Just had to cross post Chas's writeup of our work with Wacom and Graffiti Wall. It's really something remarkable. Wacom invited folks to draw monsters. Look what they made!

Earlier this year, FM hosted its first conference, the CM Summit, which sold out, and promises to be a great event series in 2008. We also helped GigaOm, one of our authors, produce a wildly successful event NewTeeVee Live.

Now we need a superior sales pro to join our team to help us build this business for 2008 and beyond. The description is below:

Job Description - Director of Event Sales
• Develop and execute sales sponsorship strategy with Director of Events for new and growing division of Federated Media.
• Sell sponsorships for at least 4-6 annual events simultaneously. Develop sales materials, work with Director of Events to create, sell and execute all sponsorship opportunities.
• Work closely with and leverage/support FM's current sales force to develop conference capabilities
• Manage relationships with contracted sales fulfillment personnel to completely satisfy all sponsors and advertiser requirements.
• Be proactive in managing communication (internally and externally) related to event sales.
• Coordinate the flow of information to the senior sales and executive teams as needed from a variety of clients and prospective sponsors. Ensure that critical and time sensitive data receives priority attention.
• Establish systems to streamline data flow and develop a tracking system to ensure timely fulfillment of all sponsorship benefits.
Requirements:
• Degree with 5 years of previous event sales experience. The perfect candidate has existing relationships with media buyers and advertising clients and has sold conferences and event sponsorships, background in online sales a plus too.
• Effective team player with exceptional organizational and communication skills.
• Ideal candidate is a self-starter, confident, energetic, positive, focused, dependable, proactive, independent, resourceful and creative, and possesses a “can do” attitude.
• Ability to work well under timeframe pressure, handling multiple projects at the same time and posting colleagues on progress regularly.
• Fluency with media-buying terminology (eg, CPM v. CPA, reach v. frequency, GIF v. Flash), familiarity with online ad-serving platforms (eg, Doubleclick's Mediavisor), proficiency with Excel and Powerpoint.

Salary Range: Market depending on experience

Please contact Stacey Foreman, Director of Conferences, sforeman@federatedmedia.net.
Thanks!

Here's a great job for just the right person:

Federated Media is looking to expand our management team with the addition of a Vice President to run our Ad Operations group. The Ad Operations group is responsible for delivering revenue from a broad range of our partner’s sites such as BoingBoing.net, Dooce, TechCrunch, ArsTechnica, and more than 150 others. The VP of Ad Operations will manage the targeting, delivery and execution of campaigns, as well as participate in senior level strategy and management decisions regarding FM’s entire business. This role will report to the COO and manage a growing team of online advertising professionals.

The company views this position as critical to our future success, and deeply informing to the future products and services we build.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES:

Set overall strategy for FM’s Ad Operations group, as well as inform the company’s approach to its internal ad serving platform.

Contribute to the monthly and quarterly revenue recognition process by assuring that all impressions are correctly reported and recorded to Finance team.

Establish, direct and maintain consistent policies and objectives for the Ad Operations team that are aligned with, and representative of, overall company goals.

Establish procedures to maintain high standards of fulfillment, product quality, reliability, and accuracy.

Document processes and help with their dissemination and training, cross-departmentally.

Promote company-wide quality and service improvement efforts.

Review and manage solutions to inventory management. Act as “point person” to resolve all operational/inventory management issues.

Proactively identify, implement and manage systems and processes to reduce operating costs, increase revenue and improve speed and efficiency.

Work with Director of Client Services to develop self-diagnostic tools and Identify opportunities to improve FM’s systems with Engineering, and other teams to test and implement improvements.

Create, maintain and present regular status and metric reports as well as develop ad hoc reports to support strategic planning and fact-based analyses.

Act as liaison for Ad Operations on matters relating to the procurement of services for the company's products.

Resolve special and escalated issues in order to ensure high level of client satisfaction.

Troubleshoot customer problems and utilize experience to develop solutions.

Manage and grow relationships with our customers.

REQUIREMENTS:

8+ years Internet or online media experience in an operational management role
5+ years in a process-driven environment

Federated Media Publishing is a fast-growing startup in the Internet media space backed by JP Morgan, the New York Times, and Omidyar Network, among others. At the core of our business are the independent author/site owners, people whose passion, authority, and talents set them apart and allow them to grow significant and influential audiences. Our mission is to support independent website authors and audiences, by connecting them to marketers in an ongoing and robust conversation that feeds everyone involved.

For more information, please send mail to jcharette at federatedmedia dot net. Thanks!

The partnership we announced this morning brings the resources of BabyCenter together with the voices and communities of the best parenting bloggers. We'll be working closely together to bring the Federation to more marketers and to recruit additional authors.

Congratulations to everyone from BabyCenter and FM who worked so hard to bring this partnership together. Learn more about it at BabyCenter's new Parenting Federation Hub.

The print on paper business is in the midst of a difficult transition, and no one knows this more than Gordon Crovitz, who runs the Wall St. Journal. I read with interest his statement on the topic of blogs, in this MediaWeek article on a recent conference where he spoke:

As Gordon Crovitz, publisher of Dow Jones’ The Wall Street Journal, quipped, while the Journal’s news staff has fully embraced the concept of blogs, “I’ve yet to see a business case for any of them.”

That may be true for Dow Jones, but man, it's working pretty well for a lot of FM authors. There's a business model out there, for sure. Whether it's for "blogs" or for what we like to call "Conversational Media" is worth discussing...the word blog is certainly hard to define these days.

Updated: I pinged Gordon, who, as I expected, clarified. In fact, he's bullish on what I call conversational media. I won't quote him on it, but I sense he might have been taken a bit out of context....

I am very pleased to announce that Pete Spande joins FM today as Vice President - Sales, East.

Pete comes to Federated Media with a great passion for conversational media. Most recently, Pete was VP and Publisher of CMP's TechWeb Network where he oversaw sales, marketing, and product development for CMP Technology's largest online properties which included 65 bloggers and 45 technology blogs. Prior to CMP, Pete held a variety of posts at CNET Networks including general management responsibilities for TechRepublic, one of the largest communities of tech professionals on the Internet. Prior to CNET, he held sales jobs at IDG and Miller Freeman.

Much to everyone's confusion, Pete holds a Master's degree in musical composition from Arizona State University and a BA in Music from Luther College. In his spare time Pete bikes and tries to replicate French bistro dishes for friends and family. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.

eMarketer projects that US online advertising will more than double as a percentage of total media, rising from only a 6% share of total media in 2006, to slightly more than a 12% share in 2010.

Man, we are hiring a lot of folks, aren't we? Well, yes, but we hit a point about three months ago where we knew what we wanted, and we went after it. That included bolstering our finance and accounting team. Molly Johnson joined FM this week as Senior Accountant. Molly recently moved to San Francisco from Alaska via Seattle. She spent the last year in Seattle working at an IT staffing agency as a senior accountant. While living in Alaska she received her accounting degree, was an auditor at a CPA firm and spent a few years as the accounts receivable supervisor for the Dept of Fish & Game. Just to break things up a little, Molly spent last summer commercial fishing in Alaska. In her spare time she enjoys frisbee golf, hiking, biking, road trips and being out on the water. Welcome to Marin, Molly! There's plenty of that here!

I keep a Google news alert on "Federated Media," as you might expect. Usually the mentions are pretty tame, but this one got my attention. It covered Martha Stewart's online network, fashioned, in a way, around some of the same principles as FM.

"An increasing number of traditional publishers are eyeing networks as a smart way to extend their online reach," the Ad Age article said.

But this is the quote that irked me:

For some bloggers and small website publishers, the network will fill a hole in the marketplace, said Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, founder of Apartment Therapy. He said he has looked at several different ad networks, including Federated Media and Glam Media, but couldn't find one that specialized in his category. "Most people don't understand house and home," he said. "Look at all blogs -- the biggest ones are gossip, politics, sports and sex."

Well, we clearly have work to do with Mr. Gillingham-Ryan. Not only do we have serious reach into the world he finds interesting, we're about to have a heckuva lot more (but I can't talk about that for a bit longer...). And as for the biggest ones being gossip, politics, sports, and sex...well, we do have a very large sports network, but we've pretty much left the other categories he mentions alone. Now, if you want Tech, Business, Autos, Entertainment, News, and more, well....we'll be in touch, Mr. Gillingham-Ryan!

Kim Kochaver recently joined us as Director of Marketing. Kim is a high-tech marketing pro who has been managing advertising campaigns online and offline for over 15 years. Her path in marketing led her to work for ad agency giants J. Walter Thompson and McCann Erickson as well as digital startup Left Field/Tonic among others. Her campaigns have included work for Sun Microsystems, Amazon, drugstore.com, Macy's and Microsoft. Most recently, Kim has been developing digital programs for Microsoft b-to-b campaigns, including a virtual island in Second Life for the professional developer audience. When not working, Kim prefers to be involved in any sort of activity that involves ascending, descending, or generally appreciating a mountain. Originally from Idaho, Kim graduated from Stanford University and lives in San Francisco with her dog, Lucy. Welcome to FM, Kim!

Virginia Harr joins FM starting November 5th as an Account Coordinator. Virginia was born and raised in our nation's capital, and is a recent graduate of Middlebury College, where she majored in psychology. A veteran of several internships, Virginia worked as project coordinator for a mental health non-profit in DC, and also lived in Prague for a year, teaching business English and freelance writing. She moved to San Francisco a month ago, and is excited about living by the water, but slightly scared by the morning fog. Welcome, Virginia!

Blog readers donated $420,000 last month to DonorsChoose, the group that is raising money for specific projects in U.S. public schools. Congratulations to all of the bloggers who participated, and thank you to the more than 3,000 readers who contributed.

The Blogger Challenge included several contests, including one sponsored by FM honoring the sites that used the most creative approaches to recruiting donors. We're happy to report there were five winners:

Kara Swisher of AllThingsD, who invoked her two adorable children, Arianna Huffington and Barbra Streisand.

Sarah Bunting of TomatoNation, who is undergoing public humiliation -- dancing through Rockefeller Center dressed in a tomato costume -- to thank her readers for giving over $100,000 to classroom projects.

Tim Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek and LitLiberation, who really put himself on the line -- or, more specifically, on the auction block -- as he generated $140,000 for students.

Janet Stemwedel of Adventures in Ethics and Science, who offered poems, her children’s artwork, and blog post topics to compel her readers to give.

Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles, who “sold” blog topics and offered to read a rival’s new book to encourage donations.

Congratulations to all of the winners. Don't forget that there's still time to help the real winners, the kids, with your own donation to a DonorsChoose project.

I love the FM staff. Who else would create this during the Halloween party pumpkin carving contest? (Yes, that's a pumpkin...)

If you don't get the joke, well....ask someone from FM!