Panelist Bios

Nick Finck (Moderator)

Nick Finck is an 11-year veteran of the Web and considered a Web craftsman by trade. His skills traverse Web design, Web development, user research, Web analysis, information architecture, and Web publishing. Nick founded his first Web consultancy in 1994 in Portland, Oregon and has since created Web experiences for various Fortune 50 and 500 companies including Adobe, Boeing, Blue Cross / Blue Shield, Cisco, CitiGroup, FDIC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, PBS, Peet's Coffee, and others. Currently Nick is the Director of User Experience at Blue Flavor in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of numerous Web design-related articles for various publications and founder and publisher of Digital Web Magazine, "The Web professional's online magazine of choice." He has participated as a judge for several prestigious Web awards in the industry. He has built a reputation as a community volunteer, where he helps promote growth within the Web industry both locally and abroad. You can find Nick giving workshops and lectures for the industry's leading organizations and universities.

James Archer

James Archer is the founder and CEO of Forty Media Corporation, a Phoenix-based web production firm. He's also the CEO of Fruitcast, the first major podcast advertising platform. His diverse professional experience includes nearly every aspect of web production and interactive marketing: brand consulting, design, development, programming, information architecture, interface design, project management, documentation, and teaching. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, National Public Radio, and numerous industry publications. In his free time, James enjoys photography, travel, and spending time with his awesome wife and son.

Michael Buffington

Michael Buffington is an author and technology consultant who has recently been doing a lot of Ruby on Rails projects. He's been building web applications for himself and others for over ten years and is currently working on an idea that started years ago, a massive online game called llor.nu. Michael has been creating things from his beginning. From the recreation of Disneyland in his neighbor's backyard to his most recent projects, Michael's pursuit has always been towards making clever tools and toys. In 1998 he cofounded Price.com which quickly became a leader in price comparison shopping on the Internet. In 2001, he left to pursue consulting, wrote a book, and began speaking about ColdFusion, a web application language. The freedom of consulting has allowed him to work from home and pursue personal interests as well as help clientswith their projects. Beyond consulting and making toys, Michael enjoys skateboarding, photography, illustration, his two kids, his wife, and the beautiful Portland, Oregon area where they live. He's been saying embarrassingthings on his blog for at least seven years at michaelbuffington.com.

Leonard Lin

Leonard Lin is a co-founder of Upcoming.org, now a Yahoo! company. Since 1999, he's been blogging at randomfoo.net.

academia, ajax, art, authx, bbs, blogging, business, consumption cycle, critical theory, culture, design, digital id, elgg, fp, gtd, hacktivism, implicit metadata, indie, inference, interaction design, internet2, iterative, life hacks, lunix, media, model, nerdcore, new media, osx, play, poststructuralism, public policy, relationship management, semiotics, semweb, social psychology, socsw, sso, strategy, tagging, technorealist, usc, ux, worse is better

Veerle Pieters

Veerle Pieters started in 1992 as a freelance graphic designer under the name of Duoh!. The first 3 years were mainly filled with print orientated work such as logos and stationary. From 1995 onward, designing websites and user interfaces for Intranets together with multimedia development was her main focus. In 2000 Veerle founded Duoh! n.v. (n.v. is the equivalent of an inc.) together with Geert Leyseele. Veerle is the CEO of Duoh! n.v. and lives in Deinze, Belgium a small but beautiful country in the heart of Europe. During those past years Duoh! has been working for the Library of Congress in Washington DC for a project called "The Learning Page". An overview of all this work can be found here. In 2003 Veerle discovered Web Standards after seeing the Zen Garden and the work of Douglas Bowman. Since then she never looked back and is actively promoting the benefits through her personal journal. Veerle is the author of Veerle's blog, an online journal started in September 2003. It's a source for a wide range of topics going from XHTML/CSS to graphic design tips and personal impressions.