Geoff Ball, M.S., Ph.D. 

Geoff Ball works with a wide range of clients in situations that are often complex, technical, conflict-laden, multi-jurisdictional, and that involve varying numbers of people from small working groups to large conferences and public meetings.

Geoff coined the phrase ‘Group Memory’ – a concept that contributed to the development of Facilitation as a system that enables groups to work together effectively. He played an integral part in the development of “Group Graphics,” a technique that uses large wall charts to enable people to see the big picture and relationships among diverse elements.

Recently he has focused on SmartGroups™ - building the capability of all members of working groups to understand and fully participate in collaborative work.

Scott Elrod is Manager of the Hardware Systems Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Dr. Elrod has provided technical leadership to a number of printing hardware projects, including a novel inkjet technology based on focused ultrasonics. He has also contributed broadly to ubiquitous computing research, including the invention of novel input devices for large-area displays and a smart office demonstration.

Prior to his current role, Dr. Elrod served as a Director at SEMATECH, the consortium of semiconductor manufacturers.

Dr. Elrod received his A.B. degree in Physics from Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana in 1981, and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1985. While at Stanford, he built the world's first low-temperature tunneling microscope.

Markus Fromherz is Manager of the Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), as well as a PARC Principal Engineer. The laboratory's focus is on advanced reasoning and interaction technologies that enable people to explore, explain, and control the physical and virtual world we live in. The laboratory performs research and development in cognitive science, user interfaces, image content extraction, natural language processing, and intelligent reasoning for embedded systems.

Fromherz joined PARC in 1992. His research interests are in the domain of intelligent embedded software, in particular constraint-based modeling, model-based planning, scheduling, and control, and model-based design analysis and optimization. He has led and contributed to several research, development, and technology transfer efforts on intelligent control systems for Xerox. Fromherz received his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1991 from the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and his M.S. in Computer Science in 1987 from ETH Zurich. He is author or co-author of 35 articles published in scientific journals and conferences. He has presented 17 invited talks and also co-authored more than 40 patents and patent applications.

Naomi Fine, Esq.

Naomi Fine, Esq., President and CEO of Pro-Tec Data, founded the firm in 1985 to help companies manage and protect confidential information and intellectual property. Since Pro-Tec Data's inception, Ms. Fine has served as its principal consultant, incorporating legal, computer security, corporate security, human resource and audit disciplines. Ms. Fine's depth of knowledge comes from working with hundreds of world-class companies to identify sensitive information, assess needs for protecting it, develop tailored strategies, establish policies and procedures, and provide training and tools that secure competitive advantage.

Ms. Fine has embodied her more than 20 years of consulting expertise into the IP Protection Platform™, an automated, comprehensive, software-based, turnkey solution for managing and protecting information and intellectual property. Ms. Fine's interactive, multimedia Queen of Confidentiality™ Web Site won first place in the prestigious 1999 American Society for Industrial Security competition for information protection tools.

Pro-Tec Data's clients include many Fortune 500 companies, such as 3Com, Apple Computer, Caterpillar, Charles Schwab, Eastman Kodak, International Paper, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, MCI, McDonald's, Michelin, Mobil Oil, National Semiconductor, Nortel Networks, PECO Energy, Procter & Gamble, Ralston Purina, Rockwell International, SC Johnson Wax, Seagate, Sun Microsystems, Visa and Xerox. Ms. Fine is extolled by clients as being "a class act", "in the Top 1%", and "among the most articulate and thoughtful of consultants".

Ms. Fine has been cited by Fortune, Business Week, Time Magazine, USA Today, The New York Times Cybertimes, the LA Times and the Industry Standard as a leading expert in her field. KICU TV featured Ms. Fine in the CEO Profile segment of their Silicon Valley Business program. Ms. Fine's work for MCI, Apple Computer and Tandem Computers has been described as exemplary in industry trade journals, including The Personnel Journal, The Sales & Marketing Management Magazine, and Security Management Magazine. Ms. Fine has been the featured subject of articles in California Law Business and the Security Management Bulletin. Ms. Fine is the author of several published articles, which are frequently cited in the field of information and intellectual property protection.

An authoritative and enthusiastic speaker, Ms. Fine has been featured by many industry associations, including the American Electronics Association, the American Society for Industrial Security, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, the Information Systems Security Association, the Practising Law Institute, the Computer Security Institute, the EDP Auditors Association, the Association of Records Managers and Administrators, the High Technology Crime Investigators Association, the Trade Secret Law Institute, and the Risk and Insurance Managers Conference. Ms. Fine has been a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) accredited speaker for the American Corporate Counsel Association and has served as a guest lecturer for Golden Gate University's Information Security Certificate Program. Ms. Fine is a former member of the National Standing Committee on Safeguarding Proprietary Information for the American Society for Industrial Security.

Ms. Fine has served as a member of the Board of Directors of several start-up companies, including 3D Joe Corporation, Regent Solutions and The AquaStroller Company, in which she holds an inventor's patent.

Prior to founding Pro-Tec Data, Ms. Fine was a business attorney counseling high technology companies on protection, licensing and other transactions related to intellectual property. Ms. Fine left the practice of law in 1985 to found Pro-Tec Data and assist companies with the practical, logistical and organizational aspects of protecting information and intellectual property.

Sandra Florstedt, M.A., M.P.H.,

Sandra Florstedt is well known in the Bay Area for her creative yet practical work with business groups facing daunting challenges. She is a founder of the Bay Area Organization Development Network and a frequent presenter. 

Sandra held management positions at Hewlett-Packard, Kaiser Permanente, and the City of Palo Alto before starting up a consulting practice to address high stakes and complex human business dilemmas. Her innovations in tools, templates and organizational processes led her to join Geoff and Simon in the development of SmartGroups™.

Yolanda Harris

She is the Information Protection Program Manager for Sun Microsystems’s Intellectual Property Law Group. She is responsible for the drafting of corporate policies and procedures to protect Sun's valuable information assets. She is also responsible for creating global training programs to promote information protection awareness at Sun. Ms. Harris has worked in the area of Information Protection at Sun for the past five years strategizing the program and investigating any allegations of misappropriations.

She has been instrumental in organizing an association of Information Protection professionals in Silicon Valley who strive to create best practices and Benchmarking around Intellectual Property Protections. Ms. Harris received her undergraduate degree from Loyola University and received her law degree from New College School of Law.

Michele Jackman is the owner of Michele Jackman Enteprises and Adventures, and has been a practitioner of Organizational Development since 1980. She was an innovative leader in governmental roles, as well as corporate roles, and received many awards for her achievements. She has been working with various international organizations in the Bay Area, and specializes in building healthier relationships as a "paid strategist", coach, and trainer. Michele is the Co-author of Star Teams, Players, 1991. She has been an instructor in Organizational Psychology at UCSB, and she teaches courses on "cultures" for innovation, and strategic thinking for various UC Extension campuses, and is an international motivational speaker. She has consulted for various publishing companies. Clients include the Fortune 500, and the "Less Fortunate 5000."

Dr. Prasad Kaipa

Dr. Kaipa is an advisor and CEO coach for 15 years and has worked with companies like Adobe, Boeing, BAE Systems, Cisco, Disney, Ford, HP, Mastek, Navteq, Pepsi, Polaris and Xerox. He specializes in working with companies in the areas of innovation, business transformation and transformational leadership. He has been academic director of executive education programs in Indian School of Business and teaches part time in the Saybrook Graduate School. Prasad has co-founded the TiE Institute for entrepreneurs where over 3000 entrepreneurs have participated in past three years. He has been on the board of Society for Organizational Learning, Ankhen, Hindu University of North America and Intertec Communications.

Jonathan Littman is a bestselling author, acclaimed journalist, public speaker and consultant who writes and speaks about innovation, design, high-technology and business.

The co-author of the new Ten Faces of Innovation with Tom Kelley of IDEO, (Doubleday, November 2005) Mr. Littman also co-authored the bestselling business classic, The Art of Innovation. His seven books include We Shall Not Fail, The Inspiring Leadership of Winston Churchill, and two non-fiction volumes on legendary computer hackers, The Watchman, and The Fugitive Game, the story of Kevin Mitnick.

A frequent corporate speaker, Mr. Littman has appeared as a commentator and guest on Talk of the Nation, Fresh Air, CNN, Fox & Friends, and many other radio and television programs. His articles have appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Playboy, Upside and Forbes, and his books have been published in thirteen languages. Mr. Littman has been featured in Newsweek, Time and the New Yorker, and four of his books and articles have been optioned for film.

A partner in the Sausalito branding studio Simmer, Mr. Littman has worked on projects for clients such as SanDisk and Garmin International. A two-time winner of the national Computer Press Association Award for best feature, Mr. Littman received a Bachelor's degree in Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley.

Teresa Lunt is Manager of the Computing Science Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) as well as a PARC Principal Scientist. The laboratory has a wide range of activities including ubiquitous computing, computer and network security and privacy, print controllers, and life science technology.

Before joining PARC, Lunt was Assistant Director and Program Manager in DARPA's Information Technology Office, where she launched programs to fund research in computer and network security. Earlier, at SRI International, she led teams in the development of the first intrusion detection system and secure database system.

Lunt received an M.A. in Applied Mathematics from Indiana University and an A.B. in Geophysics from Princeton University.

Josh Makower, M.D. is a Consulting Associate Professor at Stanford University Medical School and is Co-Director of Stanford's Biodesign Innovation Program. Dr. Makower is also the Founder and CEO of ExploraMed II, Inc., a medical device incubator based on the west coast and is Founder and Chairman of the Board of Acclarent, a company focused on a new set of treatments in the field of ENT. He is a Venture Partner with New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and works with the NEA med-team focusing on the medical technology and healthcare area. . Prior to this, he was Founder, Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of TransVascular, Inc., a company focused on the development of a completely catheter-based coronary bypass technology. TransVascular was acquired by Medtronic, Inc. in 2003. He was also Founder and Chairman of EndoMatrix, Inc., a company focused on the development of a novel therapy for incontinence and GI Reflux. EndoMatrix was acquired by C.R. Bard, Inc. in 1997.

Up until 1995, Dr. Makower was Founder and Manager of Pfizer's Strategic Innovation Group, chartered to create new medical device technologies and businesses for Pfizer, Inc. Dr. Makower holds over three dozen patents for various medical devices in the fields of cardiology, general surgery, drug delivery and urology. He has an M.B.A. from Columbia University, an M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine, and a S.B. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Makower also serves on the Board of Directors for Intrinsic Therapeutics, Inc. and ReVance Therapeutics, Inc.

Damon C. Matteo joined PARC in 2003 as the Vice President of Intellectual Capital Management. He leads all of PARC's intellectual property (IP) operations, including IP Creation, IP Legal, and external licensing relationships. Specializing in leading-edge technology, Mr. Matteo has over fifteen years direct experience developing and implementing intellectual capital management strategies. He brings to PARC extensive experience in the full-spectrum management of corporate intellectual capital assets, from optimizing their creation and capture, to extracting value from them through vehicles such as licensing and spin-outs.

Prior to taking his current role, Mr. Matteo led Hewlett-Packard's world-class licensing organization, directing intellectual property licensing for the entire corporation. Mr. Matteo worked previously with PARC as the Xerox Licensing Manager in charge of IP licensing for PARC, Xerox’s European Research Centers, and intellectual capital aspects of Xerox’s spin-out and M&A activities. Before joining Xerox, Mr. Matteo served as president of Savanteque Incorporated, a technology management consulting firm specializing in intellectual capital management. His international experience includes several years of living in Europe and in Japan, where he directed technology licensing and strategic alliances for several of the countries' largest computer manufacturers. In addition to his private sector work, Mr. Matteo has led licensing efforts for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the University of California.

Matthew E. May

For twenty years Matt has worked with senior management teams to drive change and guide innovation in their organizations. He does this by embedding strong workplace routines for drawing out great ideas and converting them into action, then capturing and leveraging the new knowledge across the company. This is what Matt calls learning, hence the name of his firm, Aevitas Learning – aevitas is Latin for lifelong.

Matt has been fortunate to work with world class organizations such as Toyota, Lexus, Wells Fargo, Nextel, Nissan, Infiniti, Dial, Department of Defense, LAPD, Quadrant Homes, Sierra Pacific, and J.D. Power & Associates. His subject matter expertise is in systems thinking, complex problem-solving, and rapid learning.

Matt received an M.B.A., The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), 1985 and a B.A., The Johns Hopkins University, 1981.

Matt is a contributing author to the Financial Times Handbook of Management (Prentice-Hall, 2004). He is the author of the forthcoming book The Elegant Solution from Simon & Schuster/Free Press (2006). He has written articles included in Wharton Leadership Digest, Quality Progress, Consulting to Management, Across the Board, Executive Excellence, 6SigmaLean (6L).

Matt is a Member, American Society for Quality, American Society for Training & Development, Author’s Guild, is an ASQ Certified Quality Auditor and is a Published/recorded songwriter.

2:00 Creating, Protecting, and Developing Innovation: James Pooley, Yolanda Harris, Bill Tobin and Simon Taylor: Panel Run by Pat Reilly.

Simon Pennington, M.A.,

Simon Pennington is an Art Historian by training with over 10 years experience teaching at the college level. He worked in the private sector in Europe in marketing and PR. All forms of communication fascinate Simon. He uses his skills as a designer and master teacher as a major contributor in the development of SmartGroups™.

James Pooley is a partner in Milbank’s Intellectual Property Group resident in the Palo Alto office. Mr. Pooley specializes in the litigation and trial of patent, trade secret, copyright, and technology-related commercial litigation, in state and federal courts, and before the International Trade Commission.

Mr. Pooley has practiced in Silicon Valley since 1973, establishing a national reputation as trial counsel in some of the most difficult and high visibility cases involving intellectual property. His successful patent infringement defense of Adobe Systems was recognized by the National Law Journal as the only IP case among its Top Defense Verdicts of 1997, and a record settlement for ESS Technology in a software copyright case led to his being honored as a 2003 Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer Magazine. Mr. Pooley is recognized in the Guide to the World's Leading Patent Law Experts and in Chambers’ America’s Leading Business Lawyers. He was also named one of California’s top 30 IP lawyers by the Los Angeles Daily Journal in 2005.

Mr. Pooley is author of the highly-regarded treatise Trade Secrets, as well as other leading texts and scores of professional publications in the field of intellectual property. He is a director and officer of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, where he will become President in 2007. Mr. Pooley teaches as an Adjunct Professor of Law in the IP program at the University of California’s Boalt Hall School of Law. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Intellectual Property Rights, and of the Northern District of California committee on pattern jury instructions for patent cases. Mr. Pooley conceived and scripted an instructional video for jurors in patent cases which was produced in 2002 by the Federal Judicial Center and is now used in courts throughout the United States.

Mr. Pooley graduated from Columbia School of Law as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar in 1973, and holds a Bachelor of Arts, with honors, from Lafayette College. Mr. Pooley has a working knowledge of French.

Simon Taylor embraces law, IP, and Innovation with a unique blend of skills that include roles as a corporate lawyer, principal in a technology and venture consulting company, and President and CEO of an NASD-licensed investment banking firm.

From 1988 to 2004, Simon was a partner and attorney with the law firm Snow Becker Krauss in NYC. In 1995, Simon founded a venture capital advisory firm and became of counsel with Snow Becker.

In 2004, Simon started his own law firm. He serves as President and CEO of the NASD broker-dealer investment bank ACN Securities Inc., which has offices in New York and Sausalito, California. He is also founding principal and member of a consulting firm that focuses on technology commercialization and venture opportunities with U.S. national laboratories and strategic partners and investors in the U.S. and Japan. His areas of expertise include corporate, securities, and broker-dealer law, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions and the financing, development, distribution and commercial exploitation of technology and intellectual property, including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices, information and computer technology, telecommunications and media. Simon graduated from Columbia College in 1974 (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude and John Jay Scholar), and from Harvard Law School in 1979. He is admitted to practice law in New York and Florida. Simon was born in England and grew up in Palo Alto, California.

Bill Tobin manages practice development as Director of the Emerging Company Services (ECS) Group for PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Bay Area. There, he serves as a central contact for PwC services to VCs and venture-backed start-up companies. He also acts as a resource for other early stage companies, including business plan and investor presentation reviews, referrals to financing and service provider sources, and help in developing teams. Prior to joining PwC, Bill spent the past twelve years working with start-up companies, most recently as CEO of DotRocket, a Campbell-based networking company. Before co-founding DotRocket, he was a founder and CTO of MediaFlex, a Web-based print procurement software company. 

Previous to that, Bill worked in a variety of business development roles with Sun Microsystems and 3DO and in engineering and product development roles with 3DO, RasterOps, Ampex and Intel. He has also been an independent business consultant and coach since 1990 and continues in an advisory role for various clients in the media, content delivery and networking arenas.

Bill has a BSEE from the Drexel University and has completed post-graduate engineering and business studies at Stanford University and the University of California. He is an advisor and the past chairman of the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab, an advisor at the Entrepreneurs Foundation and the Software Development Forum, a member of the Foothill-DeAnza College Chancellor’s Commission, a member of the San Jose Leadership Council, and also is active in a variety of other Bay Area organizations that work with entrepreneurs and early stage companies. Bill has also taught classes, given seminars or moderated panel sessions at Stanford, Santa Clara University, San Jose State and the Software Development Forum.