2011 Speakers

Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist at HubSpot and author of two O'Reilly Media books: The Social Media Marketing Book and The Facebook Marketing Book.

He has a background in web development and combines his programming capabilities with a passion for social marketing to study social media behavior from a data-backed position and teach marketers scientifically grounded best practices. His Link Attraction Factors report helps readers determine which topics, days, times, and keywords attract links in social media stories for semantic content optimization, while his Viral Content report details the motivations, preferences, and habits involved in online content sharing. His Science of ReTweets report analyzes when, why, and how Twitter users retweet things and explains how marketers can effectively get more retweets, and TweetPsych is a linguistic analysis tool he built that allows users to generate psychological profiles of any other Twitter user or list based on the contents of their Tweets.

Dan served as a member of the Boston City Council's Citizens' Committee on Boston's Future and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Fast Company, Wired, Forbes, The Financial Times, Huffington Post, The London Times, The Miami Herald, Slashdot, Smart Money, AdAge, NYPost, The Atlantic, Mashable, The Twitter Book, and TechCrunch. In 2009 he was awarded Shorty and Semmy awards for social media and viral marketing. He has spoken at numerous conferences, including PubCon, Search Engine Strategies, Iowatasmic, Convergence '09, 140 The Twitter Conference, The Cool Twitter Conference, WordCamp Mid Atlantic, Social Media Camp, Inbound Marketing Bootcamp, and Social Fresh Nashville.

Kary Delaria has more than 10 years of experience in public relations, media relations, and marketing communication. As one of Kane Consulting's principals, she helps clients develop and manage their online presence and reputation through social media analysis, monitoring, and community engagement. Kary also acts as the firm's community manager and digital PR strategist.

Kary blogs for KaneCo Conservations, is a contributing editor to the Minnesota Public Relations Blog, and is a guest blogger for SpinSucks, Thinking Out Loud, and Radian6. She has presented to local and national audiences, including the Radian6 Social User Conference 2011 and the MWMC Women@Work Conference, and leads training workshops in social media strategy and implementation on behalf of Kane Consulting. Kary is also an adjunct faculty member at Concordia University, St. Paul, helping develop the curriculum for the Social Media Certificate program.

Active in professional associations, Kary is a past-president of Minnesota Women in Marketing and Communications (MWMC) and has served on committees for the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA), the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Minnesota, and the Public Relations Society of America, Minnesota chapter.

Prior to her work with Kane Consulting, Kary was a public relations consultant, developing and executing media relations programs for business-to-business clients. Her seven years of PR consulting gave her extensive experience in researching opportunities for visibility as well as monitoring and measuring editorial coverage.

Kary earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where she studied journalism and public relations.

Jennifer Kane, principal of Kane Consulting, is an award-winning strategic planner and social media strategist. She has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communications, working with B2B and B2C companies and professional associations, and nearly two decades of public speaking, education, and training experience.

Her consulting firm began with a focus on marketing strategy for design and interactive firms and agencies and expanded to include extensive event marketing services in mid-2000. The firm's most notable work during this period was the production and event marketing for four of the annual summits for the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA), featuring keynotes such as Jason Fried, Ze Frank, Jackie Huba, and Seth Godin. Kane Consulting won two Bronze Quill awards for its marketing and communications efforts for these events.

In response to the rising popularity of social media and subsequent client demand, Kane Consulting shifted its marketing and communications focus in 2009 to provide social media research, strategy, implementation, and measurement consulting services, working with companies such as aloft Minneapolis, The Goodman Group, HealthFitness, The Mark Dayton Campaign for Governor, eVisibility/LSF Interactive, and Experience Life Magazine.

As an extension of Kane Consulting's services, Jennifer has conducted webinars and classes for corporations and trade association events, as well as private training for marketing and management executives. She was an adjunct faculty member at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and is currently adjunct faculty for Concordia University, St. Paul, where she is developing the curriculum for their Social Media Certificate program. She is also an advisor for the Next Stage Business Radio network on Blog Talk Radio and is featured on episodes of NSB's Advisors show that discuss social media, marketing, public relations, and communications.

Jennifer has presented at local and national events including MultiFamilyPro's Optimization Summits, Social Slam, Social Media Breakfast, Mansfield Tanick & Cohen's Women Entrepreneurs Conference, Minnesota Direct Marketers Association (MDMA), Meeting Planners International (MPI), International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), Non-Profit Solutions, and the Minneapolis Photo Center.

Jennifer is a member of the national organizations Marketing Profs and Social Media Club. She earned bachelor's degrees in speech/communication/theatre arts and humanities from Concordia College (Moorhead, Minnesota).

Andrew Careaga is the director of communications for Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), one of the few public universities in the nation with a tight technological focus. His department is responsible for managing Missouri S&T's brand identity and coordinating marketing efforts with other divisions and departments on campus. A member of the Missouri S&T staff for more than 20 years, Andrew previously served as manager of public relations, as news and features editor for the University's alumni magazine, and as the University's first webmaster. Throughout 2007 and much of 2008, Andrew managed the University's Name Change Conversations blog (namechange.mst.edu), which became a critical component of Missouri S&T's communications initiative during its transition from its former name, the University of Missouri-Rolla. The Name Change Conversations blog won the Best Institutional Blog award from eduStyle and CollegeWebEditor.com in 2008.

A veteran blogger and social media junkie, Andrew blogs frequently on his personal site, Higher Ed Marketing. He also is involved in coordinating the University's social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Andrew's professional involvement includes service with CASE as chair of CASE District VI (1998-2000) and a three-year term on the CASE Communications and Marketing Commission (2002-2005). He also served on the CASE Commission on Opportunity and Equity from 1994-1996. He has presented on social media marketing, crisis communications, change management, and related subjects at various conferences and workshops, including events sponsored by CASE, Academic Impressions, Higher Ed Experts, and AACRAO, among others.

Andrew earned a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Lougan Bishop is the social media and web marketing specialist for Belmont University’s Office of Marketing and Special Initiatives. In his role, Lougan is responsible for strategy and oversight of all aspects of Belmont’s social and new media presence. He also serves as chair of the Social Media Administration Team, which oversees the University’s Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts and provides leadership in departmental marketing efforts using social media. He also serves as the ex facto advisor to the University Strategic Marketing Team in regards to social media. In addition, he manages university blogs and serves as a point of contact for video projects and productions executed through the marketing office.

In his previous role at Belmont as web specialist for the Division of Enrollment Services, Lougan led the charge into the world of social media by creating the University’s Facebook page and YouTube account in 2008 and forming the University Social Media Administration Team in 2009. He also oversaw the implementations of three CRMs, the AskBU knowledge base, the chatBU university chat system, and the BU4U prospective student portal. In addition, he provided support for the implementations of the graduate online application and the graduate e-brochure. Prior to joining Belmont in 2008, he was a senior sales specialist with Dell, Inc.

As a veteran in the use of Twitter and Facebook in higher education, Lougan has written for the higher education marketing blog .eduGuru on the use of social media by prospective students. He has also presented on the use of social media in higher education and the implementation of technology with small teams at various conferences, including events sponsored by Hobsons and Stamats. He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from Middle Tennessee State University.

As president and curator of Storyline, Hugh Weber leverages old-school narrative techniques and cutting-edge analytics to reveal the rich stories that often lay hidden in cultures of businesses, non-profits, communities, and individuals. In the world of marketing, where everyone thinks they’re the next Mark Twain ready to create stories, the skills of a story discoverer—listening, observing, refining, and adapting—are a rare commodity. Hugh has a gift for taking the passions and purposes of an organization and providing them the perspective necessary to inspire action—whether that action is a one-time sale or a lifelong commitment.

Hugh has provided thought leadership and general management for award-winning online and social media campaigns, as well as research, story discovery, and strategic management for marketing in niches including biofuels, technology, health care, tourism, fatherhood, community development, and churches. He is the organizer and curator for TEDxSiouxFalls and OTA, a conference that highlights creativity and thought leadership in the OTA states of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. In 2009, Hugh was designated by Ford Motor Company as a “heavy hitter” in social media and honored as their “social activism” challenge winner. He has been quoted and referenced by the Washington Post, Glamour Magazine, Pregnancy Magazine, the Associated Press, Philadelphia Inquirer, Wisconsin Public Radio, and the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. He has been a contributor to books on political technology and new marketing, and he is a frequent speaker on the power of story, the proper usage of social media, and his personal shortcomings as a father.

Hugh holds a bachelor’s degree in political science, public policy, and black studies from Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania) and a master’s degree in research methods and message strategy from The George Washington University (Washington, D.C.).

John Nelson joined Moody’s in 1991 and is now managing director of its health care, higher education, not-for-profit, and infrastructure rating teams. These teams conduct research and analysis on more than 1,000 public and not-for-profit enterprises including airports, colleges and universities, hospitals, not-for-profit organizations, ports, public power utilities, and toll roads. John is responsible for development of multi-year business plans and market strategy, annual budgets, credit decisions, and human resource evaluations for the teams that he oversees.

John was the founding chair of Moody’s U.S. Public Finance Credit Committee, which is charged with promoting analytical consistency and transparency across Moody’s different teams engaged in public finance ratings. He is a member of Moody’s Global Public Sector Credit Committee and Moody’s Fundamental Corporate Finance Credit Committee.

John has personally visited more than 300 higher education, health care, housing, infrastructure, and not-for-profit organizations in the U.S. and Canada. He has authored more than 500 credit and research reports during his career at Moody’s, covering a wide range of organizations from research universities with multi-billion budgets to small not-for-profits with less than $5 million in annual revenue. John has spoken at more than 100 different conferences, seminars, and board meetings for various public, not-for-profit, and private organizations. John was named by both Institutional Investor magazine and Smith’s Research and Rating Review to their All-Star Fixed Income Research teams.

John received a bachelor’s degree in history with a course concentration in economics from Binghamton University (New York) and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin. He was also a research associate at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies and was a repeat guest lecturer at Columbia University Business School (New York).

Mark Kantrowitz is a nationally recognized expert on student financial aid and paying for college. He is the founder and publisher of FinAid.org, the leading source for clear and unbiased financial aid information, advice, and tools; and publisher of FastWeb.com, the most popular and complete free scholarship matching site. Mark writes advice columns for the Fastweb, MainStreet.com, Newsweek Education, and Huffington Post websites.

Mark is the author of five books, including three about student financial aid, and holds seven patents. His most recent book is Secrets to Winning a Scholarship (February 2011). He also writes extensively on student aid policy and was quoted in more than 875 newspaper and magazine articles in 2010. He has testified before Congress on several occasions.

Mark serves on the editorial board of the Council on Law in Higher Education, the editorial advisory board of Bottom Line/Personal, the board of trustees of the Center for Excellence in Education, and the board of directors of the National Scholarship Providers Association.

Mark has two bachelor’s degrees (one in mathematics and the other in philosophy) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University (Pennsylvania).

Marie O’Malley is director of consumer research at Sallie Mae. In this role, Marie is responsible for managing public-release research for Sallie Mae as well as conducting internal marketing research. The most recently completed public projects are How America Pays for College (2010), a major study launched in 2008, and How America Saves for College (2010), a study introduced in 2009 as a complement to How America Pays for College. The 2011 version of How America Pays for College is underway. Previously published reports managed by Marie include Nellie Mae’s National Student Loan Survey (2002, 1997) and a series, How College Students Use Credit Cards, published at intervals from 1998 through 2007. Marie has been with Sallie Mae for 16 years, having joined the company through its affiliate Nellie Mae.

A Boston-area resident, Marie received a bachelor’s degree in English from Regis College (Massachusetts) and a master’s degree in English from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

John Pryor is the director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP), the longest-running and largest empirical study of higher education in the United States. The CIRP longitudinal program consists of The Freshman Survey, Your First College Year Survey, Diverse Learning Environments Survey, and the College Senior Survey. John is also managing director of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), where the CIRP surveys are administered. Before coming to HERI in 2005, he was the director of student affairs planning, evaluation, and research at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire).

John’s specific interests are in college student alcohol use, health issues, at-risk behaviors, and survey research methodology. As the director of the CIRP surveys, he conducts longitudinal research on the changing nature of college students and the impact of college. He is a frequent expert source for media on higher education, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Los Angeles Times, among others.

John earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Virginia.

Victor Ferrall is president emeritus of Beloit College (Wisconsin) and author of Liberal Arts at the Brink (Harvard University Press, 2011). Prior to serving as Beloit College’s ninth president from 1991 to 2000, Victor was a senior member of a Washington law firm. During his tenure at Beloit, he led the sesquicentennial fundraising campaign, completed in November 1997, which raised $100 million. Beloit also increased the size and diversity of its student body. The major renovations of Morse-Ingersoll Hall, the Wright Museum of Art, and the Logan Museum also occurred during this time.

Victor is a founding member of the Annapolis Group. Since 2004, he has been a member of the Board of Curators of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Over the years, he has served as director for a variety of organizations, including the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth, and Olivet College (Michigan). He is author of numerous publications, among them "Can Liberal Arts Colleges be Saved?" (Inside Higher Ed, February 11, 2008), Writing Wood (Beloit College Press, 2007), and Part of a Life: A Memoir (P.A. Hutchinson, 2005).

An honors graduate of Oberlin College (Ohio) with bachelor’s degrees in economics and philosophy, Victor went on to earn both a master’s degree in economics and a law degree from Yale University (Connecticut). In 2009, Beloit College awarded him an Hon. Doctor of Humane Letters.

Richard Arum is professor of sociology and education at New York University and co-author (with Josipa Roksa) of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (University of Chicago Press, 2011). He is also director of the Education Research Program of the Social Science Research Council in New York, where he has directed the CLA Longitudinal Project and successfully led efforts to organize educational stakeholders in New York City to create the Research Alliance for New York City Schools (an entity loosely modeled after the Consortium on Chicago School Research) that focuses on ongoing evaluation and assessment research to support public school improvement efforts.

He is the author of numerous books and articles, and he has made numerous presentations on his work. His media appearances include The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, New Yorker, Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN, National Public Radio, PBS, and Voice of America. Richard has also received several fellowships and grants from entities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, and National Science Foundation, among others, including his most recent award, a grant for over $1 million from the Lumina, Carnegie, and Teagle Foundations.

Richard earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Tufts University (Massachusetts), an M.Ed. in teaching and curriculum from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mark Hugo Lopez is the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, where he studies the attitudes and opinions of young Latinos, the political engagement of Latinos and Hispanics, and their interaction with the criminal justice system. Mark also coordinates the Center’s national surveys. He joined the Pew Hispanic Center in 2008.

Additionally, Mark currently serves as a visiting professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy and as a member of the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession. Prior to joining the Pew Hispanic Center, Mark was the research director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, where he studied the civic engagement of young people.

Mark earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University (New Jersey).

Dan Saracino is the former assistant provost for enrollment at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana), having retired in 2010 after serving for 13 years as the leader of the University’s undergraduate admissions office. Under Dan’s leadership, Notre Dame achieved a significant increase in the academic quality and diversity of its applicants, admitted students, and enrollees, all while maintaining the University’s longstanding and unchanging commitment to students who bring multiple talents to campus and value its mission as a Catholic institution of higher learning.

A Notre Dame alumnus, Dan returned to his alma mater in 1997 after serving for the previous 20 years at Santa Clara University (California) as director of admissions, dean of undergraduate admissions, and dean of enrollment management. Dan actually began his career in admissions at Notre Dame, where he served as assistant director from 1969 to 1975 and associate director from 1975 to 1977.

Dan has played leadership roles in numerous national professional organizations, including the College Board, Catholic College Admission Association, National Association for College Admission Counseling, Conference of Jesuit Admissions Directors, and Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. He has served or is currently serving on the National Merit Scholarship, the Lilly Foundation Scholarship, the Brunswick Corporation Scholarship, and Coca-Cola Scholarship Committees. Dan has testified before state and regional legislative committees on behalf of higher education, and he has presented at national and regional conferences in addition to summer institutes and seminars on topics such as legal and ethical issues in college admissions and the college student-athlete. He has also traveled internationally on behalf of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Defense.

In 2011, Dan was awarded the John Cardinal O’Hara Award from the University of Notre Dame, an award given to an alumnus who is a former employee and has rendered distinguished service to the University. His distinguished service to the profession had been previously recognized, when in 1997 he received the Exemplar Award from the Western Region of the College Board.

Dan earned both a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Notre Dame.