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Keynote Speaker -
Jackie Huba
"Creating Online Learning Evangelists"
Author Jackie Huba knows how to take your organization’s best people and energize them into influential, loyal and enthusiastic evangelists highlighting your courses, products and services. Jackie’s research of best practices into passionate “customer” loyalty will change the way you think about getting the word out on your programs. Learn how to ignite a fire and spread the word with your teachers, parents and students, while transforming your own organization. Take advantage of the energy and evangelism to help change the future course of education.
About Jackie Huba
Since 2001, Jackie Huba has been researching the effects of word of mouth on customer loyalty. Forbes calls her work (along with partner Ben McConnell) "the word of mouth gospel."
Jackie is the author (with Ben McConnell) of "Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message," for which the Wall Street Journal proclaimed "drop everything and read this book." She is also the author of "Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force," which the New York Times called "the new mantra for entrepreneurial success." She is also the co-author of the Church of the Customer blog.
"Creating Customer Evangelists" has been translated into six languages and "customer evangelism," the term she coined with Ben McConnell, has become a talking point and focus for countless companies around the world.
As a speaker and business advisor, Jackie has worked with Microsoft, Ulta, Discovery Education, Yahoo and Verio as well as thousands of small and medium businesses at association conferences. Previously, Jackie led B2B marketing efforts for 12 years at IBM in its software division. She is a past board member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and a graduate of Penn State University.
Her work in researching passionate customer loyalty has been profiled by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fortune, Businessweek, U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times, Fast Company and several thousand blogs.
Luncheon Keynote - Gene Wilhoit
"Why Online Learning is Important to States"
Gene Wilhoit is the Executive Director of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in Washington, DC. CCSSO is the leading organization of our state superintendents, commissioners and the heads of the state departments of education in the United States. CCSSO provides leadership, advocacy, and technical assistance on major educational issues. The Council seeks member consensus on major educational issues and expresses their views to civic and professional organizations, federal agencies, Congress, and the public.
Gene will provide an important national and state perspective on the most important issues in American education today and how online learning and virtual schools are solutions. Gene will share his broad vision for online learning and the future of education.
About Gene Wilhoit
Currently executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), Gene Wilhoit began his career as a social studies teacher in Ohio and Indiana. He served as a program director in the Indiana Department of Education, an administrator in Kanawha County West Virginia, and a special assistant in the U.S. Department of Education before becoming executive director of the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) from 1986–1993. From 1994‐2006, Gene served as director of the Arkansas Department of Education and as deputy commissioner and commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Education. In those positions, he shepherded finance reform, led equity initiatives, designed and implemented assessment and accountability systems, advanced nationally recognized preschool and technology programs, and reorganized state agencies to focus on service and support.
Gene holds degrees from Georgetown College and Indiana University. He is a member of numerous education organizations, has served on national and state commissions, and has written and spoken on a host of education issues. He and his wife, Rebecca Campbell Wilhoit, have three children, Christopher, Kara and Jason.
Symposium Welcome and Address
Susan Patrick, CEO of NACOL
Susan Patrick was named the President and Chief Executive Officer of the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) in September 2005.
She is the former Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. As Director, she published the National Education Technology Plan, Toward a New Golden Age in American Education: How the Internet, the Law and Today’s Students Are Revolutionizing Expectations in January 2005. Patrick managed the federal government’s educational technology policies and produced two Secretary’s Technology Leadership Summits: Empowering Accountability and Assessment Through Technology and Increasing Options through E-Learning. She served as Co-chair of the federal government’s Advanced Technologies Working Group for Education and Training; and served as a member of the Secretary’s Rural Education Task Force.
Patrick served Governor Jane Dee Hull of the State of Arizona as Strategic Communications Manager and legislative liaison. She managed legislative technology policy, media and strategic communications for the Government Information Technology Agency. She received the 2001 Governor’s Spirit of Excellence Recognition Award for the Telecommunications Open Partnerships for Arizona (TOPAZ) initiative.
In the late 1990s, Patrick was Site Director for Old Dominion University’s TELETECHNET program, managing a distance learning campus in Richmond, Virginia and opened the first site in Arizona. She taught as an Adjunct Faculty.
Patrick holds a master’s degree from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles and a bachelor’s degree from the Colorado College.
Patrick was the first woman to play in the men’s intramural football league at the Colorado College.
Susan Patrick has published articles and appeared on national news media such as CNN, Forbes, Newsweek, USA Today, US News and World Report, ABC News, NBC, CBS, Christian Science Monitor, CSPAN2, Computerworld, National Public Radio, Education Week, eSchool News, Converge, American School Board Journal, Educational Technology Journal and numerous other publications.