The Creative Connection

Becky has a passion for living well and documenting life. Since 1997 she has been authoring books, creating artwork, writing articles, teaching classes, and designing products—all in the name of scrapbooking. In her personal evolution she came to find herself relating to everyone who has said, “Scrapbooking is too time-consuming, too complicated, too expensive, too much.” In 2009, Becky Higgins.com was born so that she could share solution-based ideas and simple products with everyone who felt the same way, but still wanted to do something special with their pictures and memories. Becky nurtures her creative side by dabbling in various creative projects from floral design to home decor to photography. She also appreciates organization and has a knack for order. And because she can’t keep any of it to herself, Becky’s Blog has gained the reputation of being an uplifting and inspiring place on the web. She’s the girlfriend who will share her favorite finds, most-loved tips, design ideas, tried and true recipes, practical how-to’s, and even videos. There’s always a common goal in everything Becky shares, which is to CULTIVATE A GOOD LIFE. Becky’s faith and family are the center of her world and more important than any creative project or exciting opportunity. Arizona is where she and her husband David are raising their three small children.

Contact:
Web: www.beckyhiggins.com
Facebook:www.facebook.com/pages/Becky-Higgins-LLC/301573840173
Twitter: @beckyhigginsllc

As an accomplished author, television personality, entrepreneur, actress, motivational speaker, blogger, wife, mother, and grandmother, Cristina Ferrare dishes out yet one more curtain call: hosting her own show for OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network. Cristina Ferrare’s Big Bowl of Love features celebrity guests along with members of Cristina’s family and friends who serve up great ideas for all kinds of real-life situations. Cristina recently joined the “Oprah family” as a regular contributor, featuring Oprah’s favorite meals, and hosting a series of web cooking classes for Oprah.com—preparing delicious meals for families on tight budgets and little time.

Cristina is a New York Times bestselling author of Okay, So I Don’t Have a Headache, Cristina Ferrare’s Family Entertainment, and Cristina Ferrare Style. Her most recent book, Realistically Ever After, is a humorous view of finding happiness when he’s not Prince Charming, you’re not Snow White, and life is not a fairytale. The success of Cristina’s books attest to her expertise in the areas of women’s health and well being, culinary arts, and stylistic design. Her books also reflect her great zest for life and sense of humor. Cristina has just completed her fifth book, a cookbook due out in April, 2011 entitled A Big Bowl of Love.

In the early 80’s, Cristina co-hosted AM Los Angeles, which was the #1 rated morning television show during her five-year tenure. Among her many TV appearances, she has hosted her own shows:  Cristina and Friends and a two-hour live show from Universal Studios called Home and Family. She has substituted as a co-host on Good Morning America and co-hosted numerous times with Regis Philbin on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. (more…)

BlogHer Co-Founder and COO

Elisa Camahort Page co-founded BlogHer, Inc., in 2005 with Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, and serves as the company’s COO. Elisa leads events, marketing, public relations and research for the company and with her leadership, the BlogHer conference business has grown from a single conference hosting 300 attendees in 2005, to five diverse events that will host over 4,000 attendees in 2011. With more than 3,000 attendees expected at this year’s annual conference alone, the flagship event is the largest conference for women social media leaders in the world and has been described as “ComicCon for women who blog” by Variety magazine.

Elisa’s other major focus is to bring the story of BlogHer and the influence of the women in its community, to life via research, helping BlogHer’s customers glean critical insights about how women connect, share and behave online and off.  Elisa’s work leading BlogHer’s consumer insights team, as well as marketing and public relations, has resulted in coverage and profiles from many of the leading media outlets, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Advertising Age, Forbes, Fast Company, CNN, The Today Show, the Wall Street Journal, and many more.

Elisa is a frequent public speaker, bringing research data about women and online communities to life in recent keynotes at Marketing to Women, MediaBistro Circus, Fem 2.0, New Communications Forum, BlogPaws and WOMMA Marketing Summit and sessions at Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive and CES.

Prior to co-founding BlogHer, Elisa ran a marketing consultancy, Worker Bees, which was among the first companies to integrate corporate marketing strategies into the social media environment. Before bringing her marketing expertise to the Internet industry, Elisa was a senior-level high-tech marketer, helping develop digital infrastructures for voice, video and data delivery. Her last corporate position was as Senior Director of Product Marketing at Terayon Communication Systems, where she managed a team of product managers and five product lines.

Together, BlogHer co-founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory have been named among the most influential women in Web 2.0 and technology by Fast Company (2008, 2009 and 2010), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalists (2010) and among the seven most powerful people in new media by Forbes Magazine (2009). In 2011 they were jointly awarded the PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award and in 2008, the Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award. Elisa has been honored as an NCWIT Hero.

As the co-founder of a mission-based for-profit organization, Elisa is a founding Fellow of the Society for New Communications Research and serves on the Board of Directors of the 42nd Street Moon Theatre in San Francisco, the programming advisory committee for SXSW Interactive and the Board of Advisors of the Anita Borg Institute A native of the Bay Area, she lives in San Jose with her software developer husband.

Contact:
Web: www.blogher.com

Holly Becker is the founder and editor of decor8, the internationally-known design site dedicated to delivering fresh design ideas meant to inspire its over 45,000 daily readers to live a more fulfilling, authentic and creative life. Since its launch in January 2006, decor8 has been mentioned in over 70 national and international publications, in addition to radio and television programs and Blogger ranked it #10 in 2008. Holly is an American freelance journalist, author and design consultant living in Germany while also maintaining a US office in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

In addition to decor8, she is the founder of the first online e-course about creative blogging, Blogging Your Way, which was launched in March 2009 and includes written lessons, videocasts and podcasts along with a dedicated forum for students to interact with Holly and her co-teachers, Leslie Shewring and Thorsten Becker along with other students. In the past two years, she has taught over 2,000 students worldwide through Blogging Your Way and teaches workshops and classes in-person on decorating and blogging with her most recent being in Morroco for ACE Camps. In addition to decor8, Holly maintains her more personal blog, Haus Maus, which documents her life as an expat living abroad navigating a new culture.

Holly has worked with a number of top magazines, she was an online columnist for Domino magazine for two years along with parenting magazine, Cookie, and a style editor for both HGTV magazine and their online site. Holly also reported on trends for The Boston Globe’s Style and Arts section as a bi-weekly columnist before relocating to Germany. Holly is currently in her fourth year as a weekly columnist for Real Simple magazine online. She has been quoted in and has contributed to a variety of books, which include: Lotta Jansdotter’s Handmade Living by Lotta Jansdotter (2010) and The Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin (2010).

Her debut book, Decorate: 1,000 Professional Ideas for Every Room in Your Home published by Chronicle Books, just released in the United States and was simultaneously published by Jacqui Small Publishing in London and Murdoch Books in Australia. Decorate will be translated and published in Germany by Callwey Verlag in September 2011 under the title, Lust auf Wohnen.

When Holly isn’t working she loves to spend time with her husband, Thorsten, as they both love to comb flea markets for treasures, take photos and spend time outdoors — particularly in the huge forest behind their home. She also loves to decorate, work on craft projects, travel, inline skate and take daily “night walks” with her sweetheart as they have been doing since they first met 12 years ago.

BlogHer Co-Founder and President of Strategic Alliances

Jory Des Jardins co-founded BlogHer, Inc. in 2005 with Elisa Camahort Page and Lisa Stone, and serves as the company’s President of Strategic Alliances and lead evangelist to top revenue partners. With Jory’s leadership, BlogHer has developed its own distinctive, brand of strategic partnership, helping to facilitate constructive dialogue between some of the world’s major brands and women who are social media leaders and their readers. Jory frequently gives private presentations and training sessions to Fortune 500 companies and their internal and external strategy teams, bringing community insights and case studies directly to companies and agencies that are navigating the social media space. Leveraging her prior experience in both print and online media, Jory works within brand teams to deconstruct media models and to develop messaging and campaigns that resonate with bloggers, blog readers and brands. BlogHer’s integrated sponsorship model, which combines live events and media channels, has grown to revenue of eight figures trailing for the past two years, during which BlogHer, Inc. was named among the AlwaysOn OnMedia Top 100 for 2011 and Global 250 for 2010, and as one of America’s Most Promising Start-ups by BusinessWeek. BlogHer’s flagship site, BlogHer.com, was named one of the Top 100 Websites for Women by Forbes in 2010.
Jory is BlogHer’s representative on the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Board of Directors, and serves on the advisory board of start-ups FeedBlitz and Juno Baby.   Jory also represents BlogHer at public speaking engagements, having keynoted such events as ad:tech Chicago and the Marketing to Moms Conference, and spoken on panels at events for the IAB, ANA, AMA and WOMMA and at Web 2.0, SXSW Interactive, BlogWorld Expo, the Monaco Media Forum, Girls in Tech and CES.
Prior to co-founding BlogHer, Jory helped high-technology start-ups Pluck and Rojo develop the models to launch successful blog syndication initiatives and served as producer as Third Age transitioned from traditional web destination to a network of bloggers.
Together, BlogHer co-founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory have been named among the most influential women in Web 2.0 and technology by Fast Company (2008, 2009 and 2010), Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year semi-finalists (2010) and among the seven most powerful people in new media by Forbes Magazine (2009). In 2011 they were jointly awarded the PepsiCo Women’s Inspiration Award and in 2008, the Anita Borg Institute Social Impact Award. Jory lives in the Bay Area with her husband Jesse and their baby daughter.

Contact:
Web: www.jorydesjardins.com

Nora Abousteit is the co-founder of BurdaStyle.com, a DIY fashion community of 500,000+ members who share techniques, projects, and PDF sewing patterns to print at home. Previously, Nora worked at a German publishing house–writing speeches, organizing workshops, and planning events for the World Economic Forum. She is also a founding member of the DLD Conference.

Nora has been invited to share her experience at Picnic, FOO Camp, Parsons School of Design, Stream, and the Menorca TechTalk. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, BusinessWeek, WWD, and Fast Company. Nora holds degrees in Middle East studies, political science, and philosophy from the American University in Cairo.

Contact:

Web:www.burdastyle.com
Twitter:@noraabousteit

Stacy Julian is a recognized leader in the scrapbooking industry and the visionary founder of Big Picture Classes (BPC). Launched in November 2005, BPC is the first online community offering creative e-learning with members around the world. Stacy is a passionate sought-after speaker and the author of four books including her most recent, Photo Freedom. Her television appearances include the Discovery Channel’s Home Matters and the PBS series Scrapbook Memories. Simple Scrapbooks Magazine (2002-2008), where Julian was the founding editor, has been mentioned in The Chicago Tribune andWoman’s Day as a leading consumer publication for the scrapbooking industry. Stacy has been a certified professional teacher with the Craft and Hobby Association since 1997 and lives with her husband Geoff, five energetic children, and a tank of somewhat neglected goldfish in Washington state.

Contact:
Blog: www.stacyjulian.com/blog/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stacy.hall.julian
Twitter: www.twitter.com/#!/stacyjulian