For nearly 30 years, Doug Austin has been studying the “art of observation” and filtering out the human truths. Whether digging for key customer/consumer insights or preparing the next national retail promotion, it’s all about the ability to “hear and see” what others may not and asking the hard questions that get us to the possibilities. Whether through traditional advertising, brand and product innovation, or repositioning/refreshing a brand, it’s all been with the understanding that “we humans” are not complicated; we seek connection in a way we can relate to. Austin is the VP of business development and in charge of growth and innovation for The Marlin Network.
Nov30
Doug Austin
Jan9
Dennis Smith
Dennis Smith is the President and CEO of Dennis Smith and Associates LLC. Dennis understands how to build people-focused organizations and corporate culture. With a ‘taking care of folks’ focus Dennis uses effective communication skills and strategic planning programs that engage employees in achieving success. He helps organizations define and reach their goals with customers and clients.
He developed many of his principals for success first in executive management with the Travelers Insurance Company and then as owner and operator of an independent insurance agency for 24 years. Dennis then built Missouri Employers Mutual, a multi-million dollar insurance company that became the largest writer of workers compensation insurance in the state of Missouri. Employees, partners and customers alike found Dennis’ ‘taking care of folks’ business approach to be a highly successful, engaging, and dynamic endeavor.
Dec27
Mark Quinn
Mark Quinn is the Vice President of Marketing for the Residential Segment at Leggett and Platt. This section of the company accounts for just over $1.3 billion in sales. Because Leggett and Platt has been in business for over a century, Mark works to evolve it within the very dynamic space occupied by their customers. Mark has an extensive background in the field of marketing. He spent 18 years providing both marketing and sales work for Sealy and Serta mattress companies all over the U.S., in Brazil, Puerto Rico and Mexico.
In addition to the traditional marketing experiences, Mark has also written, performed, directed and produced commercials, infomercials, web series and live television shopping channel shows setting sales records along the way. Mark also blogs about his experiences on his blog Q’s Views.
Sep28
Startup Weekend Columbia
MO.com is proud to be a sponsor of the coolest event happening in Mid-Missouri this weekend – Startup Weekend Columbia!
We had many submissions and these three lucky people are the winners of FREE Startup Weekend Columbia tickets!
For those of you who did not win but would still love to attend (which should be all of you!) you can go to www.Columbia.StartupWeekend.org to purchase a ticket before Friday.
Sep22
Startup Weekend
Columbia
MO.com presents: 3 FREE STARTUP WEEKEND TICKETS!! Startup Weekend is an international organization that hosts Startup Weekends all over the world! The goal of Startup Weekend is to get people together, share ideas, and launch startups! It’s an intense 54 hour event starting with pitches on Friday evening and ending with 5 minutes presentations to a panel of judges and cash prizes are handed out! Startup Weekend is being hosted by Museao on Sept. 30th – Oct. 2nd 2011 MO.com is a proud sponsor of Startup Weekend Columbia and we are giving away 3 FREE TICKETS ($99 value!) Here’s how you win: Do some research on the Startup Weekend website www.StartupWeekend.org and find out what companies have come out of Startup Weekends! Email Columbia@StartupWeekend.org Telling them that you heard about the contest on MO.com and in the email put your name, email and the name of a company that has won a Startup Weekend and your name will be put in a drawing to win a FREE ticket. If you are interested in learning more about Startup Weekend Columbia go to: www.Columbia.StartupWeekend.org
Mar1
Eric Busch
Eric Busch is the co-founder of Datafeedr. He has been developing WordPress related websites with articles, products, or both for over two years. After creating some custom affiliate stores at niche-content-stores.com, he thought that others could benefit from such sites and Datafeedr was born!
MO:
Where did the concept for Datafeedr originate?
Eric:
Basically it came out of a need that I had myself. I was doing work for Stefan, who is now my co-founder at Datafeedr, and basically I was creating sites for him where we were bringing in data feeds, importing it into his website. But it was a very manual process. It took a lot of time. It took a lot of effort, and I realized if I could just automate this and make it a lot easier to do that would save me a ton of time creating sites for him. Then I thought, well, why not just expose that to a whole bunch of other people because a lot of users are going to get a lot of use out of this.
