Speaker Bios for June 24 Meeting
Bryan Alexander
Researcher, NITLE
Bryan researches and develops programs on the advanced uses of information technology in liberal arts contexts. His primary research interests concern mobile and wireless computing, digital gaming, and social software. Other interests include digital writing, copyright and intellectual property, information literacy, project management, information design, and interdisciplinary collaboration. He maintains and contributes to a series of weblogs, including Liberal Education Today, a merging of the MANE IT Network blog and NITLE 1.0's Tech News, and Smartmobs. Committed to exploring computer-mediated pedagogy, he researches and writes on the critical uses of computers and teaching in terms of the interdisciplinary liberal arts and the contemporary development of cyberculture.
NITLE's Director of Research, Bryan holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and taught English and information technology studies as faculty at Centenary College of Louisiana.
Bryan lives up in the Green Mountains of Vermont with his beloved family, many animals, and a great many trees. There he bakes, lifts weights, carries wood, and thinks about movies.
Michael Wood-Lewis
President and Co-Founder, Burlington, Vermont-based Front Porch Forum.
This new service hosts 130 online neighborhood forums covering Chittenden County. Nearly 10,000 households subscribe, including more than 30% of Burlington. Michael has earned local and national recognition for this work, including a "community innovator of the year" distinction from the Orton Family Foundation and a Make It Your Own award from the Case Foundation. Prior to this experience, Michael led a 25 employee New England environmental service provider, growing it into a national model. And before his time in Vermont, Michael worked for two Washington, DC think tanks, Public Technology, Inc. and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, both focused on combining new technologies and local resources to address local challenges. Michael was raised in Indiana and earned an MBA and MS in engineering from the University of
Illinois. Perhaps the most meaningful accolade came in 2005 when Michael was named a Vermont father of the year. He and his wife (and FPF co-founder), Valerie, and their four young children live in Burlington, VT. http://frontporchforum.com
Front Porch Forum
Helping neighbors connect.
PO Box 64781, Burlington, VT 05406-4781 802-540-0069 FrontPorchForum.com
Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy
June 24, 2008, Washington, DC
Front Porch Forum Helps Neighbors Connect and Build Community
A Critical Initial Step toward Informed Civic Engagement
Recently, a 14-year-old girl asked her mom for a birthday canoe outing with friends. A $200 rental fee almost led to cancellation. Then mom realized that canoes were tucked behind many of her neighbors' sheds, and, if she only knew these neighbors, then she could ask to borrow them. Alas, like many Americans circa 2008, she did not know most of her neighbors. Undaunted, the mother turned to a unique online service called Front Porch Forum to post a request. Shortly she had more offers of free canoe loans from nearby neighbors than she could use! She remarked "not only did my daughter have a great birthday and I saved a couple hundred dollars, but now I have a genuine connection to a half-dozen neighbors. Why didn't I know these good people years ago?"
This citizen just took an important step toward becoming more engaged in her community… and she opened the door to local connectedness for her daughter, six of her neighbors, and dozens more who partake in her online neighborhood forum and witnessed this exchange. Award-winning Front Porch Forum (FPF) is in the business of helping neighbors connect and build community. FPF hosts 130 neighborhood forums covering all of Chittenden County, Vermont, including the one in the story above. Nearly 10,000 households subscribe, including one-third of the City of Burlington. Different versions of the canoe story have played out thousands of times in the year-and-a-half since FPF's launch (see http://frontporchforum.com). People use the service in hundreds of ways, including to share an owl sighting, find a babysitter, help an elder live at home, find lost keys, report a home break-in, debate a road project, recommend a plumber, discuss ballot items leading up to Town Meeting Day, and lots more. All of this is done with clearly identified nearby neighbors, so that over time a familiarity accumulates and people feel more connected. That's when the conversation and action moves from the virtual to the actual front porch. This online tool enhances and catalyzes real world relationships and civic engagement. A recent survey found 64% of respondents have gotten involved in events or public meetings due to Front Porch Forum, while 60% believe it makes local government more responsive. A remarkable 93% feel that simply reading Front Porch Forum has increased their local civic engagement. Many people crave community connection and want to make a positive difference. Front Porch
Forum connects these folks and presents opportunities to pull together…whether its helping a family after their home burns, getting a school budget passed, organizing a political rally, or, simply, helping a girl's birthday wish come true with a flotilla of neighborhood canoes. In addition to thousands of residents, hundreds of local public officials, businesses and microenterprises, volunteers, and others actively use Front Porch Forum too.
Vincent Price, Ph.D.
Associate Provost, University of Pennsylvania
Vincent Price (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Associate Provost, University of Pennsylvania, and the Steven H. Chaffee Professor of Communication and Political Science. He was formerly chair of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan, where he also served as a Faculty Associate with the Center for Political Studies in the Institute for Social Research.
Price has published extensively on mass communication and public opinion, social influence processes, and political communication. His research on media framing of issues, the measurement of media exposure and political information, social identification processes, and third-person effects of mass communication is widely cited; and his book Public Opinion (Sage, 1992) has been translated and published in five languages. Price was editor-in-chief of Public Opinion Quarterly from 1997-2001, guest editor for special issues of Communication Research and Political Communication, and has served on a number of journal editorial boards. His recent research, funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, focuses on the role of online political conversation and deliberation in shaping public opinion.
Price has received a number of awards for his teaching and research, including the K. Kyoon Hur Dissertation Award from the International Communication Association; the Nafziger-White Dissertation Award from the American Association in Journalism and Mass Communication; Excellence in Education Awards from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan; the Robert M. Worcester Award from the World Association for Public Opinion Research; and an award of appreciation from the American Association for Public Opinion Research. He has served actively in several professional associations, and as Chair of the Faculty Senate at the University of Pennsylvania.
Barbara G. Cohen
President and Founder, Kannon Consulting
Barbara Cohen is the President and founder of Kannon Consulting. Throughout more than thirty years in marketing, strategy and consulting, she has helped clients to identify ways to grow their businesses.
Barbara began her business career in brand management with Procter & Gamble in 1977, where she extended a new brand, relaunched an established brand, and introduced a new product into the marketplace. Barbara joined Booz Allen Hamilton in 1982 and continued to build her strategy expertise. She refined traditional ways of thinking to guide clients in industries – retail, telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, and media – discovering the need to establish strategies, often for the first time. Barbara was elected to the partnership of Booz Allen Hamilton in 1988 and focused her efforts on Marketing and Strategy practice areas.
Barbara left Booz Allen Hamilton to become a senior partner at The Cambridge Group, a consulting firm focused on packaged goods and financial services. There, Barbara built a Strategy practice from the ground up and assumed broad management responsibility for the Chicago office. Two years later, Barbara left The Cambridge Group to form Kannon Consulting. Kannon Consulting is a strategy and marketing consulting firm focused on helping clients identify opportunities to grow their businesses. Since its inception in 1994, the firm’s goal is to provide clients with the expertise and analytical structure to compete successfully in the new environments they face.
Kannon leads Outside-In strategy initiatives in both business-to-business and consumer enterprises. Barbara has led 75+ assignments focused on understanding B-to-B customer requirements, resulting in changes to sales and channel strategies. Recent work includes extensive interviewing and researching of retailers about their changing demands for advertising and marketing services. As a result of Kannon initiatives, clients have reorganized sales organizations, reevaluated pricing schemes, modified customer service approaches, and developed new products to meet these changing needs.
Jeffrey T. Stevenson
Managing Partner and Co-Chief Executive Officer, Veronis Suhler Stevenson
Jeffrey T. Stevenson is the Managing Partner and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private equity fund with $2.5 billion of capital under management. VSS manages equity and Structured Capital funds dedicated to companies engaged in the media, communications and information industries. He joined the Firm in 1982 shortly after its formation and has been the head of its private equity business since its first investment in 1989. Mr. Stevenson serves as the President of each of the Equity Funds, approves all capital commitments, and directs the investment activities of the Equity Funds. Previously, Mr. Stevenson was Executive Vice President in charge of corporate finance at VSS, a department he founded.
Mr. Stevenson currently serves as a Director of Vault, TRANZACT, SureSource, Advanstar Communications, Cambium Learning, Medizine, Market Strategies, Southern Theatres, Infobase, ITN Networks, TMP Worldwide, User-Friendly, Xtreme Information, and Access Intelligence. Previously, he served as a Director of The Official Information Company, Centaur Communications, Birch Telecom, ITE Group, Pepcom, Yellow Book USA, Rifkin Acquisition Partners, Triax Midwest Associates, Broadcasting Partners Holdings, Spectrum Resources Towers, PJS Publications, Kansas Broadcasting Systems, B&B Merger Corporation, Cable Management Ireland, International Media Partners, Hughes Broadcasting Partners, Triax Southeast Associates, Canon Communications, Hanley Wood, De Telefoongids, Mediatel and Broadcasting Partners. Mr. Stevenson holds a BA from Rutgers College.
Jon S. Wilkins
Principal, McKinsey & Co.
Jon Wilkins is a Principal in the Washington, D.C. office of McKinsey, where he specializes in working with media, cable, and technology clients. He is a leader of McKinsey’s Media, Entertainment & Information Practice and oversees the practice’s research agenda. He is one of McKinsey’s leading experts on the cross-sector impacts of converging communications and digital media technologies.
After originally joining McKinsey in 1996, Jon spent from 1998 to 1999 at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C. At the FCC, he was involved in policy initiatives addressing the Commission’s set-top box, digital television, and broadband proceedings. After returning to McKinsey in 1999, he became a Partner in 2003.
Jon received his A.B. with high honors from Dartmouth College. He also holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was Managing Editor of the Yale Law Journal. He is a member of the Maryland Bar and the District of Columbia Bar.
Beverley R. Wheeler, Ed. D.
Executive Director, District of Columbia State Board of Education
Beverley Wheeler is an innovative Senior Executive with a successful background in corporate and public sector process development, organizational turnaround, civic engagement, community/economic development and planning as well as policy development and implementation. She has over 30 years of progressive experience in all phases of public and private sector policy development.
In the public sector, Dr. Wheeler has had the opportunity to work for four Mayors, three City Administrators and a City Council member. She is currently the Executive Director of the DC State Board of Education where she supports the nine member board as it approves academic standards, manages federal mandates and works to improve educational outcomes for all residents in the District of Columbia. She has been the President of The Pendleton Group, a private consulting firm building equitable communities through outreach, education, training and strategic planning. She served as the first Executive Director for Neighborhood Action, an innovative civic engagement program designed to improve service delivery and give resident voice to policy, planning and budgeting for the Mayor of Washington, DC. She was responsible for two citywide summits hosting 3,000 residents each using technology to enhance and capture policy discussions. She was responsible for the development and publication of the Citywide Strategic plan.
Dr. Wheeler holds a doctorate and masters in education from Harvard University in the area of administration, planning and social policy. She attended Carnegie Mellon University where she earned a B.S. in Social and Decision Sciences and a M.S. in Management and Public Policy from the H. John Heinz III School of Management and Public Policy. Her high school diploma is from Stone Ridge - School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Maryland. She is President-elect of the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Association Board.
