics organizations, chaired and presented at graphics and digital design conferences and judged traditional and digital design and illustration competitions. But she finds raising two teenagers to be her biggest challenge in life right now.

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Tony Bove, Author Tony Bove is a writer, producer, and musician, and has been a journalist, analyst, and magazine columnist in the computer industry since 1976. Tony founded Publish magazine and the Inside Report on New Media newsletter, and wrote the weekly Macintosh column for Computer Currents for eight years. He also produced and published the multimedia CD-ROM Haight-Ashbury in the Sixties, which garnered critical acclaim and reviews that referred to it as “An unflinching, nonjudgmental chronicle” (Wired); “Inspires then and now connections, fulfilling any historical work’s highest calling” (S.F. Examiner); “Truly greater than the sum of its parts” (N.Y. Post). He has written more than a dozen computer-related books including iLife All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies and iPod & iTunes for Dummies for Wiley, and The Art of Desktop Publishing, Adobe Illustrator: Official Handbook for Designers, and Official Macromedia Director Studio for Bantam/Random House. He also recently founded the Rockument Channel (www.rockument.com), a site focused on rock music history, and is an original member of and songwriter for the well-known Silicon Valley rock band, the Flying Other Brothers (www.flyingotherbros.com) whose first commercial CD, 52-Week High, was released in 2003.

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Christian Crumlish, Author Christian Crumlish is a writer, consultant, and artist who has been involved in developing and writing about Web technology since 1994. As a content strategist and information designer with Groundswell and Enterpulse, he has developed web-enabled B2B applications for such clients as Visa and Sprint. He is a prolific blogger and has personal connections among social-network software entrepreneurs and technically savvy political organizers, including several of the successor entities currently emerging from the Dean campaign.

His previous books include Coffeehouse: Writings from the Web (Manning), multiple editions of The Internet for Busy People (McGraw-Hill), and The Internet Dictionary (Sybex). He is also a contributor to The Phish Companion (Backbeat) and all three volumes of The Deadhead's Taping Compendium (Owl/Holt). His next book will be a biography of New Orleans piano wizard James Carroll Booker III.

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Steve Elliot, Prentice Hall

Steven Elliot is Executive Editor with Prentice Hall a division of Pearson Education where he focuses on acquisitions and market development in the certification, web development and networking arena.

Prior to joining Prentice Hall Prior, he served as an Associate Publisher for Course Technology and as Director of Business Development. While at Osborne McGraw-Hill he served as an Executive Editor. His editorial career began with Wiley College as the computer science and electrical engineering editor.

Back To Top Brian Favro, President, Labyrinth Publications

Brian Favro (BSc, Computer Engineering) began teaching adult education classes in Richmond, CA in 1991. He found that few books on computer applications met the needs of students and began writing materials to meet those needs. From this experience, he launched Labyrinth Publications and developed the “ease of understanding” format that makes Labyrinth books so unique. As President of Labyrinth Publications, Brian continues to oversee the day-to-day operations of the company. In his spare time he enjoys outdoor activities, playing ice hockey, and spending quality time with his wife Kiat and five year old son Justin.

Back To Top Whil Hentzen, Hentzenwerke

Whil Hentzen fills the role of "player-coach" at Hentzenwerke Publishing, a 7 year old Milwaukee-based publisher that specializes in titles covering high-end software development and, more recently, the migration of Windows developers and users to Linux.

Whil started out life as a custom software developer using dBASE II (he still has the original 8 1/2 x 11 grey binder of documentation, much to the chagrin of his wife), and switched to FoxPro in 1990. Besides billing 15,000 hours in the 90's, he presented more than 70 papers at conferences throughout North America and Europe, edited FoxTalk, Pinnacle Publishing's high end technical journal for 7 years, and hosted the Great Lakes Great Database Workshop since 1994. He was a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional from 1995 through 2003 for his contributions to the FoxPro development community, and received the first Microsoft Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual FoxPro in 2001.

He started writing in order to develop credentials to bolster his software development career. His first book, Rapid Application Development with FoxPro, showed up in 1993, and six more have appeared since. He started Hentzenwerke Publishing in 1996 to self-publish a specialized volume on software development, and then began producing Visual FoxPro books when the major publishers abandoned the market in 1998. Sensing the impending acceptance of Linux on the desktop and anticipating a coming demand for custom business applications on those Linux desktops, he turned his attentions to Linux in 2002, and will have eight narrowly targeted Linux and open source books available by the end of 2004. Despite being HQ'd in Whil's house, HWP's backlist now numbers over 30, with some 60 authors and editors worldwide on the payroll.

Whil has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and currently spends his copius amounts of spare time with his five kids and volunteering for the local school district. An avid distance runner, he has logged nearly 50,000 miles lifetime, and, pending recovery from a severe injury a few years ago, hopes for one more shot at a sub-15-minute 5,000-meter clocking before age and common sense close the door on that activity.

You can reach Whil at [email protected] or at 414.332.9876.

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Bob Jacobson, Author

Bob Jacobson is the author of a chapter entitled, "The Feel of a Campaign: Information Architecture and Campaign Experience," for Extreme Democracy. This chapter explores how IT structure determines the experience of a campaign by those on the inside and the campaign's overall effectiveness. It presents a new model for campaign IT based on a hypergrid that is more flexible than hierarchical models based on databases and email, and more effective than bubble models built around blogging.

Bob has been a public-media activist since the 60s and online almost as long as he can remember. His first experience with interactive computer communications was in 1975 when, as one of the first doctoral students at USC¹s Annenberg School of Communications, he successfully shot down Caltech¹s spaceship in a game of Asteroids played on the new ARPANET.

For eight years (1981-1989), during and after the breakup of AT&T, Bob served as principal telecommunications and information policy consultant to the California State Assembly. His report, ³Access Rights to the Electronic Marketplace,² coined the term, "ecommerce." Bob later managed enactment of the Universal Telephone Services Act, preserving access to local telephone service for poor and rural telephone customers; and enactment of the Telephone Privacy Act. During this period he became one of the first hosts on the legendary WELL, helping Howard Rheingold to write online a report on information technology policy for the Office of Technology Assessment.

After leaving the Legislature, Bob worked in research and executive management positions in the nascent virtual reality industry and later the Internet business. He created and co-moderated the sci.virtual-worlds newsgroup. He's been the founder and CEO of two software companies and a senior business consultant with SRI. He's currently the Principal of

Bluefire Consulting, helping investors and startups to anticipate the future and grow their high-tech companies accordingly.

During the Dean campaign, Bob created and administered the Dean Issues Forum, now the Democracy Forum, permitting open discussion of campaign policies by the grassroots. For this effort, he assembled 40 experts in 25 policy sectors.

In the campaign's aftermath, Bob is a member of Demtech, a clearinghouse comprising project leaders in the Democratic campaign and the grassroots. He's also a member of Grassroots for America, a nonprofit campaign spinout that facilitates action by new grassroots groups.

A former Fulbright Scholar in Scandinavia, Bob has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning & Design from UCLA, an M.A. in Communication Industry Management from the Annenberg School/USC, an M.A. in Television Studies from UCLA, and a B.A. in Sociology from UCLA.

Bob's the author of three books (on publicly owned cable systems, public participation in information policymaking, and information design) and beginning a fourth on experience design. He lives in Redwood City, loves bodysurfing, and knows California and its coastline like the back of his hand.

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Scott Knaster, Author

Scott Knaster has been writing about Macs for as long as there have been Macs. Scott's book How To Write Macintosh Software was required reading for Mac programmers for more than a decade, and his groundbreaking Macintosh Programming Secrets remains a cult classic. Scott's experience ranges from writing developer books for General Magic to working on award-winning Mac software for Microsoft. Scott's books have been translated into several languages, including Japanese and Pascal. Scott's latest book is Mac Toys (with John Rizzo), to be published in February by Wiley. Scott has every issue of Mad magazine, which explains a lot.

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Robert Luhn, Executive Editor, O'Reilly & Associates

Robert Luhn is Executive Editor of O'Reilly's consumer group, handling general computer consumer titles, Web design and development books, and our Macromedia list. Prior to coming to O'Reilly, Robert was Executive Editor at CNET, Editor in Chief of Computer Currents magazine, and Senior Editor at PC World. As a freelance writer in the last two decades, he has

contributed to publications as diverse as Harper's, Omni, California Republic, Publish, Computerworld, PC Magazine, Maximum PC, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Christian Science Monitor, The Hudson Review, Book Forum, and other discriminating periodicals. His hobbies include whist, yeast cultures, and raising small, unattractive animals.

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