Mike Dover

Mike Dover is a highly-connected research executive with more than a decade's experience leading New Paradigm, a world-class think tank. He was a member of the senior management team that built the think tank's business and reputation to make it an attractive target (acquired by nGenera in 2007).

In his book, Wikibrands: Reinventing Your Business in a Customer-Driven Marketplace, Dover investigates how companies are using technology to enable meaningful conversations with their customers and was named one of the top 10 business books on Booklist in 2011.

Dover was responsible for operations, content quality, and client management for $10 million, multi-year research studies on the intersections among technology, business strategy and society. He led more than 100 professionals over the course of the programs. The research in these programs formed the basis for the bestselling books Wikinomics: Mass Collaboration Changes Everything and Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. These projects were funded by senior executives at Global 2000 companies such as IBM, Cisco, Procter & Gamble, Federal Express, Disney, and Accenture.

Dover has written dozens of white papers and reports, mostly on the subjects of generational theory, the relationship of technology to business models, and popular culture. He currently contributes to Richard Florida's "Creative Class" blog.

As an experienced public speaker and panelist, Dover has delivered dozens of highly-rated speeches about the role of technology, generations in the workplace, and popular culture.

1. Wikibrands

Based on the ground-breaking book Wikibrands: Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace (Co-authored by Mike Dover and Sean Moffitt), this presentation discusses how companies can deploy technology to include customers in discussions about their brands in a meaningful way.

The presentation will discuss:

From leading mass media stalwarts Nike, Frito-Lay, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble, to digital enterprises Cisco, Microsoft and Sun, to customer experience experts Westjet, Best Buy and Starbucks, to turnaround successes Dell and Ford, to loveable underdogs Method, PEMCO, Dave's Killer Bread and Fiskars and to wide-eyed startups like Freshbooks, Stormhoek and Zappos the presentation will look under the hood and chronicle the practices of these model companies. The currency at play within these companies is no longer mass communication and passive consumption but customer participation and genuine brand engagement.

1. The Net Generation as Customer and Employee

The Net Generation (the oldest born in 1977) was the first to grow up surrounded by digital technology (or "bathed in bits"). This immersion in technology dramatically affected the way these young people think, work, communicate, and play. They operate differently in the workplace and the marketplace. This presentation will describe the key findings from the multi-million dollar research program that formed the basis for Grown Up Digital by Don Tapscott (Dover was the research director). The study validated the following norms of the Net Generation.

The presentation will describe how each of these norms manifests for the Net Gen as employees and as consumers.

1. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Lessons from the bestselling book authored by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams (Dover led the $4 million research program that formed the basis for the book).

Wikinomics describes the phenomenon of mass collaboration enabled by interactive technology. Billions of people connected through the Internet self-organize into a powerful collective force. Examples in the presentation come from business, industry, government and society. It can be customized to provide examples from whichever industry is most relevant to the audience.

1. Harnessing Social Media

This presentation will describe the social media phenomenon including its roots, current status and future. The audience will learn about best practice cases of how corporations can deploy social media as well as the best way to build their personal brand. Case examples will be customized to suit the audience.

Also included in the presentation are:

*What are the most important Social Media platforms?

*What are the key performance metrics for you Social Media?

*What characteristics should a Community Manager possess?