Host Bio

Albert Maruggi has spent his 25 year career in communications working in broadcast journalism, national politics, corporate marketing, and venture capital. In the 1980s Maruggi worked as a radio and television journalist in markets across the Midwest. He moved to politics when he became a press secretary for a Congressman from Nebraska and then the press secretary for the Republican National Committee during the 1988 president election cycle. He served as a communications senior staff member for presidential cabinet members in the Bush '41 Administration. He's also held several upper-level corporate marketing and communications positions.

Now he's putting all of that experience together as the leader of his own marketing firm, providing services ranging from public relations strategy to social media consulting to audio and video production. Maruggi has developed a keen sense of the impact new media are having on marketing, communication and business in general. From the technical aspects of recording and production to the strategic elements of new-media marketing, Maruggi is a well-rounded and knowledgeable resource on new media and consumer engagement.

Maruggi launched Provident Partners' own podcast, the Marketing Edge, in February 2005. The firm has built a solid audience for its own podcast and has put its continually developing knowledge of new media to use for many of its clients. From business consultants to software developers, publishers to governors, Provident Partners has used social media to break ground and achieve business goals.

Topic: Social media and politics

Session 1: What can corporate PR and social media take from politics?
Wednesday July 30th, 12-1pm CDT

Session 2: Discuss the differences and rationale for each presidential campaign using social media.
Thursday, July 31st 9.30-10.30pm CDT

Host Bio

Arlene Fenton is an emerging political strategist who concentrates on the nexus between race and gender. She maintains the popular blog 'Black Women Vote', which mobilizes African American women to take control of their collective destinies using political, social, and economic means.

A regular commentator on the radio show entitled 'News and Notes' on National Public Radio, Arlene has become an outspoken champion for the empowerment of black women everywhere.

A long-time lover of the game of chess, Arlene has become an esteemed online activist, often using the metaphor of a game of chess for political activism.

She is currently working on a book entitled 'The Queenly Art of Political Warfare'.

Topic: Black women in the media

Host Bio

Baratunde Thurston is conscious comic and vigilante pundit who has successfully merged his interests in technology, politics and comedy. He has written as Jack Turner for the popular black political blog, Jack & Jill Politics, since its founding in the summer of 2006. He also a writes at The Huffington Post, DailyKos and his own site www.baratunde.com. He contributed to blackpeopleloveus.com

Baratunde has often used art as an expression of his activism. He has authored three books, including Keep Jerry Falwell Away From My Oreo Cookies, was nominated for the Bill Hicks Award for Thought Provoking Comedy, declared a Champion of the First Amendment by Iowa State University, and called "someone I need to know" by Barack Obama. He was an early member of Laughing Liberally and The Black Comedy Project, and his stage presence has earned him emcee duties at the National Conference for Media Reform, Netroots Nation and South by Southwest. He has been featured in various media outlets including NPR, the BBC, CNN, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, C-SPAN and ComedyCentral.com. Baratunde speaks at colleges and conferences around the country and performs regularly in New York City, where he lives and works by day as an editor for The Onion. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Harvard and before that, he graduated from high school.

If you are a fan of Jon Stewart or the Bill of Rights, you will love Baratunde Thurston. He is not just an alternative to mainstream media. He's an antidote.

Topic: Obama, The Election, Energy and All Things Political

Saturday August 2nd, 3-4pm EST

Host Bio

Dan Patterson covers the United Nations daily as the Chief UN Correspondent for the Talk Radio News Service. He also serve as TRNS's Social Media Evangelist. This means that he explain social media to political talk radio stations, and vice versa. He has also produced the internet radio programme / podcast know as Creepy Sleepy since 2004.

Dan grew up in the Midwest, attended college in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, worked briefly in the music business in Northern California, and currently does news radio and social media in New York City. He contributes to several political talk shows around the United States.

Topic: Politics and the Election 2008 - The First Election with Real Conversation

Session 1: Saturday August 2nd 1-2pm EST

Host Bio

Eileen Smith is the editor of texasmonthly.com. She has spent 10 years in the field of media communications as a writer, reporter, press liaison, and policy analyst. Prior to joining Texas Monthly, she worked at Pluck Corporation as a senior editor for its blog syndication network.
Eileen is also the editor of a satirical political blog named In the Pink Texas, which has earned both state and national acclaim. Her writing has appeared in a number of publications, including Reuters, USA Today, and the Houston Chronicle.
She has spoken on several panels about politics, new media, and blogging, and appeared on NPR, the BBC, and various local news outlets.
Eileen holds a Master's degree in Journalism from Northwestern University and a Bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University.

Mike Chapman has over two decades of experience in public relations and public affairs. Joining the Capitol Hill staff of Congressman J.J. "Jake" Pickle after college, he was mentored by one of the nation's most successful statesmen. He has served as the legislative director for US Senator Tim Johnson, as a federal lobbyist and strategist for the National Association of Realtors, the American Medical Association in Washington DC, and as a legislative strategist for Texas State University. He currently works with clients at the national, state and local levels.
In addition to his traditional public relations and public affairs expertise, Mike has integrated social and digital media into his regular client offerings. He is a founding member of the Austin Social Media Club, the international Social Media Club, and a number of organizations with interests in online communications strategies and technologies. Mike is a frequent blogger, the author of Every Dot Connects and is very involved in many online communities.

Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008

Session 1: Sunday, August 3rd 2-3pm CDT

Session 2: Monday, August 4th 6-7pm CDT

Host Bio

Eric Roston is a science writer in Washington, DC, and the author of the forthcoming book The Carbon Age: How Life's Core Element Has Become Civilization's Greatest Threat (SHOWCASE TITLE, June 2008, Walker Bloomsbury).

Read more about his work here.

Read prominent endorsements of The Carbon Age.

Topic: The gap between climate science and climate politics

Session 1: Wednesday, July 30th 4-4.30pm EST

Session 2: Sunday August 3rd, 4-4.30pm EST

Host Bio

Erin Kotecki Vest spent ten years as a broadcast journalist in Los Angeles, Orlando and Detroit winning six Golden Mic Awards with LA news institution KFWB. She now serves as Political Director and Election 08 Producer for BlogHer.com as well as contributing regularly to the Huffington Post, MOMocrats.com, and her own site Queen of Spain Blog.

You can find her on Twitter @queenofspain and make sure to ask her about her interview with Barack Obama.

Feel free to send her praise or hate mail queenofspainblog at yahoo dot com.

Topic: Obama

Session 1: Friday August 1st, 10-10.30am PDT

Session 2: Friday August 1st, 11-11.30am PDT

Session 3: Sunday August 3rd, 6.30-7pm PDT

Host Bio

MOMocrats Founder & Managing Editor Glennia Campbell is the blogger behind The Silent I.
Her first political memory is helping her mom scrape the "Wallace for President" sticker off the family's '68 Fiat. Despite being raised in a mixed marriage (Dad is a Caucasian Republican, Mom is a Korean Democrat), she found her way to Democratic politics under the tutelage of the late Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., Cora Weiss, and other anti-war activists and leaders in the anti-nuclear campaigns of the 1980's.

Glennia is a lawyer and lifelong volunteer. She has been a poverty lawyer in the South Bronx, a crisis counselor for a domestic violence shelter in Texas, President of a 2,000 member non-profit parent's club in California, and has worked in support of high-tech and medical research throughout her professional career. She has travelled with her husband and young son to over 20 countries and lived to blog about it.

She is also a contributing writer to The Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Kimchi Mamas, and Moms Speak Up.

Topic: A MOMocrat Podcast

Sunday August 3rd, 3-4pm PDT

Host Bio

Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He is also the webmaster for The Seminal and he can be reached at seminal@theseminal.com.

Topic: 2008 Elections

Tuesday July 29th, 8:00-9.00 pm EST

Host Bio

Joanne Bamberger is the blogger better known as PunditMom.
Joanne has been a Democrat and a political junkie since her high school days.
A former broadcast journalist, Joanne is also a "recovering" attorney, a professional freelance writer and an adoptive mom who is passionate about being involved in politics and luring others into her political web. In addition to her own blog, Joanne's writing can be found at DC Metro Moms Blog, The Huffington Post and PunditMom's Spin Cycle, among others.
She has also written for a variety of national and regional outlets including MSN, Marketplace Radio and The Washington Post.

MOMocrats Founder & Managing Editor Glennia Campbell is the blogger behind The Silent I.
Glennia is a lawyer and lifelong volunteer. She has been a poverty lawyer in the South Bronx, a crisis counselor for a domestic violence shelter in Texas, President of a 2,000 member non-profit parent's club in California, and has worked in support of high-tech and medical research throughout her professional career. She has travelled with her husband and young son to over 20 countries and lived to blog about it. She is also a contributing writer to TThe Silicon Valley Moms Blog, Kimchi Mamas, and Moms Speak Up

MOMocrats Founding Editor Stefania Pomponi Butler is a writer and blog editor/producer who is known for her irreverent and delicious personal blog, CityMama. She is also interested in social media outreach and PR-blogger relations.

Topic: A MOMocrat Ho Down

Monday, August 4th 9-10pm EST

Host Bio

African American Political Pundit is an old school brother who gives his thoughts, opinions and insights on political and social issues of the day. He cares if you agree, and cares less if you disagree. No political correctness, or spell check on this blog. He cut's to the chase with short, intense or stimulating opinion and comments - as he leans to the left and right for balance - calling it the way he sees it. He is a former Democrat, turned Republican, now an Independent, swing voter; who is politically biased, pretending to be neutral.

African American Political Pundit is a 2008 Democratic National Convention credentialed blogger and will be broadcasting and blogging live at the 2008 DNCC. Visit http://www.demconvention.com

Topic: Elections issues

Session 1: The Politics of Race In America
Monday, July 28th 9 - 9:30pm EST

Session 2: White, Black, Latino and Indian bloggers - United or divided?
Tuesday, July 29th 9 - 9:30pm EST

Session 3: Are Black bloggers really shut out of the DNC Convention?
Wednesday, July 30th 9 - 9:30pm EST

Session 4: Should Hillary be the next V.P. ?
Thursday, July 31st 9 - 9:30pm EST

Session 5: Why are Black Women Angry?
Friday, August 1st 9 - 9:30pm EST

Session 6: Can a black man be President?
Saturday, August 2nd 9 - 9:30pm EST

Session 7: Should blacks join the Republican Party?
Sunday, August 3rd 9 - 9:30pm EST

Session 8: Are black bloggers preaching to the choir?
Monday, August 4th 9 - 9:30pm EST

Host Bio

Leslie Carbone is a writer living in Virginia. Her work has appeared in magazines including The Weekly Standard and The American Enterprise, in newspapers from The Philadelphia Inquirer to The San Francisco Chronicle, and on Web sites like BreakPoint and National Review Online.

She has appeared on more than 200 radio and television talk shows, been quoted in national newspapers including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and lectured at more than 100 campuses across the United States and in Canada, including Northwestern University, UCLA, and Cornell University.

Ms. Carbone has served as Chief-of-Staff to the late Assemblyman Gil Ferguson of California, Director of Family Tax Policy at Family Research Council, Senior Writer at Koch Industries, Inc., and Speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao.

Her blog is www.lesliecarbone.blogspot.com.

Topic: Conservatives in the presidential race

Session 1: Should conservatives support John McCain?
Wednesday, July 30th 7.30-8.30 EST

Session 2: How should conservatives make better use of social media?
Thursday, July 31st 7.30-8.30 EST

Host Bio

Liza Sabater is a feminist culture critic, techactivist, web producer and a first wave net native who has been online for 20 years, publishing on the web through different media for over 10 years and blogging for a little over 5 years.

She is the founder of culturekitchen (2001), which has been described as a progressive's dream with "a little attitude, a lot of scholarship, a good dose of humor and plenty of enlightening stuff". It is the founding blog of the Feminist Bloggers Network and the Digital Ethnorati Project. She also publishes The Daily Gotham (2005), a member of BlogPAC's 50 state initiative; and described by New York politics insiders as "the 800lb gorilla" of New York City's grassroots. It is one of the founding blogs of the New York Progressive Bloggers Caucus.

Liza has advised, contributed or worked with a wide variety of organizations including Blogher, Colorlines, The Distributive Creativity Project, EchoDitto, Eyebeam, New York Home Educators Alliance, The Nation, New America Media, New Democratic Majority, Rhizome.org, Personal Democray Forum, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, and Sunlight Foundation's Open House Project.

Whenever she is not working on her blogs, traveling across the US, Canada or Europe presenting her work at various conferences and universities, or being featured in articles and documentaries, Liza returns to the heart of New York City and to her secret identity as a gym and soccer mom.

Topic: Diversity, Conventions and Bush's Exit

Session 1: Diversity and the blogosphere: What's working? What's wrong?
Monday 28th July 10-10.30pm EST

Session 2: Countdown to the conventions: Do they matter? Will there be a day we don't have this kind of political exhibitionism?
Monday 28th July 10.30-11pm EST

Session 3: Countdown to Bush's exit: Will he go out with a whimper or a bang?
Monday 28th July 11-11.30pm EST

Session 4: Topic of the day. TBD
Monday 28th July 11.30pm - 12am EST

Host Bio

Marisa Treviño writer of Latina Lista, is a syndicated journalist and local public radio commentator writing about family, education and other social justice issues for over a decade. She is a dedicated Latina, playwright, and citizen.

Adriana Maestas is consultant living in Southern California. She holds a master's degree in public policy from Claremont Graduate University, where she is also completing a Ph.D. in higher education. Adriana has been involved in many political campaigns over the years from the local to the national level. She currently writes for her own blog, http://www.latinopoliticsblog.com.

Edmundo Rocha of XicanoPwr lends heavy-handed social critiques, local and national politics, and a heaping dose of common sense in his blog. He tackles heavy topics like immigration, teenage pregnancy, racial and gender politics, and backs up everything with a sense of style and spirit. With a loyal and unwavering audience (his Texan of the Year nomination, in fact, was suggested in the comments of a blog by one of Edmundo's readers), Rocha has rapidly become one of the state's most prominent Latino bloggers. No issue is too tough, and none taboo for this blogger.

Topic: Latino Bloggers not getting answers from presidential candidates regarding the issue of Latino leadership

Saturday August 2nd, 11am CDT

Host Bio

Mary Katharine Ham is a New Media enthusiast with a background in both mainstream and political journalism. She graduated from the University of Georgia in 2002 with a major in Newspaper Journalism before spending two years at a North Carolina daily paper as a sports and features reporter and copy editor.

She moved to Washington, D.C. in 2004, taking on an editor position at a policy magazine produced by The Heritage Foundation. She was hired at Townhall.com in 2005, where she blogged and helped incorporate Salem Communications' national talk radio hosts into a conservative online community. She created a weekly video blog product called HamNation, which has garnered video honors at the Politics Online Conference and the Weblog Awards. She is now Online Editor for the Washington Examiner, helping revamp dcexaminer.com before the 2008 elections.

Topic: McCain and his Mojo; Obama and his Outlook

Session 1: Ways John McCain can get his campaign mojo back.
Friday August 1st, 7.15pm EST

Session 2: Barack Obama: Idealist or Pragmatist?
Monday August 4th, 11am EST

Host Bio

Matt is the editor for Political-Buzz.com Matt has lived in two battleground states, Ohio and now Florida, and has worked on the grass roots level in local, state and national campaigns - Democrat and Republican! Harboring an interest in politics from childhood, the historic 2000 election spurred him to get involved in reporting on our fascinating Democratic process. He has founded or worked on several political blogs and web sites in the past five years, starting Political-Buzz.com in 2006.

Topic: General Q&A on the latest news and some predictions about the Presidential Campaign

Session 1: Sunday, August 3rd 12-1pm EST

Host Bio

Morra Aarons studies the field of work redesign and works with clients to better manage life and work.

In her spare time, Morra enjoys blogging about women and politics. She lives near Boston with her husband Nicco, dog Rascal, and cat Uno.

Topic: Women voters don't all vote the same

Monday August 4th, 11am EST

Host Bio

Born in West Africa to foreign service parents, Nicco Mele, was Governor Howard Dean's presidential campaign webmaster and is a leading internet strategist.

Nicco has broad experience working with NGOs and non-profits, including as webmaster at Common Cause and at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, in addition to his time as producer of the Shadow Conventions website and live streaming webcasts during the 2000 presidential election cycle.

As part of Gov. Dean's presidential campaign, Nicco managed technical, functional and design aspects of Gov. Dean's national web presence.

In December of 2003, he was named one of America 's "best and brightest" by Esquire magazine.

Nicco teaches in the Johns Hopkins University graduate communications program and has presented for Harvard University's Berkman Center and John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Topic: The 2008 presidential campaign

Session 1: "Online advertising and the 2008 campaign" with Joe Trippi
TBD

Session 2: "Off-line organizing and online politics" with Michael Silberman
Thursday July 31st, 4-5pm EST

Host Bio

Robert Millis has more than a decade of experience in film and video production. In 2006, he made the move to online media with American Microphone, a current affairs interview series which raised the standards for online media with long format programs in high definition video.

Will Coghlan previously worked as the communications director for a national non-profit, communications advisor for a successful gubernatorial campaign, and a reporter covering presidential campaigns for a daily New Hampshire newspaper.

Topic: Online Election Coverage

Friday, August 1st 4-5pm EST

Host Bio

Todd Zeigler, Senior Vice President of Client Services for The Bivings Group (TBG), oversees all of the client work performed by the firm and plays a key role in all of TBG's business and product development initiatives.

In his time at The Bivings Group, Todd has helped manage online campaigns for the firm's biggest political clients, including Friends of Fred Thompson, Governor Bobby Jindal, the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. In working with these clients and others, Todd has developed ambitious e-advocacy programs and custom Internet applications, helped manage crisis, and created and implemented online marketing strategies.

In addition to his work with clients, Todd also heads The Bivings Group internal product development effort. In that role, Todd manages the ongoing development of ImpactWatch, a revolutionary product that provides organizations with real-time intelligence that helps them shape their communications strategy. ImpactWatch is used by AMD and Hewlett-Packard, among others.

Before joining The Bivings Group, Todd worked for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, where he helped run traditional outreach campaigns for clients including the Glass Packaging Institute and the American Forest and Paper Association. Prior to that, Todd interned in the press office of former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson.

He holds a Bachelor of the Arts degree from Rhodes College in Memphis, TN.

Topic: The use of the Internet by Senate campaigns this election cycle

Thursday July 31st, 2-2.45pm EST