Susannah Gardner is the co‐founder and creative director of Hop Studios Internet Consultants (www.hopstudios.com), a Web design company specializing in custom Web solutions for content publishers.
Susannah is also a freelance writer and author; she is the author of Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies, co‐author of BitTorrent For Dummies, Dreamweaver MX 2004 For Dummies, and Teach Yourself Visually: Dreamweaver MX 2004, all from Wiley Publishing.
From 1997 to 2003, Susannah was an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California School for Communication, where she taught in the School of Journalism. Her classes in online publishing took students from zero to Web site in a semester.
Prior to running Hop Studios, Susannah worked in the Online Journalism and Communication Program at the University of Southern California, writing curriculum, teaching, and conducting research at the intersection of technology and journalism. She was a senior editor of the Online Journalism Review (www.ojr.org), the media industry's only Internet‐focused journalism publication. Susannah also spent four years at The Los Angeles Times, one of six editors responsible for launching that newspaper's Web site. During her time at LATimes.com she established the site's multimedia lab, which produced ground‐breaking Web audio, video and animation. She also launched and edited MetaHollywood, an online‐only publication that covered new Hollywood technology and was LATimes.com's single largest revenue source in 1998.
Susannah earned bachelor's degrees in Print Journalism and American literature at USC. Today she is pursuing a master's degree in Public Art Studies, examining issues that cross the traditional of boundaries of Internet publishing, journalism and art. To learn more about her Web design company, visit www.hopstudios.com. Susannah keeps a poorly updated personal blog at www.unfavorablepink.com.
Shane Birley is a Vancouver‐based Web developer, creative writer and blog consultant with more than 14 years of experience in developing Web sites. In January 2006, he co‐founded Left Right Minds Initiatives with his partner Allyson McGrane.
Left Right Minds is a creative solutions company for nonprofit societies, charities, and businesses. The business evolved from Shane's work with developing Web sites (through his previous company, Vicious Bunny Creative) and Allyson's ongoing work with nonprofit arts groups. Both partners have experience giving workshops about their areas of expertise and in training others to use new technology and business skills. In addition to Web development, the company manages and represents performing artists with the support of the Canada Council for The Arts.
As a partner in Left Right Minds, Shane is now working to develop Web sites using content management systems that let his clients edit and update their own Web content. He regularly gives workshops on blogging and did extensive research for BitTorrent For Dummies. Shane has a background in improvisational theatre and a B.A. in English — these qualifications enable him to translate difficult computing concepts into easy plain language. To learn more about his Web company, visit www.leftrightminds.com. He also writes a personal blog at www.shanesworld.ca.