Mike Shatzkin is Founder & CEO of The Idea Logical Company. During more than 40 years in publishing, he has played almost all the roles: bookstore clerk, author, agent, production director, sales and marketing director, and, for the past 30 years, consultant. His client list has included most of the major publishers in the United States and many outside the US, as well as a variety of up- and downstream trading partners, many somehow involved with new technology area.

Since co-organizing the first “Electronic Publishing and Rights” Conference sponsored by PW in the early 1990s, Mike has been speaking and writing and fostering discussion about digital change. He is the Conference Chair for Digital Book World, which held its debut conference in January 2010. The focus there was on trade publishing and there was a very different attendee base than comes to Tools of Change.

As we approach Tools of Change 2010, Mike is planning the next Making Information Pay conference (May 6) for Book Industry Study Group and getting started on organizing Digital Book World 2011. But what he’s most looking forward to is 6 baseball games in 5 days at Spring Training in Florida over the first weekend in March.

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Laura Dawson is a 20-year veteran of the book industry, specializing in its technology issues. She has worked at Doubleday, Muze, Barnes & Noble.com, SirsiDynix, and as an independent consultant whose clients have included the Book Industry Study Group, Ingram Library Services, Audible, IBS/Bookmaster North America, McGraw-Hill, Harvard University Press, Yale University Press, Lexis-Nexis, Cosimo Books, and Dial-A-Book.

Laura blogs daily at the LJNDawson Blog. Check there for frequent updates on technology, publishing, bookselling, libraries, and gossip.

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A publishing veteran with 25 years of consulting, management and operational experience, Mr. O’Leary is founder and principal of Magellan Consulting Partners, whose clients include major media firms as well as smaller and not-for-profit entities with significant publishing and media commitments.

The firm’s practice areas include operational improvement, revenue development, market analysis and business planning. Work done by the firm most often results in both immediate and mid-term changes in processes, structures and in some cases technologies used to produce client content. For Magellan clients, Mr. O’Leary has also written several business plans to guide start-up and growth opportunities.

Prior to starting Magellan Media, Mr. O’Leary served as senior VP and associate publisher with Hammond Inc., an internationally recognized geographic reference publisher. Responsible for editorial content, database development, production and operations, Mr. O’Leary restructured editorial operations to benefit from the firm’s prior technology investments. He also substantially increased the pace of the company’s new-product development efforts.

Before Hammond, Mr. O’Leary directed operations at several of Time Inc.’s weekly magazines and was part of the team that launched Entertainment Weekly. He joined the firm in 1983, after earning an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Mr. O’Leary also holds an A.B. in chemistry from Harvard College.

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Ted Hill is President of THA Consulting which provides business development services for publishers and the information industries. With more than 20 years’ experience in the publishing industry, he has launched dozens of new businesses and business initiatives within a broad spectrum of companies ranging from major trade houses, to leading internet companies, to raw startups. Always at the intersection of content and technology, Ted currently serves on the board of directors of the Book Industry Study Group and often speaks at industry conferences and events.

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