Dave Evans is the vice president of social strategy at Lithium Technologies, based in Austin, Texas. Dave was a cofounder of Austin-based Social Dynamx, acquired by Lithium in 2012. Dave is the author of the best-selling Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day as well as Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement.

Dave has worked in social technology consulting and development around the world, including HP, BSkyB, Yahoo!, Swisscom, DISH, Comcast and Time Warner.

Dave is a regular writer for ClickZ, where he publishes his column on the business application of social media and social technology.

Previously, Dave was a product manager with Progressive Insurance and a systems analyst with NASA | Jet Propulsion Labs. Dave cofounded Digital Voodoo, a web technology consultancy, in 1994. Dave holds a BS in physics and mathematics from the State University of New York/Brockport and has served on the Advisory Board for ad:tech and the Measurement and Metrics Council with WOMMA.

You can contact Dave via Twitter (@evansdave) and LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/evansdave) and read more about customer care and its impact on marketing at his blog, ReadThis.com.

In almost two decades of work, Joe Cothrel, chief community officer at Lithium Technologies, has arguably touched more customer-facing social efforts than anyone in the world. More than 300 companies on four continents—including AT&T, British Telecom, Best Buy, IBM, SONY, and PayPal—have benefited from his advice and guidance, and he has trained nearly 500 social media managers in the certification program he created and runs.

A specialist in social media management and measurement, Joe calls on 10 years of prior experience in management consulting at Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young. He has shared the results of his work in such publications as MIT Sloan Management Review, Strategy & Leadership, and the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.

In addition to his work with clients, Joe has devoted significant time to advancing the understanding of online communities in business: Joe has been quoted in CIO, Computerworld, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, and other publications, and his work has been cited in more than 50 books on the subjects of online communities, collaboration, commerce, and knowledge management.

You can contact Joe via Twitter (@cothrel) and LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/cothrel).