Speakers

David Norton
Stonemantel
USA

Dr. Dave Norton, principal of Stone Mantel, is internationally recognized as the cutting-edge thinker on what makes brand experiences meaningful. He has spoken to thousands of people nationally and internationally. He has lectured at Harvard, Columbia Business School and at FORTUNE magazine’s annual summits. His seminar series, Strategies for Creating Meaningful Brand Experiences has been praised by attendees from companies like Microsoft, Royal Caribbean International, Kraft, and Disney.

Dave’s research capabilities have been embraced by entities as diverse as FORTUNE 500 Internet businesses, small countries, and multibillion dollar consumer goods companies. Numerous household brand companies have engaged him for ethnographic research, or have brought him in for team consulting. Stone Mantel, the company he founded, is an insights agency focused on finding the marketing experiences that matter most to customers. The organization helps companies identify the marketing and innovation strategies to create meaning brand experiences.


Martin Schobert
Tourismusdesign
Austria

Martin Schobert is the Senior Partner at Tourismusdesing, a brand new company specialized in Landscape Planning, Service Design and Communication 2.0.

From June 2007 to October 2009 Martin Schobert was leading the department of Research & Development at the Austrian National Tourist Office. He was responsible for the teams „Internet Strategy“, „Business Intelligence“, „IT Service & Support“ and „Tourism/Market Research“.

He studied Business Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration and joined the Austrian National Tourist Office in 1998. During the first 5 years he held different positions in the marketing field of the company and worked in the ANTO’s office in Paris several months.

From 2001 to Mai 2007 he led the marketing team responsible for the domestic market and started to launch different online-activities to make Austria more attractive to it’s residents. One of these activities was the launch of ANTO‘s first social web activity, the „culinary travel weblog“ in January 2007.

In the meantime ANTO has launched different Web 2.0 – Activities and ANTO gained much experience using the strategy „learning by doing“. Acting as a „think tank“ for the company and the industry, the department developed the Online Communication Strategy for the ANTO, a Social Web Strategy for online activities our offices abroad and published 2 Social Web Guidelines for the Austrian Travel Industry (german language).

He personally likes to share his knowledge with other experts in travel and tourism at different conferences like ITB, FVW Online Marketing Day, Enter or the ITS International Tourism Symposium, at universities like IMC Krems or Modul University Vienna or to speak at expert-panels at Brennpunkt eTourism/Germany or like here in Finland.

You find his thoughts, ideas, things worth to RT and so on at Twitter (@Joebertl), some of his presentations on slideshare and you can connect with him on XING, LinkedIn and Facebook.


Stefan Moritz
Sweden

Stefan started his career as entrepreneur at 15 working in journalism, event management and corporate identity. Stefan was recognised for his achievements to change the culture and community at high-school including an event in partnership with Coca Cola. He worked as consultant with medium sized businesses to drive innovation, develop brands and customer value strategies also during university. Stefan studied multidisciplinary and strategic design in Cologne, Milan and Helsinki.

In 2003 Stefan joined the global strategic communications unit at Aegis Media, the fastest growing marketing services group. He was responsible to develop the use of design as enabler and shared language across the team, clients and local markets. Stefan worked with adidas, Disney, Renault, Philips, Reebok, EMI as well as supporting internal thought leadership.

Stefan developed his role within Aegis Group and continues to drive the use of design for new ways of working, collaboration and co-creation at the global digital network Isobar. He is pioneering a unique approach to communications through Service Design – a new paradigm for connecting brands and people.

Stefan has lectured at KISD (Köln International School of Design) and lead a team to win the first international RSA competition in Service Design in 2005. He has written the first Masters in this new field. His paper gives a practical overview and is used as teaching material.

Business Week featured Stefan as Notable Alumni in its 2006 report on the top Innovation & Design Schools globally ("The Talent Hunt – Desperate to innovate, companies are turning to design schools for nimble, creative thinkers").


Kati Hienonen
Perhosvaikutus Oy

Kati Hienonen is a trend analyst and consultant who has developed an integrated model and tools to exploit future foresight and customer knowledge in developing innovative product and service concepts.

In her book, The new mindsets of Finnish design, Hienonen takes a fresh look at everyday products and services, and shows the importance of design in Finland’s international competitiveness. Hienonen has previously worked as a fashion designer and lifestyle journalist.