Speakers

Here, a list of speakers featured at CyberMummy. This page will be updated as they are confirmed.

Keynote: Sarah Brown

Sarah Brown is the Founder and President of PiggyBankKids, Global Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and a former public relations executive. Sarah is committed to a range of charities and campaigns focused primarily on the health and wellbeing of women and children.

Her book about life in Downing Street, , is published in March 2011 and she is a regular public speaker. You can follow Sarah on twitter at

Sophie King – Writing Workshop, 11:15 – 12:10

Sophie King (the pen name for Jane Bidder) has been a journalist for over 25 years and contributes regularly to national newspapers and magazines including The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Express. As Sophie King, she has written five best-selling novels – , Mums@home, , and . All five were published by Hodder & Stoughton. The Wedding Party was shortlisted for ‘Love Story of The Year 2010’, an award by the Romantic Novelists Association.

She has also written a series of children’s books called “” as well as several non-fiction books. Titles include : ; ; ; ; .

Sophie gives regular talks at bookshops and literary festivals including Winchester and Guildford and runs nationwide workshops. Until her recent move to Devon, she tutored at Oxford University and West Herts College. For three years, she was writer in residence at HMP Grendon. She has also appeared on breakfast television and Woman’s Hour. In 2005, Sophie won the Elizabeth Goudge Short Story Trophy in 2005 and was a runner up in the Harry Bowling Prize.

More details at www.sophieking.info

Sarah Fortuna – Working with Brands panel discussion, 12:15-13:10

We’re delighted to announce another speaker for the Working with Brands panel discussion. This one is particularly well-suited, since she works for HP, a company that has actively reached out to bloggers and developed programs with them.

Sarah Fortuna, UK and Ireland Consumer Marketing Manager for Inkjet and Web Solutions, drives initiative plans for inkjet solutions. Sarah oversees all consumer marketing activities and 360º customer-centric holistic plans, including: media, advertising, PR, in-store, online, co-marketing, partnerships. Prior to this role, Sarah was part of the HP IWS Marketing Team EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) where she was responsible for developing growth strategies, brand equity and consumer product lines value propositions for both hardware and supplies.

Before joining HP, Sarah worked in the events, fashion as well as advertising industry. She holds a Master’s degree in Marketing Communications. Sarah is originally from Milan and is based in London, UK.

Karen Cannard – Marketing Your Blog, 11:15 – 12:10

Karen Cannard has been described by PR Week as a rising star in the UK media landscape, crediting her work on the Rubbish Diet blog, which she has written since 2008.  More waste reduction than fatty acids, the blog started out as an anonymous “housewife’s challenge” in 2008.  Only intended to last for eight weeks, it is still going strong three years later and is used as a platform to raise awareness both online and offline.  Karen’s highlights feature a week-long column on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and a prominent involvement in a number of social-media campaigns, including the UK’s national Recycle Week.  She is now a frequent contributor on BBC local radio and an online columnist for the At Home magazine where she writes as The Philanthropic Housewife. For more information, visit www.karencannard.co.uk.

Photo:

Frederic Montagnon – Marketing Your Blog, 11:15-12:10

Another expert on our Marketing Your Blog panel, alongside Karen Canard and Debbie O’Connor is Frédéric Montagnon, the Chief Marketing Officer at Wikio. An engineer, he founded OverBlog, the number one French blogging platform, and also co-founded Nomao, a personalised search engine. He blogs (in French) at fred-montagnon.over-blog.com and tweets on .

Debbie O’Connor- Marketing Your Blog, 11:15-12:10

Another brilliant member of the Marketing Your Blog panel is Debbie O’Connor.

Debbie O’Connor took over Motivating Mum UK, a website that gives support and advice to current and would-be businessmums, last September. Since then she has had a baptism of fire, learning everything she can about blogging, website promotion and social media. Since posting her first tweet last September, she now has more than 7,000 twitter followers, and visitors to Motivating Mum have more than doubled since she took over, mainly from social media activity.

Debbie ran a charity blogging festival on Motivating Mum in March 2011, and the resulting blogs have been published into an ebook “A Month of Good Advice” which will hopefully be available by the time you come to Cybermummy. She is currently looking for more guest bloggers – so make sure to give her your details.

Twitter @

Facebook:

Digital Outlook Team- Cyberlab-Social Networking, 11:20-12:15

The team from Digital Outlook, Craig Hill, Kerry Jean Lister and Sophie Rivet will be presenting in the Cyberlab session on Social Networking.

Craig Hill:

Craig Hill is Chairman of London based digital agency Digital Outlook – audience specialists in kids, teens and families. Over the past ten years DO have become experts in helping brands understand how audiences interact daily with online social media across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and gaming channels. A relative old timer in a young industry, Craig has over 15 years’ experience evangelising the digital medium to organisations and individuals alike and is a regular contributor at industry events including MIP TV, Digital Hollywood, Kidscreen, BAFTA and Figaro.

Kerry Jean Lister:

As head of the community team at Digital Outlook Kerry has spent the past four years developing a relationship with the UK parent blogger community via Think Parents, a network of over 100 parent bloggers. During this time she has managed successful blogger outreach campaigns for brands such as Disney Resorts, SeaWorld Parks, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Lego Duplo, Xbox and the Department for Transport. She has also managed and advised on multi-platform social media campaigns for brands including P&G, Comic Relief, Warner Bros and NBC Universal. Kerry writes her own personal blog over at www.mrslisterwrites.com and is also partial to a spot of !

Sophie Rivet:

Sophie – then known as Angel #87 – previously worked at Heaven Agency in Paris running multi-platform social media campaigns for premium and luxury brands including Boucheron and Van Cleef & Arpels. She recently ventured across the channel to become Senior Community Executive at Digital Outlook, where she manages the Facebook  presence of brands including Herbal Essences and Lacoste Pink and runs blogger outreach campaigns for NBC Universal. A keen , Sophie also writes short stories (black ink, white paper), does a lot of black & white photography and dresses head to toe in black… with a touch of white. Do you see a pattern emerging?

Ellie Lee- Working with Brands Panel Discussion, 12:15-13:10

On the Working with Brands and Making Money panel – in addition to featuring bloggers who earn and brands who work with bloggers – we wanted to consider the relative “value” of parent bloggers’ opinions and also how their content affects the conversations society has about parenting. To help us cast a wider thematic net, we’ve asked sociologist Ellie Lee to be on the panel.

Ellie is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent, England. She is Director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies, based in the School. She worked previously as a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. She has published studies about abortion, contraception, teenage pregnancy, and motherhood, and her research addresses the sociological themes of the construction of social problems and the process of medicalization. Her published work includes the monograph Abortion, Motherhood and Mental Health: The Medicalization of Reproduction in the U.S. and Britain (2003, Aldine Transaction), and papers in journals includingSociology of Health and Illness, Health, Risk and Society, Sociological Research On-line and International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family. She is currently working on studies about infant feeding, alcohol and pregnancy, the provision of assisted conception services, abortion counselling, and parenting policy.

Gayle Trigg- Cyberlab- Keeping Your Blog Legal, 12:15-13:10

Do you accept freebies, do reviews or write about people on your blog? Are you unsure about libel and copyright? Then you need to attend the Keeping Your Blog Legal session about blogging issues you can’t afford to ignore, from 12:15 to 13:10.

Gayle Trigg is a solicitor with commercial law firm Wragge & Co LLP and specialises in Internet and data protection law. Her 10 years’ experience of helping organisations set up and run websites and manage information about individuals means that she understands the issues in having a presence on the Internet.

She had her little girl in 2008 and quickly discovered the wonderful community online whilst on maternity leave. She had been dabbling in blogs since 2007 (albeit geeky legal blogs) and set up her personal blog in 2009.

She is a self-confessed Twitter-holic, despite being convinced that she would never understand it. Back in 1999 she swore she’d never need a mobile phone; now, just try and take away her iPhone.

Dawn Brown- Cyberlab-Keeping Your Blog Legal, 12:15-13:10

Do you accept freebies for review or go to events with choice goodie bags? Then you need to know the rules regarding this type of in-kind benefits from your blogging life. Blogger and accountant Dawn Brown will be giving everyone the low-down during the the Keeping Your Blog Legal session, alongside Gayle Trigg.

Dawn is a Chartered Accountant with the ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountant in England and Wales) who runs her own practice ABC North East (www.abcnortheast.co.uk) specialising in small business accounting and tax advice.  She set up her own business after spending 10 years working for major companies and accounting firms in roles such as Finance Manager, Internal Audit Manager and Head of Risk Management. Aside from running her own business Dawn is also a busy mum to 2 children under the age of 18 months and can be found on her personal parenting blog Knees Up Mother Brown (http://dawniebrown.wordpress.com) and on twitter .

Jay Mountford- Workshop: Photography, 12:15-13:10

CyberMummy is proud to welcome Jay Mountford, aka @cosmicgirlie and www.mochabeaniemummy.com, as a CyberMummy11 presenter in the Photography Workshop session from 12:15-13:10. Join Jay where you will learn how to express your creativity and take eye-catching photos. Please BRING A CAMERA for hands-on instruction led by Jay. Now here’s a bit more about Jay, in her own words:

In January 2009, I picked up my first dSLR. In January 2010, I’d started my own photography business. It works and I damn well love it, specialising in weddings, maternity, newborns/children and corporate events. I’m very lucky to have worked with some excellent professional photographers and mentors, guiding me and teaching me everything I need to know.

Jay is a prolific tweeter and one-of-a-kind blogger who has set the blogging world on fire with her weekly #SilentSunday photo challenge. If you want to learn more about taking the best photos possible, don’t miss out on her session. AND REMEMBER TO BRING A CAMERA (or camera phone).

Rosie Scribble – Panel, How to be a blogger activist, 14.20-15.10

Rosie Scribble (real name Rosie Shelley) is a freelance writer and marketer supporting small businesses in the parenting sector with their marketing and PR. Rosie also writes for the parenting website Ready for Ten and edits CVs for the medical sector. Rosie has been writing her Rosie Scribble blog for two over years. Last year she joined a press trip to Cameroon as a blogger to witness the success of Pampers and UNICEF’s campaign to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus. Rosie won a BritMum’s ‘Making a Difference Blogger’ award for her coverage of the trip on her blog and continues to support the work of UNICEF. Rosie lives in the Midlands with her seven-year-old daughter.

Blog: http://rosiescribble.typepad.com
Professional website: http://digital-freelance.co.uk
Twitter: @RosieScribble

Liz Scarff – Panel, How to be a blogger activist, 14.20-15.10

Liz Scarff has over ten years experience working for leading media organisations both in the UK and internationally. She works as a digital media consultant bringing stories from the frontline to the frontroom producing cut-through social media / digital strategy, campaigns and multimedia content.   Most recently she devised and implemented an innovative digital campaign, #Blogladesh, for Save the Children which was shortlisted for a Media Guardian Digital Innovation Award.   Assignments have seen Liz spend two months on the highest mountain in the world running the digital media campaign for Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ Everest Challenge for Marie Curie Cancer Care and drive 4,000 miles across the Sahara Desert in a Lada for the BBC. Liz recently launched www.debateyourplate.com
Find her on twitter  – @lizscarff
www.lizscarff.co.uk

Sue Davis-Blogging Essentials, 14:20-15:10

Sue Davis has such fabulous experience working with blogs and training people to use them that we’re featuring her twice on the schedule. Blogging Essentials is a great place to brush up on all those elements of blogging you may have forgotten or never learned in the first place, from design and RSS feeds to SEO. Then in the next time slot she gives a crash course to one of the most versatile and popular blogging platforms – WordPress.

Sue Davis has been a freelance web designer, information architect and content strategist since 1998. She has advised companies including Channel 4 Television on editing for the web; designed web sites for the BBC, Channel 4 and many medium-sized organisations; and presented TV programmes about the Internet and families for BBC2. She runs popular WordPress and social media courses for the Publishing Training Centre in London and has used WordPress to design and develop blogs and CMS-based websites since 2007. She has a seven year old daughter and an aging campervan and lives in Chatham, Kent. You can follow her on Twitter: .

Natalie Lue – Working with Brands and Making Money, 12.20-13.15

Natalie Lue started blogging in 2004 after a bad date and it’s been her full-time career for over 3 years. With a combined readership of over 350k a month including relationship site Baggage Reclaim (http://www.baggagereclaim.com) and coolhunting site Bambino Goodies (http://www.bambinogoodies.co.uk), she’s parlayed her experiences and personal growth into several ebooks, workshops and consultancy, plus has built up a growing client list of design-led advertisers. She’s guested on Sky News and BBC Radio and appeared in various press including Red Magazine and News of the World’s Fabulous Magazine. Prior to blogging, Natalie was a senior account manager for a large tech publisher.

Follow On Twitter: @bambinogoodies @nataliemlue @baggagereclaim

Danielle Fudge – Blogging Essentials, 14:20 – 15:10

Danielle Fudge is the SEO Analyst for The Walt Disney Company EMEA and will be talking on “Driving More Visitors to You Blog – The Power of SEO” during the Blogging Essentials workshop. Danielle is a seasoned Online Search Executive with 5 years experience working across accounts such as Interflora, 188BET, and Fred Olsen Cruises. Working at The Walt Disney Company for almost 2 years, Danielle manages search engine optimisation (SEO) for Disney websites across 23 countries in Europe. Current Projects include Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars 2 as well as Walt Disney World and Disney Store.

Tara Cain- Blogger to Blogger Inspiration, 14:20-15:10

Our Blogger-to-Blogger Inspiration session showcases best practices and success stories from four different blogs, to share the best blogging knowledge in our community. Tara Cain will talk about her highly successful photo meme The Gallery, which hundreds of bloggers take part in every month.

Tara is a former journalist who has been writing her blog Sticky Fingers since 2008. She writes about parenting, family life, topical issues and has seen her readership rocket to nearly 40K a month. But her great love is photography, and last year she launched a new feature on Sticky Fingers to take advantage of her passion for photographs. The Gallery kicked off in February 2010 and invited other writers to appreciate and showcase their own photos – and it has grown into a huge community of supportive bloggers across the world. Tara lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two young children.

In her former life she was a features editor, but now works from home as a social media consultant and writer. Twitter:

Rachael Lucas- Blogger to Blogger Inspiration, 14:20-15:10

Rachael Lucas started Tales from the Village in May 2010. The blog details her adventures with cake, jam, chickens and gardening, as well as interviews with well-known authors including Katie Fforde, and is following Rachael’s experiences as first time novelist moving from blog to publication. Rachael has had interest from several literary agents after publishing an excerpt of her novel on the blog. Tales from the Village features regularly in the Wikio charts, and has reached the finals of a 2011 national blogging award.

Tales from the Village is about to take a new direction, as Rachael, her husband and their four children are moving to Canada this summer. Follow Rachael on twitter at to hear all about her experiences.

Rachael will be one of the speakers sharing her valuable insights in how to promote your writing through your blog in the Blogger to Blogger Inspiration session from 2:20-3:10.

Claire & Lucy McDonald- Blogger to Blogger Inspiration, 14:20-15:10

The sister act of Claire and Lucy McDonald recently joined the blogging world but have carved out a niche in the parent/food blogging world with Crumbs. They’ll be sharing their secrets at this afternoon session.

Lucy McDonald is a journalist working in TV, newspapers, radio and now – through blogging – the internet. She supposes this makes her truly multi-media. This isn’t because she’s greedy/indecisive/a show-off or a workaholic (although she has been accused of being the first three, although sadly never the latter), but because she’s freelance and therefore needs to have her fingers in many pies. Including ones she makes herself. Well, occasionally.

You can see her on Sky News where she reports on arts and entertainment, but she also writes about food, parenting and social trends for newspapers. Claire and Lucy started writing their blog a year ago when they realised that although they love food and they love their children, feeding them had become a chore. Crumbs was their way of reminding themselves that it can be a pleasure.

Christine Beardsell- Video Blogging, 15:15-16:10

More and more bloggers are making the jump to video. Our afternoon video blogging session will feature high-profile vlogger Nick Coffer (My Daddy Cooks) and in addition we have BritMum’s Christine Beardsell, a content pioneer and video expert.

Before partnering with Britmums, Christine spent 10 years pioneering the use of both Social Media and Brand Content at the world’s largest digital agency, Digitas, and was a driving force behind the Digital Content New Front staged in New York each June.

A graduate of The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City, Christine’s mix of creative, tech and media skills, plus her entrepreneur’s innovation, have led her to invent hugely impactful and ground-breaking projects for major brands like Kraft, American Express, IHG, and Samsung. Her work has contributed to the winning of many top industry honours, including Cannes Cyber Lions, Caples, Effies, and OMMA Awards.

Christine’s practical vision for the new partnerships that technology makes possible between brands, content creators and, most important of all, audiences themselves has made her a sought-after speaker and panelist at major industry conferences from Digital Hollywood to Adtech. Her popular column on ClickZ in 2009 remains a valued source of thinking on Brand Content, which she also teaches for the world-famous Miami Ad School.

Nick Coffer- Video Blogging, 15:15-16:10

This year at CyberMummy Nick Coffer will be at the video blogging session, 15:15 to 16:10, giving his tips about vlogging and how he turned his cooking videos with his son (the “sous chef”) into a successful book and brand. Nick started making videos in November 2009 on his blog My Daddy Cooks. Now his recipes – simple food cooked well – not only inspire online readers but also have given rise to a .

You can get a sneak peek in today’s Times of some of Nick’s recipes (subscription required) – toad in the hole, plum pudding, chicken and leek pie and several more.

His session at CyberMummy is going to be brilliant (sorry – it’s not a cooking demo) with Nick talking about vlogging from a blogger perspective, and Christine Beardsell, a video expert, giving tips on equipment, software and techniques. Don’t miss it!

Sue Davis- Getting to know and love WordPress, 15:15-16:10

Sue Davis has such fabulous experience working with blogs and training people to use them that we’re featuring her twice on the schedule. Blogging Essentials is a great place to brush up on all those elements of blogging you may have forgotten or never learned in the first place, from design and RSS feeds to SEO. Then in the next time slot she gives a crash course to one of the most versatile and popular blogging platforms – WordPress.

Sue Davis has been a freelance web designer, information architect and content strategist since 1998. She has advised companies including Channel 4 Television on editing for the web; designed web sites for the BBC, Channel 4 and many medium-sized organisations; and presented TV programmes about the Internet and families for BBC2. She runs popular WordPress and social media courses for the Publishing Training Centre in London and has used WordPress to design and develop blogs and CMS-based websites since 2007. She has a seven year old daughter and an aging campervan and lives in Chatham, Kent. You can follow her on Twitter: .

Nadine Hill- Blogging and Life Balance, 15:15-16:10

Juggle Mum, Nadine Hill will be leading the “Blog-Life Balance” workshop at CyberMummy11. Held in the second afternoon session of the day, Nadine has some valuable lessons to teach us all about making blogging fit into your day to day life. She’s looking for a case study from the wealth of bloggers out there. Do you fit the bill? Here’s what Nadine has to say…

Do you ever say “I don’t have time”?

Do you have loads of blogging ideas but no time to get them down?

Do you feel like you are taking time away from your family to blog and this isn’t what you wanted?

I’m running an afternoon workshop at CyberMummy 2011 called “The Blog Life Balance”.  It will address the issues of how to find time to blog whilst juggling a busy life, and how to get your blogging done in an efficient way to save time as well!!

The 50 minute session will give the attendees plenty of practical tips to take away so they can fit blogging into their busy lives rather than trying to fit their busy lives around blogging.  Or worse – not blogging at all because they don’t have the time!!