New Media Boot Camp Presenter Bios

LAURA BEATTY

Laura is the VP of Marketing & Distribution at Brave New Films where she leads efforts to attract and retain an audience through websites, social media, email, and emerging digital platforms. Before joining Brave New Films, Laura spent thirteen years in marketing for corporations, Internet start-ups, and agencies where she holds a strong track record of developing marketing campaigns for Helio, Nissan, Saturn, Nestle, Cheap Tickets, Fandango, Lower My Bills, and Sapient Interactive. She received a BBA in Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin.

BRITT BRAVO

Britt is a blogger, podcaster, creative career coach, and social media consultant for nonprofits, creative entrepreneurs and artists. She began blogging in 2005 with the launch of her personal blog, Have Fun * Do Good. Since then, she has written for the Huffington Post, WEtv’s WE Volunteer blog, BlogHer, NetSquared, the Stanford Social Innovation Review Opinion Blog, WorldChanging, The Extraordinaries, and the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship blog. In 2007, her local paper, the East Bay Express, named her the Best Podcaster/Blogger Most Dedicated to Social Change. She also produces the Big Vision Podcast, and the Arts and Healing Podcast.

AXEL CABALLERO

Axel was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico. He is currently part of the Brave New Films’ and Brave New Foundation’s team. He produces Cuéntame and Cuéntame Central. Before, Axel was the Media and Community Relations Director for Peace Education Fund and Peace Action West. For the last 10 years, Axel has been active on diverse campaigns issues from nuclear disarmament, environmental protection, immigration to human rights and Latin American affairs. He has been part in several electoral teams both in the United States as in Mexico. He was part of the Global Security Institute, a non-profit for nuclear disarmament as well as Aim for Human Rights in the Netherlands focused mainly on human rights in Latin America. He is a graduate in Political Science and International Relations as well as Law and Society form the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) and received his masters in International Law and Protection of Human Rights from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, where he also participated in numerous forums on multiple international treaties.

SASHA COSTANZA-CHOCK, PHD,

Sasha is a researcher and media maker who works on the critical political economy of communication, digital equity, and the transnational movement for media justice and communication rights. He is currently a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Sasha has extensive experience bridging the worlds of media, ICTs, organizing, research, and policy advocacy. He has helped shoot, direct, edit, and produce numerous Indymedia Video productions, and is an active member of the Transmission.cc video activist network. His research on social movements and media technology have been widely published online, in academic journals, and as book chapters. Sasha worked with the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society and was Coordinator of the Global Communication Project at Free Press. His community media experience includes, most recently, serving as co-facilitator of the Garment Worker Center radio project, and he currently sits on the community board of VozMob (Mobile Voices / Voces Mociles), a platform for immigrant workers in Los Angeles to create stories about their lives and communities directly from their cell phones.

CHARLES ERDMAN

Charles is an award-winning, creative professional and entrepreneur who works to make screen-based experiences accessible and useful to its intended audience. In a collaborative, team environment, Charles employs a human-centered approach to organize complex information into comprehensible and engaging digital user experiences. Charles has created solutions for American Express, Nissan of North America, Infiniti, Charles Schwab, The Disney Company, MySpace, UCLA and the US Olympic Committee. He has worked with great people at companies such as Ogilvy & Mather, Razorfish, The Designory, TBWA Chiat\Day and The Groop.

DANNY FEINGOLD

Danny has served as LAANE’s Communications Director since 2000. He has attracted national media attention for numerous LAANE projects, including the successful effort to stop Wal-Mart from building a superstore in Inglewood and the drive to bring living wages to hotel workers in Santa Monica. Before coming to LAANE, Danny worked as a journalist for the L.A. Times, the LA Weekly and the LA View. He is the author of a book on fertility, and has contributed as a writer or editor to several volumes on alternative health.

PHILLIP HOLMES

Phillip is the Los Angeles Director of Blue State Digital, the organization who skillfully ran Obama’s online presidential campaign. He has experience in all aspects of new media, on-line communication, branding, public policy, political campaigns and online grassroots community building, and draws from more than 10 years experience crafting and integrating communication strategies that engage, empower and connect diverse and highly targeted constituents to candidates, causes and hot button issues. He also worked on the 2007 California gubernatorial campaign, where he created the online communication strategy for Proposition 87, an alternative energy initiative where developed innovative online strategies that earned national media attention for its creative and cost-effective tactics.

JOHN KENYON

John is a nonprofit technology educator and strategist who’s worked with nonprofits for over 20 years providing advice, teaching seminars and writing articles. His training and consulting services help organizations improve their strategic use of technology and their online presence. John authored the chapter “Effective Online Communications” in the book Managing Technology to Meet your Mission (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2009). He worked with Beth Kanter to craft curriculum for the “We Are Media” social media training for nonprofits and is a frequent speaker on social media tools & strategies. He is an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco. John has been a featured speaker across the US, England, Australia and online. Website, LinkedIn, Twitter.

ROB KRAMER

Rob is a leader in building online and mobile technology to drive social and political action. He is the CEO and founder of PopRule/Campaign Live, an online technology company that creates applications and platforms to drive social and political action for consumer, political and non-profit brands. Since 2003, Rob has been Chairman of Global Water Trust, a non-profit that provides clean safe water to school children throughout the developing world. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Sustainable Business Council and Eco Dads, and on the Los Angeles Committee for Global Green USA. He received his B.A. from Carnegie School of Journalism at Penn State.

AVIVA MOHILNER

Aviva is the founder of Big Little Brands, a do-it-yourself public relations and social media marketing firm for small businesses and nonprofits. She specializes in training entrepreneurs and organizations to use authentic, on-brand communication to better engage their desired audiences. Prior to launching the company, Aviva was a public relations practitioner and a professional workshop facilitator. Her clients included 3M, AOL Time-Warner, Hasbro, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, Molson-Coors, Seed Media Group, Snapple, and Sweet’N Low. Aviva holds a B.A. in Communication from the University of Southern California, and is passionate about harnessing the power of media to do good in the world. When not working, she can usually be found at the beach or in a coffee shop near you.

MARISA MURGATROYD

Marisa recently joined LAANE as the Senior Multimedia Specialist to help the organization maximize their impact through media and the web. From her early days of carefree writing and photography to her decade-long career as an award-winning video, print and web producer, Marisa has spent her life creating media. After developing her skills in creative writing and photography as a high school student, she went on to study the art and science of media production at Brown University and earned a master’s degree in communication design at the Royal College of Art. Marisa started making movies in her early twenties and shot her first full-length documentary in the Brazilian Amazon. She then went on to produce dozens of web, video, design and interactive media projects for the Getty Museum, PBS, UCLA, Room to Read and the State of California, among other clients. Today, Marisa’s passion and purpose lie in helping thought leaders and change agents translate their message into a powerful and effective web presence. Connect with her on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

BARBARA OSBORN

Barbara is Liberty Hill's Director of Strategic Communications. Her past lives include 15 years working as a journalist (she still has a weekly radio show on KPFK 90.7 FM) and as a college instructor. She holds a Ph.D. in Communications from UC San Diego and co-teaches a doctoral seminar at USC Annenberg that helps forge research partnerships between graduate students and community organizations.

SHELLEY WENK

Shelley works with organizations to create new online content or repurpose existing content to tell their stories in ways that inform, inspire and engage constituents, customers, funders and other decision-makers. As a Digital Strategist and Account Director with DotOrgPower, and before that an Account director with D.C. based public affairs firm Virilion, and a Senior-Level Interactive Producer working on contract for 20th Century Fox International Digital Marketing, Shelley has extensive experience in digital communications strategy and implementation. She is an award-winning short film director, and was a founding partner in independent production company Wild Rose Productions where she developed and produced short films, feature films and documentaries, including the charming international romantic comedy Twice Upon a Yesterday. Shelley received her MFA from the Peter Stark Producing Program at the USC School of Cinema-Television.