Speakers

Darren Rowse

Darren is the founder of ProBlogger, Digital Photography School and various other blogs. He’s been blogging since 2002 and has been involved in a variety of other projects including co-authoring ProBlogger the Book. Follow him on Twitter at @ProBlogger.

Darren will be involved in numerous sessions at the ProBlogger Training event in 2012 including the opening keynote, sessions on monetizing with eBooks, a case study on the recent Queensland Tourism partnership he did with ProBlogger and a session on using Email to drive traffic, build community and make money.

Chris Guillebeau

Chris Guillebeau travels the world and writes for a small army of remarkable people at chrisguillebeau.com. His latest book, The $100 Startup, provides a blueprint for readers to create their own freedom business by improving the lives of others. Follow his live updates from every country in the world at @ChrisGuillebeau

Chris will be involved in two sessions at the ProBlogger Training Event.

Closing Day 1 Keynote: Making Money and Changing the World through Blogging
How to create a sustainable income through blogging—the real story, with lots of examples and specific data. Attendees will walk away understanding what to do and what to avoid in their quest to monetize their blogs without “selling out.” 

Beyond the Ebook (Workshop)
How to meet different needs (and sell more to eager buyers) by offering different kinds of products to your readers. He’ll discuss pricing and at least six specific ways to ramp up income over the next year. 

Sarah Wilson

Sarah is an Australian media personality, journalist and blogger with an integrated voice across television, radio, magazines, newspapers and online. She’s the former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine and was the host of the first series of MasterChef Australia, the highest rating show in Australian TV history. Sarah is the host and program developer for the country’s newest channel Lifestyle YOU, where her TV show “Eat Yourself Sexy”(a nutrition and wellness makeover show) aired successfully in 2011. Sarah wrote over 100 weekly columns for Sunday Life magazine about how to have a better life, and is a regular guest on Sunrise, Good News Week, 7pm Project, and Sky.

Sarah is an adept social commentator, following a career that’s spanned politics, health advocacy, restaurant reviewing, opinion writing and trend forecasting. She’s also qualified as a Health Coach with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York, recently launched an ebook on quitting sugar which has helped over 20 000 people quit the sweet stuff, and is about to release a sugar-free e-cookbook in mid-2012.

Sarah will deliver the closing keynote at the ProBlogger training event. The title of her keynote is

The Ten Things that Worked: the simple, small things that turned me into a full-time(ish) blogger.

This keynote for the ProBlogger event will cover tricks Sarah picked up in her ‘old media’ roles that bloggers can use to fuel their brand and following. She’ll talk about writing tone techniques, branding, securing advertising revenue and much more.

Find Sarah at her blog at SarahWilson.com.au and on Twitter and Facebook.

Nicole Avery

Nicole Avery is the master organiser behind the popular parenting blog Planning With Kids, where she shares tips and tricks to organising the chaos of family life. Her first book Planning With Kids was released in May 2011 by Wright Books.

Nicole has been blogging for over four years and was named on of Melbourne’s most influential bloggers by The Age Melbourne magazine. The Planning With Kids blog attracts over 100,000 unique visitors a month. She is a sought after speaker and coach on areas from blogging, social media to home organisation and planning.

Nicole is also the mum to five beautiful kids aged 13 to 3 who keep her entertained away from the computer and provide constant inspiration for her blogging. She is also slightly addicted to spreadsheets, diet coke and running.

Nicole will be presenting on the topic of Monetizing Your Blog with Sponsored POsts

James Tuckerman

James Tuckerman is one of Australia’s most successful digital publishers. He’s an entrepreneur, angel investor, consultant and mentor. He is best known for launching Anthill Magazine, in 2003, from the spare bedroom of his parents’ home. He was then 26 years of age.

In 2004 and 2005, he was named Best Small Publisher in Australia by the ABA (now Publishers Australia). In early 2009, he reinvented the Anthill business model, abandoning its print origins in favour of a 100% digital product. Within six-months, AnthillOnline.com was listed by Nielsen Online Ratings among the Top 50 Business & Finance websites in Australia. Since then, he has launched numerous digital ventures and helped other companies, large and small, make the transition online or helped them significantly improve their online commercial outcomes. To contact James, go to LinkedIn.

James will be speaking on the topic of ‘Lubricate Your Mind’. During this opening address he will explore some of the inspiring, thought-provoking and just plain weird trends that are shaping the way that bloggers, marketers and digital professionals will interact with technology and services in the not to distant future.

Shayne Tilley

Shayne, the artist formerly know as The Web Marketing Ninja, is a regular on the ProBlogger team. Like a true ninja, he uses a combination of skill, judgment, discipline and more than ten years of industry experience to drive his approach or online marketing. 

Shayne’s loves working at the heart of growing online businesses. From product management and innovation through to monetization techniques, community development, support and social media.

With a reputation for professionalism and profits, it’s no surprise that the Shayne is practical, to-the-point, and applies a strong set of values to everything he does. He’s delighted to be able to help bloggers build lasting businesses with proven digital marketing techniques.

Shayne is proud to have authored The Bloggers Guide To Marketing, and Online Marketing Inside Out and can be found @Shaynet on twitter.

Shayne will be involved in a number of sessions at this year’s event including ‘An Introduction to Monetizing with Products and Services’ and a case study into how products are launched on Digital Photography School. This year he will not be wearing a ninja suit!

Jules Clancy

Jules Clancy loves food, especially veggies. She has a degree in Food Science and is the author of 5 ingredients 10 minutes. In early 2010 she left her job as a chocolate biscuit designer to focus on blogging full time at www.theStonesoup.com.

Jules will be presenting on the topic of building income to your site through offering courses and membership areas.

Stan Lee

Stan’s blog Brand DNA derives its name from his belief that a brand thrives and succeeds by staying true to the principles and beliefs at the core of its DNA.

It’s an area he knows well, as a multi award winning Creative Director of advertising and digital agencies in both London and Melbourne.

Stan is also the old man behind Junior, Australia’s premier resource for young people seeking a career in creativity. And Brand DNA has been cited in the global list of Top 50 Blogs To Watch and the BR-200 list of influential blogs.

Stan will be presenting on the topic of Branding Your Blog at this year’s ProBlogger Event.

Follow Stan on Twitter at @BrandDNA

Lorraine Murphy

Lorraine is a communications specialist with a real belief in the power of brands working with bloggers. She is an advocate for social media campaigns that deliver incredible results for brands and also support bloggers.  Her approach has helped her clients become some of the most respected brands in social media by Australian bloggers and their readers. Lorraine has spoken at industry events – including being part of the mummy blogger panel at The Bloggers Relations Forum 2011 – and led training seminars for both bloggers and brands as part of her mission to get blogger relations right.

Lorraine will be moderating a panel at this years event titled – How to Get Brands Knocking on Your Door.

Nikki Parkinson

Nikki is a former fashion journalist and magazine editor of 20 years, who swapped dressing models for real people in 2008 and started a personal styling business. She “stumbled” into blogging as a way to keep her writing skills and market her business. 

Now that blog has grown to become the Styling You business, with Nikki this year becoming a full-time professional blogger. Styling You was judged Best Australian Blog in the Sydney Writer’s Centre Best Australian Blogs 2011 and receives up to 170,000 page views a month. So far in 2012, Nikki has partnered with Big W, appearing in that company’s television advertorials as talent for the Emerson fashion brand. She is also blogging for Maybelline at this year’s Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week and will travel to New York to attend BlogHer ’12 in August.  

Nikki will be participating in the ‘How to Get Brands Knocking on Your Door’ panel

Mrs Woog

The year was 2008. A blog called WoogsWorld was born. Mrs Woog wrote on that blog four times that year. The next year, her already dimmed enthusiasm dipped when she wrote a total of two blog posts for the entire year. Then 2010 rolled around and she decided to write on her blog every day for a year. Because she had watched the movie Julie & Julia. Since then, the blog WoogsWorld has gone into turbo drive, with daily posts about life as a mundane housewife in the suburbs. Mrs Woog has since started blogging professionally, working with companies and brands, holding their hands as they dip their big toe into the exciting and scary world of social media. Her site gets more than 100,000 page views a month and not all of them are from her mother.

Mrs Woog will be participating in the ‘How to Get Brands Knocking on Your Door’ panel

Eden Riley

Eden started her blog in 2007 to document her IVF journey and reach out to others going through the same thing – now she blogs about many glorious and different things. Some include: parenting, Spirit, addiction, and how she wouldn’t know who to pick if I had to choose between Eminem and Bono. She has spoken at BlogHer 2011 (the work’s biggest female social media conference), Aussie Bloggers Conference, Sydney Bloggers Festival, Nuffnang Blogopolis and Digital Parents Conference. In 2011 Edenland was chosen as a Top 5 Kidspot blog and in 2012 Eden represented World Vision Australia on a ground-breaking trip to Niger in West Africa to highlight the food crisis in that region.

Eden will be participating in the ‘How to Get Brands Knocking on Your Door’ panel


Valerie Khoo

Valerie Khoo is founder and managing director of the Sydney Writers’ Centre, Australia’s leading centre for writing courses. The centre has helped thousands of students get published, score book deals, change careers and improve their job prospects.

She is an author and journalist who has written the popular Enterprise blog for Fairfax’s leading news sites for six years. Her personal blog is found at valeriekhoo.com. Valerie is a sought-after public speaker and is ambassador of the Best Australian Blogs Competition

Connect with Valerie on Twitter at @valeriekhoo

Valerie will be moderating two panels at this year’s event – ‘Get Paid to Write: how to use your blog to build your brand’ and ‘Taking a New Blog to Success’

Laney Galligan

Laney Galligan is Crash Test Mummy – a mum crash testing her way through motherhood trying to get sorted, take care and have fun along the way.  She firmly maintains that when it comes to life as a Stay At Home Mum she is not the expert, she’s the experiment!  Whilst her marketing background doesn’t help her when scraping breakfast off the floor, it has been handy in creating a brand and direction for her blog.

Laney will be participating in our ‘Taking a New Blog to Success’ panel.

Cintia Gonzalez

Cintia Gonzalez is a blogger, crafter and online store owner. She started her first handmade business in 2005 and then went on to open her retail store and start her blog in 2007. Both the My Poppet blog and the online store are constantly evolving because she is easily distracted and likes trying new things.

Cintia will be participating in our ‘Taking a New Blog to Success’ panel.

Allison Tait

Allison Tait writes features, non-fiction and fiction. Her blog Life In A Pink Fibro is her happy place – one of the few places left to her where writing doesn’t feel like work.

Allison has been writing for newspapers and magazines for 20+ years, and has written four non-fiction books, including Career Mums (Penguin 2012), Stressbusters Credit Cards (Wrightbooks 2009) and two ghost-written memoirs. Her first novel will be published by PanMacmillan in 2013.

Connect with Alison on Twitter at @altait

Alison will be a panelist on our ‘Get Paid to Write: how to use your blog to build your brand’ panel

Kerri Sackville

Kerri Sackville is a Sydney based blogger, columnist and author. Her blog Life And Other Crises details the daily dramas of her life as a chaotic and somewhat opinionated 40-something.

Her first book, ‘When My Husband Does the Dishes…’ was published by Random House in 2011. ‘The Little Book of Anxiety’ was published earlier this year.

Kerri has written extensively for mainstream media and online publications including Mamamia.com and the Sydney Morning Herald. She is currently a featured columnist for the Fairfax website Daily Life, and for the magazine Practical Parenting. She is also an accomplished public speaker.

Connect with Kerri on Twitter at @kerrisackville
Kerri will be a panelist on our ‘Get Paid to Write: how to use your blog to build your brand’ panel

Richenda Vermeulen

Richenda is the director of Ntegrity, a social media agency that empowers and enables brands to own their own social media (no outsourcing!). Passionate about providing businesses with tools and advice to engage with their consumers, her vision is simple: To enable businesses to create authentic social media experiences and connect with their customers.

Previous to Ntegrity, Richenda spend a decade in the non-profit sector, launching social media at both World Vision Australia and World Vision USA, She has developed an international reputation for partnering with digital influencers, with projects that span international youtube celebrities and Australian Mum Bloggers.

Richenda will moderate our ‘New Frontiers of Social Media: Exploring Pinterest, Instagram and Google+’ panel.

Chantelle Ellem

Chantelle is the founder of blog FatMumSlim and a social media editor at Kidspot.com.au. She lives and breathes social media, blogging and loves nothing more than spending time with her little family.

Connect with Chantelle on Twitter at @FatMumSlim

Chantelle will be participating in our panel – ‘New Frontiers of Social Media: Exploring Pinterest, Instagram and Google+’

Christina Butcher

Christina Butcher started Hair Romance as a side project but in only 18 months she has turned her blog into her full time job. Christina is the hair behind Hair Romance, a beauty website that’s all about loving your best accessory: your hair.

With over 120,000 unique visitors monthly, Hair Romance has received over six million hits to date and is featured on many sites including Vogue.com.au and NaturallyCurly.com. Christina’s philosophy of loving your hair and her no-fuss approach to hair styling has made the back of her head famous on the internet.

From her acclaimed blog, Christina has published a successful hairstyling ebook based on her “30 Hairstyles in 30 Days” challenge. She is working on a second ebook to launch later this year to help women have fun with their hair and look great in less time.

Christina has spoken at international conferences about the business of blogging and how to use social media platforms like Pinterest to grow your audience. She’s addicted to Instagram and can find a way to relate any conversation to hair.

Christina will be participating in our panel – ‘New Frontiers of Social Media: Exploring Pinterest, Instagram and Google+’