Featured Speaker(s)

Sandy Carter is Vice President, IBM Software Group Channels and Social Media Evangelist. Prior to her current position, she led a global, award-winning marketing organization which won 24 industry marketing awards. Under her leadership, the IBM service oriented architecture (SOA) marketing efforts resulted in 70 percent market share for SOA. In addition, IBM WebSphere® became a market leader and received more than 34 industry awards. Fast Company named Ms. Carter one of the most influential women in technology.

Sandy is the author of the successful Service-Oriented Architecture technology book called, The New Language of Business: SOA & Web 2.0. She is also the author of "The New Language of Marketing 2.0". In it, Sandy shares her perspective on next generation marketing techniques, such as blogs, twitter, social media, widgets, viral marketing, and more, that address the complexities of today’s business world. Coupled with over 54 customer case studies and her own success stories, Sandy shows how to drive results in a more cost effective way.

Sandy is a frequent speaker at industry events sponsored by InfoWorld magazine, Forrester, Gartner Group, IDC, and Women in Technology (WITI). Sandy has also published more than 32 industry perspectives and bylines focused on SOA in news media outlets. She is an active member of WITI and a member of the WITI Executive Advisory Council, the Marketing Focus Advisory Council, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Inner Circle, and the American Management Association (AMA).

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Shawna Vercher helps businesses get smart about marketing their businesses online utilizing Web Publicity and Web 2.0 strategies. She founded what is now VTi-Web, a web development firm, in 2002 and grew it to be one of the most successful and well respected in its market. The company has successfully completed projects for seven government agencies, several top corporations and hundreds of entrepreneurs, and coordinated over 80 programmers in 12 countries.

She played a vital role on the Obama Presidential Campaign in Florida, implementing the Web Publicity tools and techniques that she now provides - and teaches - to business owners and executives. During the initial stages of the campaign Shawna coordinated press coverage and ensured accurate reporting by acting as web liaison between the campaign and various national publications and journalists. During the Primary and General Election
she was responsible for monitoring, shaping and enhancing viral web coverage on hundreds of blogs and news sites, as well as assisting with the coordination and management of four events for the Senator.

She is also the President of “The SSW”, an online publication for women. The SSW recently hosted the inaugural Successful Women’s Super Bowl Luncheon to benefit the NFL YET Centers of Tampa Bay. Based on the success of the event The SSW has been asked to coordinate and host the event for future Super Bowl host cities and NFL YET centers across the country.