The term "user-generated content" can often describe skateboard pranks and lip-synch videos. But these creators have built SuperBowl commercials, have landed mainstream TV projects, and are doing more to move the creative needle than many stable mainstream brands and properties. How can you harness this talent? Who's embracing this change, and who stands to lose the most if they don't? How does this bring money together?

Colin Decker, director of content and programming for Yahoo! Video, oversees the strategy, development and programming of content for Yahoo! Video. Colin is responsible for delivering a premium video experience that serves a diverse range of consumers and content publishers, including Yahoo!’s partners, advertisers and original content producers.



Prior to joining Yahoo!, Colin served as online executive producer, during the development and launch of Current TV, a home cable network and Web destination chaired by former Vice President Al Gore. While there, Colin developed Current TV’s user-generated content experience, online video training tools and groundbreaking V-CAM (Viewer-Created Ad Message) program. Prior to working at Current TV, Colin produced and directed several documentaries, commercials and musical works for clients such as Goodyear, Volkswagen, Artisan Entertainment and Dreamworks. Colin has taught storytelling and film criticism at Boston University and Harvard.



Colin holds a Bachelor of Arts in studio art and English literature from Bowdoin College as well as a Master of Fine Arts in film from Boston University.

Mike Hudack is a co-founder of blip.tv and serves as the company's president and CEO. He is responsible for blip.tv's overall business strategy, focusing in particular on community relations along with syndication, distribution and advertising partnerships.

Prior to blip.tv, Mike worked as a developer and administrator for the National Hockey League, where he managed the team responsible for one of the biggest IT projects in the history of the League — consolidating and re-developing the NHL's internal applications, which serve hundreds of employees using dozens of technologies. Mike also developed the content management system for NHL.com and redesigned the software used to bring scores and statistics from dozens of simulraneous hockey games to fans in real-time.

Mike has spoken at SXSW, Streaming Media West, Beyond Broadcast, the Open Media Developers Summit, TelcoTV and dozens of other conferences and has served as a guest lecturer at NYU and elsewhere as an expert on video, blogging and citizen journalism. He has created and maintained more than a half dozen independent media projects, including warstories:CC, warblogs:CC and the Index of Evil. His independent projects have been covered by the Washington Post, USA Today, the PBS Newshour, NPR and Forbes, among others.

Noah Otalvaro leads the business development, information technology and marketing strategies for Barrio 305. He is also one of the founding members of WallStreet Electronica, an online broker dealer that is privately held and that has been ranked among the top online brokers by Barron's for the past ten years. He was responsible for the development and implementation of WallStreet Electronica's IT infrastructure -- managing the data center operations, network design & connectivity, and development of the firm's proprietary online trading platform. He also led business development and marketing initiatives for WallStreet Electronica. Noah graduated from Boston College in 1991 with a degree in Psychology.

Antonio Otalvaro, a graduate of Pratt Institute in New York, is the Chief Creative Officer and Producer for Barrio 305. Following his graduation he worked as a freelance editorial illustrator and as a creative assistant at McCann Erickson and DMB&B. His most notable work as an illustrator was a highly prestigious commission to showcase the Advertising Club of New York's Andy Awards Annual in 1996. In that same period his work as a designer was also recognized when he was selected to participate in the Art Director's Club first ever exhibition of "New York's Most Wanted Young Gun's" exhibit. Following these accomplishments he was invited to contribute as a conceptual artist at Fabrica, the Benetton Think Tank in Italy. Antonio worked directly under Oliviero Toscani, the individual responsible for Benetton's controversial campaigns throughout the 80's and 90's. While at Fabrica, Antonio developed communication strategies for entities such as Greenpeace and the United Nations. Following his residency at Fabrica, he was offered the highly coveted position of Creative Editor (combination of Editor in Chief and Creative Director) for Benetton's Colors Magazine. At the time, the Colors circulation was 400,000, with distribution in seventy-five countries and produced in eight different languages. During that period Antonio produced issues 29 Heart, 30 Water and 31 Night. Upon his return to the United States Antonio made the switch from print media to digital media when he joined his brother's at WallStreet Electronica to lead the design team and develop marketing strategies for the online broker dealer.