Parks Associates

Tricia Parks is the founder and CEO of Parks Associates, a market analyst and research company dedicated to providing meaningful information and counsel to companies offering technology-based products aimed at improving people's lives. She presents worldwide on consumer trends, market requirements, and industry structure, with an eye to meshing visionary and progressive ideas to consumer needs and wants. Parks Associates began Wiring America, the Habitech Institute, and now hosts Fall Focus, a topical annual executive conference, and, in partnership with CEA, CONNECTIONS , an international conference and showcase for the digital home. Parks Associates is also the developer of the Relevancy Theory, a forecasting model for sales across a broad range of digital electronic products and services. Tricia has served on a variety of industry boards including CEA's Home Networking and Information Technology division, the National Research Council's Committee for a Partnership to Assess Technology for Housing (PATH), the AMD Board of Global Consumer Advocacy, and CABA. Tricia Parks has a BA from Sweet Briar College and graduate studies from the University of Texas.

Stuart Sikes is the president of Parks Associates, a twenty year old market research firm which serves global semiconductor, consumer electronics, service provider and digital entertainment companies. The company provides reports, custom research and consulting which tracks global consumers' adoption of technology products such as video on demand, electronic gaming, digital music, mobile TV and others. Stuart has served technology companies for the past seventeen years, implementing technical service, software, and hardware solutions for clients ranging from global semiconductor manufacturers to one of the nation's largest airlines. In his positions with companies including AT&T, NCR, OpenConnect Systems, and Intelligraphics, Stuart's roles have included sales, product marketing, marketing communications, and executive management. He has spent the last ten years growing technical professional services firms by creating strategic relationships with Fortune 100 accounts. Stuart holds an MBA from SMU's Cox School of Business, specializing in strategic marketing. He holds a BA in economics from Vanderbilt University.

Erich Boehm has more than 10 years of experience in the CE business and even more in networking and hardware development. He started his career as an entrepreneur in 1998 as programmer and HW developer. After several years in custom development for industrial controls, his company PONTIS developed the world's first portable MP3 player in 1995. Although just a prototype the device was far ahead of the market. In 1998 a real product was presented at CeBIT Home. Mass production started in 1999 with Grundig as an OEM customer. Being a pioneer in MP3 technology, PONTIS was well known in the community all over the world. The PONTIS products were famous for their reliability and excellent sound.

Daniel Schellhoss co-founded ProSyst in 1997 and has been pivotal in driving its progress in the field of embedded Java and OSGi-compliant middleware. He was instrumental in transforming the company from a promising start-up with innovative technology to a full-fledged market leader with a global roster of clients and partners. Daniel Schellhoss ensured the development of an integrated solution range for the network-based control of electronic devices and the delivery of value-added services and applications to such devices. Prior to ProSyst, Daniel Schellhoss founded and acted as managing director of a Cologne, Germany-based marketing firm. Daniel Schellhoss studied marketing at the WAK Academy in Cologne.

Brett Sappington joined Parks Associates as the vice president of business development. In this role, Brett works with the business development team to grow client relationships and proactively address our clients' market intelligence needs. Brett has spent over fifteen years in the industry as an executive manager and entrepreneur, building new businesses and new divisions for technology and business services firms. Previously, he founded and served as vice president of sales and marketing for Teligy, a software company specializing in embedded software for wired and wireless communications systems. Brett established new divisions for audio/multimedia software and networking for Intelligraphics. He has also been involved in the development and marketing of early-market products for 802.11 wireless networking, PC-based VoIP, and other technologies. With a comprehensive understanding of all areas of marketing for technical product and service companies, including product development, strategic planning, and marketing communications, Brett knows the critical role that market research serves in the success of market-driven companies. He is able to work with Parks Associates' clients to arm them with the market information they need to succeed in their business. Brett holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin with a concentration in high-tech marketing and a BA in physics from Baylor University.

As the Vice President of Marketing, Elizabeth develops and implements an integrated strategic communications plan for Parks Associates. This includes overseeing the advertising, public relations, and marketing campaigns for research and events produced and hosted by Parks Associates. She also supports Parks Associates' Business Development Team with with perspective client searches, overall support, and maintenance of Parks Associates' databases. Elizabeth is the key organizer for all of Parks Associates' events, including Fall Focus and CONNECTIONS . Elizabeth joined Parks Associates on a full-time basis in 1998 after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in psychology.

Giovanni Benini received the physics master degree in 1997 after studies in the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and the University of Manchester, U.K. He has now been working for Siemens for the last nine years in various positions in Germany and the USA: SW development for an ATM switch, project management of prototype development for evaluating innovative, new technologies, product line management of the Siemens SURPASS Virtual Trunking solution, director of product line management responsible for Siemens VoIP soft switch and media gateway products. Giovanni Benini is currently responsible in the Siemens Communications Fixed Networks for the Siemens IPTV solution SURPASS Home Entertainment.

John is recognized as a digital video industry expert. He has been featured as a speaker and expert panelist at numerous worldwide events including DV Expo, Digital Hollywood, National Association of Broadcasters annual conference (NAB), Parks Associates, VON, Streaming Media East/West/Europe tradeshows and RealNetworks Conferences. Prior to joining Inlet, John served as the Director of Business Development and Product Management for Osprey Technologies (acquired by ViewCast Corporation). There, he identified and developed key market opportunities resulting in multiple consecutive revenue growth quarters, despite global economic downturn. His other accomplishments at Osprey include: generating sales tools and collateral that reduced overall costs of sales by $1M over 3 years, developing and managing strategic business relationships with Microsoft, RealNetworks and HP, and successfully launching e-commerce initiatives, netting an overall increase of 800% in direct sales. He has authored white papers, web content, press releases and industry presentations, affirming industry leadership position in technology, partnerships, overall ecosystem and people. Prior to Osprey, John spent three years at IBM where he served as a product engineer with IBM's Aptiva PC Division. He currently serves on the board of directors at Accordent Technologies, based in Hermosa Beach California, and holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University.

Noam Geri is Co-Founder and Vice President of Marketing and Business Development of AMIMON Inc. Geri co-founded AMIMON in 2004 following a 12-year career in communication technology holding various marketing, business development and technical positions. Until 2003 Geri served as strategic marketing and business development manager at Texas Instruments, Cable Broadband Communications business unit, with responsibility for marketing and business development of new technologies and standards in the broadband access and home networking space. Geri joined Texas Instruments through the 1999 acquisition of Libit Signal Processing Ltd., a semiconductor startup developing cable modem chipsets. Prior to Libit, Geri served five years in an elite R&D unit of the Israeli Defense Forces. He holds an M.B.A from Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, as well as an M.Sc and a B.Sc in Electrical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University.

As Vice President Strategic Engineering Mr. Pillai plays an integral role in the strategic technology planning and assessments for service convergence of platforms including voice, video, data and wireless. Mr. Pillai joined Bresnan in 2006 following seven years as Vice President of Advanced Engineering for Charter Communications, Inc. In that post, his responsibilities included digital video network architectures, system engineering, system integration and technology assessments. He holds a Master's Degree in Applied Science in Telecommunications from the University of Denver and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri. In addition, he completed graduate work in Telecommunications Management at Washington University in St. Louis. Mr. Pillai is also a graduate of the NAMIC Executive Leadership Development Program at Anderson School of Management at UCLA. Mr. Pillai has received numerous professional honors and industry accolades. In 2006 he was named one of CableWorld magazine's "50 Most Influential Minorities," was listed in Multichannel News' "40 Under 40," and received NAMIC's "Next Generation Leader" Award. He has also been named among Multichannel News' 2004 "Cable's Next Generation of Innovators" and received SCTE's 2003 "Young Engineer Award" and IEEE's 2002 "Young Engineer Award" for St. Louis. Mr. Pillai has co-authored multiple industry articles on digital video technology and operations and has participated in multiple industry technical panels and sessions.

Wesley O. (Wes) Hoffman is Executive Vice President & General Manager for OpenTV Corp.'s North American Cable division. Mr. Hoffman is responsible for managing OpenTV's operations and relationships with all network operators, and the programming community.

Henrik Rinnert is co-founder and CEO of MFD (Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland), Germany's first mobile TV platform operator. Having dealt with IT and media matters as a lawyer and consultant for over six years, he has focused on the regulative framework for mobile broadcast. He finished his studies of law in Heidelberg after having attended schools and universities in Belgium and South Africa.

LiLLi Group Ltd is a privately owned and innovative service company providing installation, value-added services and after-sales support for both consumer and SoHo customers. Lilli's shareholders are a venture capital company, private persons, and company's key personnel. Mr. Juha Stenberg is a co-founder and managing director of the company. During one year in operation Lilli has been able to build a valuable business model with its partners that include a Finnish retail chain, an Internet security software provider, a VoIP provider, and manufacturers of home electronics. Companies in this network share a common goal to provide customers an easy way to use services and equipment in modern digital homes.

Alexander Bruehl is a senior partner in the technology sector and joined Atlas Venture in 1998. His expertise is in semiconductors and advanced materials as well as enterprise and communications infrastructure. Prior to joining Atlas Venture, Alexander served as director of corporate marketing for R&O Software-Technik GmbH, a leading German enterprise repository vendor with a strong presence in the U.S. After R&O was acquired by Viasoft Inc. in 1996, Alexander served as director, corporate strategies. Previously, Alexander was founder and managing director of Solution Analysis Group, a German consulting and implementation firm for information management solutions. In 1999, Alexander spun off Atlas Venture portfolio company Systemonic AG from Dresden University and was chairman of the board until the company's acquisition by Royal Philips Electronics in 2003. He currently serves on the boards of portfolio companies Collax, Hyperwave, Jaluna, SafeID, Scali, and SOISIC. Alexander holds a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the Technical University in Munich.

Stefan studied communication science and psychology at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. Concurrently, Stefan worked as a scientist at the Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, teaching media psychology, media and advertising effects, and entertainment research. Since 1999, Stefan has been working at Siemens Information and Communication Networks (ICN), Munich. Since 2001, Stefan was responsible for business innovation within Siemens ICN Group Strategy. Since 2003, Stefan was responsible for the overall Siemens ICN Innovation Process, heading the Innovation Board Office. Since 2004, Stefan is heading a business innovation think tank for fixed and mobile communications within Siemens Communications.

Alain-Gabriel Courtines is a 14-year veteran of venture capital and investment banking, focusing on technology, consumer electronics, and emerging growth companies. A native New Yorker with both European and U.S. experience, he has been based in London for the past five years, where he has led investments for Intel Capital across Europe in support of Intel Corporation's strategies. In addition, he leads Intel's Digital Home & Digital Enterprise investment initiative throughout EMEA. Courtines joined Intel Capital in 2000. Prior to Intel Capital, he was a vice president in the Corporate Finance Group of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co. Inc., a New York-based investment bank focused on emerging growth and middle-market companies. There he completed numerous equity and debt financings and also provided advisory services on several public and private M&A transactions. Prior to that he was an associate in the Corporate Banking group of NatWest Markets, the investment banking arm of National Westminster Bank, plc. Courtines holds an MBA from Columbia University with High Distinction and a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Georgetown University. He is a dual citizen of France and the U.S.

Kai Thomsen has served with BrainMedia as a regional director for Europe since 2005. He was previously involved in TV and online development with the TV production company Me, Myself & Eye as editor and later as creative director. Kai left MME in 1999 to co-found HIFIND Systems AG, a categorization-based recommendation engine for music. Serving as creative business director, Kai was responsible for product & business development. After the following trade sale on HIFIND, Kai became partner at Tone Consultants, a Hamburg-based consulting company in the field of digital distribution.

Matthias Trygg, Marketing Director, Motorola IPTV Open Systems, is responsible for marketing in the IPTV Open Systems group. Matthias Trygg has extensive experience in marketing and professional services. Most recently he held served as head of business for Industry & Defense in Sweden at WM-data. He also held positions in marketing and sales at WM-data Consulting AB, a subsidiary within the leading Nordic system integrator group WM-data. Trygg served as executive vice president for the Swedish operation at Adcore. He worked within the Ericsson group in different management positions. While there he established a new company and line of business in the area of business consulting and SAP. Trygg held sales and general management positions with professional services firms Cap Gemini and Programatic. He began his career in the development area at Saab Military Aircraft. Matthias completed his MSc degree in industrial engineering and management at Linkoping Institute of Technology.

Robert Rodenbucher is acting as Director of Business Development at AwoX, the European leader in middleware technologies for the aggregation of digital entertainment contents on a home network. Starting in the early 80s as lab engineer at Wandel & Goldtermann France then at Thomson Simulators, he pursued, for more than 6 years, its career in robotics as team leader for the digital control command at Renault Automation. After he abandoned the technical world and moved into marketing functions being TV-Europe Product Manager and Business Manager for Eastern Europe & Russia, then World Wide Manager for Components for Optical Recording at Thomson. Robert Rodenbucher is a graduate engineer in electronics ISEP (Institut Superieur d'Electronique de Paris) and followed a course of marketing for high-tech products at ESCL (Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Lyon).

Heather Kirksey directs strategy and execution of Motive's device management and digital home standards initiatives, including work within the DSL Forum, UPnP Forum, Digital Living Network Alliance, and Home Gateway Initiative. She currently serves as co-chair of the DSLHome Technical Working group within the DSL Forum and the DSL Forum liaison officer to the Home Gateway Initiative. In these capacities, Heather has been editor for numerous DSL Forum documents, including WT-121: TR-069 Implementation Guidelines, WT-123: TR-069 Interoperability and Conformance Test Plans, and WT-131: ACS Northbound Interface Requirements, and also helped organize the first industry-wide TR-069 plugfest. Heather joined Motive from BroadJump, where she worked in business development managing CPE partnerships and product integration efforts. Prior to BroadJump, she worked at pcOrder, where she was a program manager for the Internet services team.

Jenny manages and oversees Parks Associates' public relations efforts, which include helping to increase local, trade, and national media recognition for Parks Associates' research and events. In this capacity, Jenny has worked with Tier 1 publications such as Business Week, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. Jenny is also responsible for coordinating all speaker relations' activities for Parks Associates' conferences, which includes managing all speaker inquiries and agendas for the events. Jenny also helps promote press coverage at Parks Associates' executive conferences, Webcasts, and workshops. Jenny joined Parks Associates in 2003, after graduating with a BBA in marketing from Texas Christian University.

Dr. Alexander Tettenborn, LL.M (USA) is the head of unit for broadcasting and media economy in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. His education includes law studies at Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz, and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, and a doctorate degree (Dr. iur), Mainz. From 1984-1985, he was the scientific assistant to Prof. Krumpelmann (criminal law) at the Johannes-Gutenberg University, Mainz. From 1985-1988, he held a legal clerkship in Mainz, Koblenz (Germany) and Los Angeles (USA) at the law firm Evans & Harter. From 1989-1990, he was an attorney at Boden, Oppenhoff et. al., Cologne, and since 1990, he has been a civil servant for the federal government in Germany, holding a variety of positions. Since 2006, he has served as head of "Forum Digitale Medien FDM " (forum digital media) and as head of the task force on digital frequencies for broadcasting. His hobbies include civil aviation (since 1945), politics, sports, cinema, opera, and slow food.

Andreas Neus is the media & entertainment EMEA lead for the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) in Amsterdam. He focuses on innovation and disruptive changes in the media industry and has spearheaded IBM's primary research on media consumer behaviour in Europe. Educated in New York, Luxembourg, and Bonn, his experience with Internet projects goes back to pre-Web 1990, and he co-founded Internet consulting company Metabit before joining IBM's e-business and Interactive Media practice in 1999. Since then he has managed strategy consulting engagements for major international clients, most recently leading the New Media Strategy project for the board of a major eastern European media company. Andreas Neus has authored more than 20 articles and book chapters on innovation and has served as a guest lecturer at several postgraduate programs, including the St. Gallen Executive Media MBA and the Information Quality Program at M.I.T.

Until recently, Andrew Burke was BT's CEO, BT Entertainment, where he devised and ran the company's TV-over-Broadband initiative, chaired their Premium Rate Services activity, pioneered their Digital Media Services, and led their relationships with the media world. Prior to that Andrew was director, online services and was responsible for all value-added services developed to complement broadband in the U.K. including VoIP, security, and payment services. Previously Andrew was founder & CEO of eVerger, an investment fund created in April 2000 by Aegis Group, a leading communications and marketing consultancy, and Warburg Pincus, the global private equity partnership, which together committed $100m to the venture. Before that, Andrew was COO of eVentures, the Internet venture capital fund owned by News Corporation and Softbank. He was the founder and CEO of LineOne, the Internet service provider and established News International's initial Internet presence back in 1994.

Francisco Alija-Garmon is applications engineer at CARTIF's Energy Area. His career is focused in building energy efficiency and renewable energies integration. Along with his team, he is pursuing one global solution for home automation and energy management with the possibility of gradual incorporation of devices from different vendors, purchased and installed with the same variety and ease as today's appliances. To do so, they are integrating several different technologies: an open communications protocol (EN 14908) over powerline, an external interface for the devices from LonMark accessible with any Web browser, and a transparent network device connectivity standard (UPnP), and they are putting all together using the OSGi Service Platform to take advantage of the security, reliability, remote management, hardware independent, value-added services, and much more facilities from this platform.

Jason Paris joined Parks Associates in 2007 as an analyst studying international telephone, cable, and satellite providers and is now a member of the business development team. Jason graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in psychology and government. After working for the Texas House of Representatives, Jason spent the previous seven years in New York City working with portable and enterprise healthcare technologies.

Terry Mikelk is a data processing expert with 30 years experience providing insight and direction on data processing at companies with $1 million to $1 billion in revenues. He has worked in both the manufacturing and service sectors and is currently a professor of computer science at Mountain View College. Terry has produced all the computer forecast models for Parks Associates since it was founded and is a frequent contributor on survey analyses. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Terry served in Vietnam during that war. He received a postgraduate degree in information systems from the University of Texas, and he is currently working on a PhD in marketing systems.

Yilan currently studies the digital entertainment industry with a focus on mobile entertainment, gaming, and multimedia services and assists other Parks Associates analysts in related research projects. Prior to becoming an analyst at Parks Associates, Yilan was involved in several research projects related to PC, gaming, mobile entertainment, and portable multimedia players. Yilan earned her MA in Economics from University of Texas at Arlington and BA in economics in Nankai University, P.R. China.

Bruce Watkins is the primary architect of Pulse~LINK's business plan and corporate models, bringing together the resources to guide and achieve corporate formation, capitalization, patent development and operations. He oversees day-to-day operations of the company and successfully led Pulse~LINK from start-up and development to being a well-funded leader in UWB communications.

Peter Weber has 28 years of experience in marketing and corporate communications in the electronics industry. Since 2001 he has been in charge of corporate communications for Panasonic Europe Ltd., the regional holding company of Panasonic activities in Europe. In this function he works closely with Panasonic Marketing Europe, the pan-European organization responsible for CE products, office automation products, communication products, and professional broadcast equipment. He also supports national sales companies and other divisions like Panasonic Industrial or Panasonic Electric Works, R&D labs, and factories throughout Europe. Peter Weber is the only CE communication consultant on the board of directors at EICTA, the European organization representing all major European industry associations in the electronics environment, and at the German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers Association (ZVEI), he is a member of the advisory board (CE division), chairman press working group (CE division), chairman marketing communication group (CE division), and chairman IFA press working group.