Ignatius Valentine Aloysius completed his MFA in Creative Writing with a focus on fiction from Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies, where he received the Distinguished Thesis Award for his novel manuscript Fishhead. Soup., now under consideration by Curbside Splendor Press. A finalist for The Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists competition, Aloysius was also an interdisciplinary Ragdale resident. In addition, he became the 2014 Writer-in-Residence at el Ranchito Cielito con Nopales in La Union, New Mexico. Aloysius moderated several writers’ panels and also participated as a guest panelist at the 2015 Chicago Writers Conference. His writing has appeared in TriQuarterly, Newcity, the Chicago Tribune, LaTolteca Zine, and Gander Press Review. Aloysius is currently Managing Editor of the bilingual LaTolteca Zine online. He lives in Evanston and makes a living as a graphic designer and teacher of English and design software. In his spare time, he writes songs and plays lead guitar in a hard rock band.
Kevin Budelmann is the president and co-founder of Peopledesign, a design strategy firm based in Michigan. Kevin oversees the firm’s strategic direction and helps manage client relationships as designer, strategist and change catalyst. Budelmann has been a designer at Herman Miller Inc, served as the president of APDF (Association of Professional Design Firms) and AIGA West Michigan (Professional Association for Design) and is on the board of IxDA (Interaction Design Association). His co-authored book, Brand Identity Essentials (Rockport 2010) has been translated into six languages and is available worldwide. He received a Master of Design Methods from IIT Institute of Design and is a frequent speaker and guest blogger on brand and design innovation.
Randy Hlavac is an expert in digital marketing and how to use consumer and business big data to define, target, and develop high value markets. Randy teaches Digital, Social and Mobile Marketing Strategies in the Medill IMC program, Marketing Analytics in the McCormick Engineering Management program and Social Media and Content Curation in the School of Professional Studies. Randy also works with The Garage and the Farley Entrepreneurial program to assist entrepreneurs to grow and position their brand using social and digital marketing. In addition to teaching, Randy is director of the OmniChannel Initiative – a joint venture with IBM to bring new business and marketing technologies into the college curriculum at Northwestern.
Randy also helped Northwestern develop Coursera online programs in Social Media Marketing and Content Strategy and Content Curation. These courses are offered worldwide and have students in over 150 countries. They are some of the largest online programs on marketing and content in the world.
Randy is CEO of Marketing Synergy, Inc. Founded in 1990, Marketing Synergy helps clients from start-ups to Fortune 100 to develop effective digital marketing strategies and deploy the marketing, customer service, and financial metrics systems to improve profits and grow market share.
Randy speaks at business, technical and marketing conventions around the world. He is a frequent speaker at IBM conferences on Big Data, Watson, and IoT. Randy is also the author of the book – Social IMC – Social Strategies with Bottom-Line ROI and will soon be publishing Prosper – Your Guide to Building Profitable Digital Marketing Programs. Randy is also a blogger on digital and social marketing technologies.
Roger McMinn is an adjunct lecturer in Northwestern’s IDS program and a vice president of marketing for BNY Mellon. McMinn has worked in marketing and communications for more than 25 years for well-known companies like Vanguard, Nuveen, and Nationwide. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Finance from Penn State University and an MBA in Marketing from Drexel University. McMinn is also a graduate of the Northwestern IDS program. He previously taught IDS 403: Effective Communication. He lives outside of Philadelphia, PA, with his wife, three kids, and two dogs.