PDXPortland

Paul spent his childhood obsessed with making things and complaining about how nothing worked the way it should. Not much has changed since then. He is now a creative leader who partners with companies to solve complex problems through design. Prior to this he worked as Director of Industrial Design at Ziba Design and as a Senior Designer at Seymourpowell in London.

Yoni Bloch is an Israeli musician and the founder and CEO of Interlude, a technology company that designs, develops, markets and enables the creation of interactive videos. Through Interlude's patented technology, Bloch has ushered in a new norm for online storytelling that allows users to actively engage with online video in a multi-layered experience, and to create new experiences on their own. In Israel, Yoni is a successful rock musician and performer with three top-selling records. He has produced and recorded tracks for Israel's biggest artists, composed music for TV, film and theater, and was a judge in the Israeli version of “American Idol.”

Chris spent the majority of his early career looking into people’s cupboards trying to figure out why they behave the way they do. These days he is an expert in translating insight into actionable strategy, connecting people with products, services and brands. His experience covers a range of global insight, strategy and trend programs and has covered multiple product categories. 

Aaron is the founder of the Draplin Design Co., a company that proudly rolls up its sleeves on a number of projects related to the Print, Identity and Illustration categories. Located in the mighty Pacific Northwest, Draplin makes stuff for Field Notes, Coal Headwear, Union Binding Co., Richmond Fontaine, Esquire, Nike, Old 97s, Wired, Timberline, Chunklet, Eaux Claires, Poler, Incase, Giro, Cobra Dogs, Burton Snowboards, Rhett Miller, Dawes, Nixon Watches, Patagonia, Target, Megafaun, Danava, Ford Motor Company, Woolrich and even the Obama Administration, if you can believe that. 

Meagan Fisher is an owl-obsessed designer who spends a lot of time thinking about how we work: with each other, with our users, and with the evolving web. As a freelancer she's partnered with everyone from Fortune 500 companies to agencies to charities; she's currently the Creative Director at a Brooklyn-based video hosting startup called SproutVideo.

Nina is a game designer with an interest in making games that tell stories about real, ordinary people. She strives to create mechanics and context that help players step into the shoes of another person. Her games help players embody lived experiences that may be very different from their own. She has a brand new game out called Cibele. You can find her poetry on GitHub.

Leo has over 25 years of industry experience - as a veteran designer who has worked in bricks-and-mortar architecture (Cal State Licensed), product design (from consumer gifts to industrial tools), software application development and emerging businesses. He has been both an individual contributor and manager of design/development teams, and has been a long running advocate of expanding User Experience into strategic business functions.

Antonio is an Associate Partner at gravitytank where he leads the firm's interaction design discipline and social innovation practice. Prior to working in innovation, Antonio was strategic director of Firebelly Design, a socially responsible design studio in Chicago. He holds a BFA in Advertising Design from the Atlanta College of Art (now SCAD) and attended the Harvard Business School AIGA Business Perspectives for Creative Leaders Executive Education Program in 2007. Antonio teaches Visual Storytelling at Northwestern University's Segal Design Institute and teaches Customer Discovery as part of University of Chicago's Polsky Center Entrepreneurship Essentials.

Mike runs Mule Design Studio. It’s a nice place. They do good, quality work. He makes paintings with words on them. He picks fights with the Tea Party on Twitter. He lives in San Francisco with Erika Hall, his son Henry, and his dog Rupert.

Douglas Rushkoff is author of fifteen bestselling books on media, technology, and culture including Program or Be Programmed, Present Shock, and, most recently, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus. He made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, Merchants of Cool, and The Persuaders, wrote the graphic novels ADD and Testament, and originated concepts from "viral media" to "social currency." He's Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens, and lectures around the world about media, society, and change.

For 20 years, Dan Saffer has been designing everything from apps to wearables and everything in between. Currently he’s VP of Product at Mayfield Robotics, where he’s preparing to launch an adorable home robot. Dan is the author of four acclaimed books on design, including his latest, Microinteractions, which Scott Berkun called “the best design book in years.” 

Nathan was the founder and chair of the ground-breaking Design MBA programs at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, CA. This program prepares the next-generation of innovation leaders for a world that is profitable, sustainable, ethical, and truly meaningful by uniting the perspectives of systems thinking, design thinking, sustainability, and generative leadership into a holistic strategic framework.

Over the last twenty years Boon has had job titles like site producer, content specialist, information architect, interaction designer, user researcher, stage manager, and voice-over actor. Between bouts of title whiplash he’s helped build some very big things, some very small things and learned a lot along the way. He’s a lover of new cocktails and old records. He can be found on twitter at @boonerang and he’d love to swap stories over a beverage.

Mark has been working as a creative professional and technologist for nearly twenty years, partnering with Fortune 100/500 companies and non-profits to craft meaningful experiences for digital UIs and ecosystems in new technologies. He shares his thoughts as an international speaker and writer. In his personal life Mark is a daily meditator, soccer addict, father of five, and husband of one.