Media Title As Creative Agency Panel At The PSFK Conference

About the panelists:

GEORGE PARKER
George Parker is a Creative Consultant/Writer who has recently published his latest book, MadScam. He is currently working on his soon-to-be classic The Ubiquitous Persuaders, a 50-year update on Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders. Apart from housing a rather gnarly painting of himself with snakes growing out of his eyes, his attic is stuffed with Gold and Silver Lions, CLIOs, Gold Effies and other as- sorted bits of metal and plastic. You can read the sordid details of his somewhat checkered career at www.parkerads.com. You can also partake of his piss and vinegar views on the current state of the ad biz at his various blogs, www.adscam.typepad.com and www.adhurl.com, and before you know it, an even fouler mouthed one soon to debut at Brand Republic in the UK.

SASCHA LEWIS Deploying a music-based newsletter to a few hundred New York subscribers in October 2000, Sascha Lewis and Mark Mangan sent a subtle yet significant ripple through the post-bubble Internet. Today, Flavorpill Productions creates 11 publications, read by a community of over 500,000 like-minded influencers in several major US markets on both coasts, as well as in London. A native New Yorker, Lewis has always been attracted to the margins of popular culture; be it through electronic music (Lewis DJs around the city frequently) or his anusara yoga regimen (he’s an avid practitioner). Lewis’ mission is to raise the water level of good culture, which Flavorpill achieves through its network of 300 writers and editors producing content for its mailers and website, flavorpill.net. These filters identify trends before they emerge, exposing readers to the next big albums, fashions on the rise, and authors about to break.

PETER ROJAS
Peter Rojas is the cofounder and editor-in-chief of Engadget, a website with news coverage, podcasts, and videos of gadgets, consumer electronics, and personal technology. He is also the cofounder and editorial director of Joystiq, a site covering the world of video games and a Programming Director with AOL, the parent company of Weblogs, Inc. Rojas is an on-air contributor to HGTV’s I Want That! Tech Toys, and in 2005 served as a guest host on G4’s Attack of the Show.

Prior to founding Engadget, Rojas served as the editorial director of technology weblog Gizmodo, as a contributing editor at Cargo, as an editor-at-large at Sync, as technology editor of VMan, Visionaire’s men’s fashion magazine, as a columnist on emerging technology for British newspaper The Guardian, as a features and news writer for the original Red Herring, and was a contributor to Wired, The New York Times, The Village Voice, Salon, Slate, Vice, Surface, Food & Wine, Popular Science, Fortune, Fortune Small Business, SCI FI Magazine, Money, and Business 2.0. He was educated at Harvard University and the University of Sussex (U.K.) and resides in New York City.

SCOTT WITT
Daily, Scott deals with a time management conundrum being simultaneously stationed within the creative department of Droga5, and the Publicis Groupe media futures agency Denuo. Before living this double life, Witt was VP Digital Group Director at MediaVest where he was tasked with bringing a pretty well-known cola conglomerate into the digital age. Witt has been named to AdAge’s TwentySome- things list, Media magazine’s New Media DNA and Mediapost’s Online All-Stars. Also a musician and photographer Scott’s real dream is to pen the perfect name for the fleshy crevice between ones thumb and forefinger.

JOHN LEE
John H Lee spent his youth growing up in such diverse locations as Borneo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Auckland. He spent two years as a professional BMX rider while developing his own brand
of skate/BMX clothing, and organizing events and concerts around the culture. In 1991, he got picked up by Levi’s to open their Seoul office. From ’91 to ’96, John art directed advertising and initiated guerilla marketing campaigns in Korea and around Asia.

From 1996 to the present he has art directed and designed volumes of projects for everyone from the Gap to Res magazine. He also designed the Brooklyn Machine Works logo, and continues to do work for iconic brands in skateboarding and BMX. John currently works as the creative director and publisher of an avant-garde Asian culture magazine called THEME.