Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
Solis is globally recognized for his leading views and insights on the convergence of PR, traditional media, and Social Media. He actively contributes his thoughts and experiences through speaking appearances, books, articles, and essays as a way of helping the marketing industry understand and embrace the new dynamics fueling new communications, marketing, and content creation.
Solis has been actively writing about new PR since the mid-90s, discussing how the Web was redefining the communications industry—he coined PR 2.0 along the way. He was among the original thought leaders working to defend and define “Social Media” as a definitive media category. Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club, is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, and also contributes to the Social Media Collective.
He has dedicated his free time to helping PR professionals adapt to the new fusion of PR, Web marketing, and community relations. He’s a strong supporter of fusing social sciences in Social Media marketing and New PR and believes that communications always comes down to people talking to people instead of companies to influencers and then to customers.
He blogs at PR 2.0, www.briansolis.com/, one of the most authoritative marketing blogs online today.
Deirdre K. Breakenridge is President, Director of Communications at PFS Marketwyse. A veteran in the PR industry, Deirdre leads a creative team of PR and marketing executives strategizing to gain brand awareness for their clients through creative and strategic Public Relations campaigns. She counsels senior-level executives at companies including AmerisourceBergen, JVC, Kraft, Michael C. Fina, and RCN Metro Optical Networks.
Deirdre is an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey, where she teaches courses on Public Relations and Interactive Marketing for the Global Business Management program. She is the author of three Financial Times business books: PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences; The New PR Toolkit; and Cyberbranding: Brand Building in the Digital Economy.
Deirdre has spoken publicly on the topics of PR, online marketing, and brand building for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), Strategic Research Institute (SRI), Women’s Presidents Organization (WPO), Tier1 Research, and at a number of colleges and universities. Deirdre blogs on the topics of PR 2.0 and Social Media strategies at www.deirdrebreakenridge.com.