Speakers 2013

[See the speakers for this year’s conference.]

Meet the speakers presenting at the first Y’all Connect conference.

Mitch Canter

Mitch Canter

Mitch Canter has been working with clients and code for the last 6 years. He’s been project manager and code-monkey, art director and UI designer, and everything in between, and owns Nashville-based Studio NashVegas.

He has a keen eye for design, keeps up with the latest Web trends and is social media savvy in the best way, having built his business from ground level. His languages of choice include PHP (WordPress) and Rails.

He’s also edited three books on WordPress, spoken at BarCamps, WordCamps and BlogWorld and New Media Expo.


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Mack Collier

Mack Collier

Mack Collier is a social media strategist, trainer and speaker located in Alabama. He specializes in helping companies better connect with their customers.

Mack has presented at the top social media conferences and events, including South by Southwest Interactive, BlogWorld and New Media Expo, Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer and Social Media Optimization Summit. Additionally, he founded Twitter’s largest chat, #Blogchat, where thousands meet each Sunday to discuss a blogging topic.

His first book, “Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans,” came out in April from McGraw-Hill.


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Nichole Kelly

Nichole Kelly

Nichole Kelly is the President of SME Digital, the digital marketing division of Social Media Explorer. Her team helps companies figure out where social media fits and then helps execute the recommended strategy across the “right” mix of social media channels. They use a scalable content approach and measures the results to your bottom line.

She has worked with companies of all sizes including CareOne Services, Sherwin-Williams, Federal Reserve Bank, Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, Caliber Learning Network and Signs by Tomorrow. Before SME, she founded social media consultancy Full Frontal ROI.

Nichole is the author of “How to Measure Social Media: A Step-By-Step Guide to Developing and Assessing Social Media ROI” (October 2012, Que Publishing). Based in Baltimore, she is also a professional speaker and blogger.


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Shelly Kramer

Shelly Kramer

Shelly Kramer is the Founder and CEO of V3 Integrated Marketing. A 20-plus-year marketing veteran, she’s an integrated marketing strategist, brand storyteller, digital marketing pro, content marketer, nationally recognized speaker and corporate trainer. Recently recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 50 Social Media Influencers, she’s half-marketer, half-geek, with a propensity for numbers and work that produces results.

Her diverse client experience includes working in both B2B and B2C markets. Forbes recognized her blog as one of the Top 20 Best Marketing and Social Media Blogs, and PostRank named it one of the Top 100 Most Engaging Social Media Blogs. She’s been named one of the 150 Most Influential Women on Twitter and recognized by The International Association of Business Communicators as 2012 Entrepreneur of the Year.

V3 recently received national recognition as part of BtoB’s Annual Social Media Marketing Awards in the LinkedIn category for its work with an enterprise level A/E/C client.


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Erika Napoletano

Erika Napoletano

Erika Napoletano lives in Boulder(ish), Colo., and is the Head Redhead at RHW Media, Inc., a brand strategy firm that helps people get UNstuck and over those annoying problems that keep them from being awesome. When described by Forbes, they encourage you to think of Erika as “a redheaded, tattooed Tina Fey with a special weakness for four letter words,” but it’s not all funny business.

Erika is also an award-winning, twice-published author, including “The Power of Unpopular” (2012), a columnist for both Entrepreneur Magazine and OPEN Forum and an acclaimed speaker from TEDx Boulder 2013. She speaks at conferences across the United States on the inherent power of truth in business, or as she refers to it, the power of unpopularity. Learn more about her at erikanapoletano.com.


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Ike Pigott

Ike Pigott

Ike Pigott is a veteran communicator based in Birmingham who got out of television news and back into life. Now working for Alabama Power, he specializes in corporate communications, but has interests that are all over the place.

Ike worked for 16 years in broadcast news, winning several awards (including an Emmy) for his writing and reporting. While in television, he started his crisis communication training consultancy, Positive Position.

He later worked for the American Red Cross, where he created the first disaster news blogs and the Red Cross Twitter account. As the Director of Communications and Government Relations for a five-state region, he served as an in-house crisis counsel for chapters and units.

He now works for Alabama Power, where he is involved in crisis planning and the integration of social media tools across the enterprise.


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Jenny Schmitt

Jenny Schmitt

Jenny Schmitt (@cloudspark) is the First Employee and Senior Spark at CloudSpark, an award-winning strategic communications company that specializes in helping companies answers the key questions of “What now?” and “What next?” With experience, expertise, inspiration — and a spark or two — the company provides answers that help business stand out and achieve results.

A veteran marketing and public relations professional and popular speaker, Jenny is a frequent media contributor and has been quoted in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, BrandWeek, Ragan’s and Nielsen’s Small Business among others. An author as well, she regularly contributes to the online world through blogs relating to social media, marketing and communications. Jenny earned her master’s and bachelor’s of business degrees from the George Washington University in Washington.


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Peter Shankman

Peter Shankman

An author, entrepreneur, speaker, and worldwide connector, Peter Shankman is recognized worldwide for radically new ways of thinking about social media, public relations, marketing, advertising and customer service.

Peter is best known for founding Help a Reporter Out, which in under a year became the de-facto standard for thousands of journalists looking for sources on deadline, offering them more than 200,000 sources around the world looking to be quoted in the media. HARO is currently the largest free source repository in the world, sending out over 1,500 queries from worldwide media each week.

Less than 2 years after Peter started HARO in his apartment, Vocus acquired the startup. Peter is now Vice President and Small Business Evangelist for Vocus, working out of New York.

Peter is also the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, a boutique social media, marketing and PR strategy firm located in New York, with clients worldwide. His blog, which he launched in 1995 both comments on and generates news and conversation.


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James Spann

James Spann

James Spann is chief meteorologist for Birmingham’s ABC 33/40, joining 1 month after the station signed on in 1996. In all, he has been a TV weather anchor for 34 years.

The American Meteorological Society gave him the 2013 Award for Broadcast Meteorology. The National Weather Association named him Broadcaster of the Year in 2012.

Readers of Birmingham Magazine voted James as Best TV Personality in 2011, and Best Tweeter in 2012. He has been named Best TV Personality multiple times by readers of the Birmingham News in its annual polls.


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Andrea Weckerle

Andrea Weckerle

Andrea Weckerle founded and leads CiviliNation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing online hostility, character assassination and adult cyberbullying. She is the author of the book “Civility in the Digital Age: How Companies and People Can Triumph over Haters, Trolls, Bullies and Other Jerks” (February 2013).

She previously worked in the Legal Management Services division of Ernst and Young, helping to design, develop and implement comprehensive alternative dispute resolution systems for Fortune 500 firms. She also underwent extensive mediation training, earning certificates in Commercial Mediation and Conflict Resolution Processes. In addition to a JD, she holds an MA in Public Relations/Conflict Analysis and Resolution.


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