Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from a previous Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Building Blocks 2008 Wednesday, August 6th 10:45 AM - Noon Track II: The Advertising & Commerce Platform Advertising NEXT: Social Networks, User Generated Video, Search, Blogs, IMs, Podcasts, Broadband and Mobile In this session, we will look for a comprehensive understanding of what advertising in the next generation will look like. The world of advertising has been completely dislocated by the acceptance and integration of the new technologies, from PVR and Broadband to Social Networks, VOD, Mobile, Blogs and ITV, the consumer is being both barraged by content and choice, he/she is being overwhelmed by the technology itself. While the decisions being made by the advertising community are always measured and incremental, the technologies at hand are profound and will only move forward. How fast and at what rate of impact is still to be understood, but the question is no longer about consumer acceptance and proof of distribution, it is about when the roof is going to cave in. The new technologies are successfully invading traditional media and the good news is rather than leaving the advertiser without a way of reaching the audience, the new technologies may ultimately prove to be better and more comprehensive vehicle for reaching and developing relationships with an even larger customer base. Cynthia Francis, founder and CEO, Reality Digital R. Michael Leo, CEO and President, Operative David Jensen, Partner, Digital Media / Digital Consumer, IBM Global Business Services Matt Edelman, founder and CEO, PeopleJam Misha Cornes, Group Director of Strategy, Method Ivan Todorov, CEO, CTO and co-founder, BLITZ Deepak Kamra, General Partner, Canaan Partners, Moderator Cynthia Francis, founder and CEO, Reality Digital: Ms. Francis is the CEO of Reality Digital, a SaaS platform for businesses who want User Generated Content (UGC) and social media sites or campaigns for their customers. The company powers sites for major media, entertainment, travel and brand focused companies and works closely with agencies and new media companies. As a pioneer in the field of online video management, Ms. Francis is a frequent speaker at events including Digital Hollywood, Streaming Media, NAB, OMMA (Online Media, Marketing and Advertising) and others. R. Michael Leo, CEO and President, Operative: “Mike” Leo joined Operative in 2003 as CEO and President. Infusing Operative with his energy and drive, Mike has led the company to become a “must have” solutions provider for interactive advertisers/publishers including, MSN, Fox Interactive Media, The Wall Street Journal and CBS Radio. Considered by many to be one of the interactive industry’s most recognized thought leaders, Mike brings to Operative a leadership style and industry perspective based on more than 14 years at the executive level at some of the most prestigious marketing and media companies in the digital world. Mike is best known as co-founder of aQuantive (NASDAQ: AQNT), a digital marketing organization now owned by Microsoft that became one of the industry's biggest success stories. Mike assembled the team that helped to grow aQuantive to one of the best and largest interactive agencies in the world. In his role as CEO and President of Operative, Mike has utilized his unmistakable entrepreneurial drive and vision along with business acumen to spearhead corporate growth. With Mike at the helm, Operative has experienced doubled-revenue growth and has recruited some of advertising’s most recognizable talent. Silicon Alley Insider ranked Mike the 85th most influential New Yorker in digital media in 2007, and AlwaysOn and KPMG named Mike as one of the ten executives in the first annual Madison Avenue IT list in 2008. Misha Cornes, Vice President, Strategy, Method: With over 16 years of experience leading the evolution of global brands like Bank of America, Best Buy, Dell, eBay, Microsoft, Mitsubishi Motors, Sprint, and Target, Misha translates strategic marketing goals into exceptional experiences. As Vice President, Strategy at Method, a leading brand experience agency, he provides leadership to cross-disciplinary creative teams working across a wide range of platforms and technologies, and ensures that every project is rooted in a deep understanding of customer needs. Prior to Method, Misha was Group Director of Strategy at Organic, a digital marketing agency that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Omnicom. Earlier, Misha was a strategist at Pentagram, a multi-disciplinary design firm, and a management consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton. He also has a history as an entrepreneur, co-founding a technology start-up aimed at converting ocean wave energy into electricity. A graduate of UC Davis and Yale University, Misha earned his MBA with Distinction from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Walter A. Haas Scholar. Misha is a frequent writer and public speaker on topics around digital content, social media, and experience design. Deepak Kamra, General Partner, Canaan Partners: Deepak Kamra has a knack for identifying innovative companies that disrupt the status quo to become leaders in their fields. After an 11-year career growing technology startups into successful global leaders, Deepak joined Canaan in 1991 and is focused on investments in digital media, specifically as it relates to the seismic shift taking place in online advertising. Deepak led Canaan’s early investment in DoubleClick, the Internet’s first and leading online advertising solution; Match.com, the most popular dating site worldwide; and BharatMatrimony, the world’s number-one online matrimony site. He also invested in voice-over-IP infrastructure company Acme Packet, which became one of the top-ten performing IPOs of 2006, and his recent IPO, SuccessFactors, is the leading company in human performance and talent management. Deepak is interested in funding innovative companies in what he calls “B2B 2.0”, or enterprise applications and managed services that leverage talent from India and the US to improve business-to-business relationships, as well as companies providing software-as-a-service and open source software. He currently sits on the boards of technology-driven global companies such as On24, the leader in webcasting; and Zmanda, a leader in open source backup software. He also directed Canaan’s investments in AllBusiness.com, Concord Communications, ImpulseBuy Network, iPrint.com, Latitude Communications, PriorityCall Management, Recourse Technologies, SalesLogix and Zoosk. Recognizing early the global nature of venture capital, Deepak initiated Canaan’s investments in the India market starting in 2001. Before joining Canaan, Deepak gained 11 years of executive operating experience at growth companies in the telecommunications, computer and software industries. He was a key member of the startup team at Aspect Communications, helping lead the pioneer in call center technologies to a successful IPO in 1990, and has also held leadership roles at telecommunications companies like ROLM Corp. and TRW Datacomm International. Deepak received a BA from Carleton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In his spare time, he is involved in several microfinance initiatives to spur economic growth in developing nations and currently serves as Chairman of the Investment Committee at Deutsche Bank’s Global Microfinance Consortium. He was recently included on the Forbes Midas List, a prominent list ranking the best dealmakers in technology and is also on the Board of the National Venture Capital Association. Ivan Todorov, CEO, CTO and co-founder, BLITZ: Ivan drives the growth and strategic vision for BLITZ as the company’s CEO, evangelizing the promise of bringing brands to life by developing immersive, entertaining and imaginative digital experiences. He has proven instrumental in developing relationships with long-term clients such as Adobe, Google, General Electric, and Microsoft and; helping them to more effectively utilize technology to build their brands and develop compelling interactive experiences for their customers. Leveraging leading technologies, Ivan guides the agency’s development of ground-breaking campaigns. He has helped to define the processes behind BLITZ’s unique approach in creating more entertaining and compelling brand stories, by incorporating the best techniques in interactive development, video and post production, gaming and the Internet to inspire more entertaining and compelling brand dialogues. His prowess for digital advertising is a byproduct of a multi-disciplinary background encompassing visual design, UX, 3D, motion graphics, video and programming. As CTO, Ivan is also responsible for BLITZ’s technology practice, service offerings, and IT operations, ensuring the company’s award-winning engineering teams continue to deliver dynamic and advanced solutions. Over the years Ivan has established the technology backbone of BLITZ through strategic development partnerships, assets, frameworks, code libraries, documentation, training materials, and best practices knowledge base. His fascination with math motion, physics, and particle animation scripts are often reflected in BLITZ’s interactive development of fluid interfaces, games and artificial intelligence (AI) behaviors. Ivan’s passion to expand the interactive horizon extends to BLITZ’s research and development team which constantly invents new solutions and leverages the latest technologies and approaches to deliver vibrant interactive experiences. Ivan is a highly-sought technology expert, speaker and educator, frequently presenting at Flash Forward, Adobe MAX and FiTC conferences. His ten years of passion and industry experience for interactive technologies continue to fuel BLITZ’s reputation as a leader, and have resulted in a number of the agency’s awards and recognitions including Key Art, Flash Forward, Adobe MAX Award, SXSW, One Show, ADDYs, Web Award, London International Advertising Awards (LIAA), Internet Advertising Competition (IAC), and over 20 FWAs. Prior to forming BLITZ, Ivan was an Executive Producer at eStudio, a Silicon Valley-based interactive branding and animation company. There, Ivan oversaw all creative and art direction for 3D initiatives as well as production of interactive storybooks, games and websites. In his time there, Ivan helped developed the flash-to-broadcast transfer process, and worked on projects including Kelsey Grammer’s “Garry the Rat” webisodes and "The Kelly’s,” a 10 episode flash animated series for NASCAR.com and Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson). Ivan attended Cogswell College where he received his Bachelors of Arts degree in Computer Video Imaging with an emphasis in 3D Character Animation.