Social Politics Forum, Politics 2.0 event & conference

Alex Aiken is Director of Communications and Strategy for Westminster City Council. His role includes communication, policy development and research. The work of the communications team has been widely recognised, winning 20 national awards in the last five years. He is National Secretary of LGcommunications, the body which represents council communications teams.

Dave Briggs, Community Evangelist, Learning Pool

In June 2009 I joined Mandate Communications as an Associate Director, Digital.

 After working in the university and then IT sectors, I started working for the Liberal Democrats in 2000. I've twice run the national Liberal Democrat general election internet campaign (2001 and 2005) and was the Campaign Manager in Hornsey & Wood Green 1998-2005, during which time we went from zero councillors to 16 and also gained the Parliamentary seat with the election of Lynne Featherstone in 2005 with a 15% swing from Labour.
I am a regular writer on historical, political and internet matters, including Total Politics magazine, Liberal Democrat Voice and The Wardman Wire.

Mark Rogers is the co-founder of online monitoring and response specialist Market Sentinel. 

Market Sentinel monitors consumer generated content in blogs, message boards and consumer sites.  It provides reputation measurement and benchmarking.  Market Sentinel's proprietary software mathematically measures who has influence in a brand or concept, allowing marketeers and communicators to understand their marketplace and to maximise their marketing spend.

Ingrid Koehler is an Improvement Strategist at the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA).  Her work focuses on:
•  Developing new approaches to sector-driven improvement and knowledge management through social tech and culture change
•  Supporting councils to enhance accountability, efficiency and improvement through social media.

Huw Edwards is the Communications Officer at NHS Hounslow, a Primary Care Trust in west London that has been an early adopter of social media engagement within the NHS.

Kerry McCarthy was elected as the Labour MP for Bristol East in May 2005.

She was appointed as a Government Whip in June 2009. Before that she served for two years as PPS to Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State at the DFID and prior to that PPS to Rosie Winterton at the Department of Health. Directly after her election she spent two years as a member of the Treasury Select Committee.