Creativity, technology, viral marketing and contagious media.

Highlights

Ze Frank (pronounced "Zay") is one of the most influential online entertainers, turning out one online hit after another for years. He brings audiences an experience they will never forget, a truly entertaining and yet insightful look at how technology and creativity intersect, especially in web design, marketing and new forms of media.

He has frequently appeared at such annual technology events as Pop!Tech and the TED Conference and his online projects have attracted international attention. He is currently creating a series of video commentaries for Time.com entitled That Makes Me Think of …

Ze has unique experience doing new media design and marketing for important customers, helping them understand how to create contagious and viral media, how to leverage social media, and how to think about creative development in general.

He has filmed a pilot for the Discovery Channel and written a feature film script for Universal Studios. He was Artist in Residence at MSN, helping them develop strategies for creating and maintaining online community spaces—his specialty.

He serves on the advisory board of Bazaarvoice.com and Buzzfeed.com and consults to a wide range of clients on a wide range of issues, from the future of television to online marketing to social media.

Ze has been an adjunct at New York University, Parsons The New School for Design, SUNY-Purchase, and has guest lectured at Pratt Institute and the Royal College of Art in London.

Ze is very funny and energetic as a presenter. He’s full of valuable ideas and he inspires ideas through his own creativity.

Very few speakers so effectively combine style with content, humor with ideas and insight.

He is a very effective moderator and host, with special interest in social media, digital marketing, viral media, and online community.

Some Online Projects

Zefrank.com: a large collection of online projects dedicated to understanding how to connect with audiences and how media becomes contagious.

The show with zefrank: one of the most influential video blogs; set a standard for audience interaction.

Colorwars: a yearly event—large scale multi platform game that is organized in twitter, including photo, video and text based challenges; over 4 million people visited the site in 2008.

Contagious Media Festival : a contest in which participants competed for hits for three weeks starting on May 19th, 2005, with the winners receiving cash prizes.

Infectious Exhibition: Science Gallery in Dublin—three day workshop on how information spreads and an ensuing competition to get the most hits possible.

Topics

If you are looking for something more fun and out of the ordinary, these talks can function as an evening's entertainment or as a counterpoint to an otherwise serious day of sessions. They are a collection of smart and funny stories, not just stand-up comic material, often incorporating material related to the conference theme.

Contagious Media: Beyond Viral Marketing
Contagious Media Workshop
Smart Fun—The Hard Way: Lessons Learned from a Life Online
Smart Fun—Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Everything
Thinking Social—The Big Questions Surrounding Social Media

Quotes About Ze

"Ze Frank is a rare gem, a brilliant comedian with an artistic undertaste" ~ Jack Black, LA Times
Listed as a "Comic Digital Savant" in The I.D. Magazine 40 to Watch

An "Internet Impresario" ~ The Courier-Mail

"Internet Legend" ~ The Guardian 2008

"An internet fixture since 2001" ~ The Globe and Mail

Forbes Top 25 Web Celebrities

Time Magazine’s Top 10 Video Blogs 2006

Ze Frank’s The Show was the "It's the best sustained comedy run in the history of the Web." ~ Slate (2007)

Comedic digital savant (Tom Vanderbilt, The I.D. Forty)

In 2001 Ze accidentally released a website that went “viral”. More than one million people a day were suddenly visiting a page that was originally intended for seventeen of his closest friends. He has spent the years since then mastering methods for maintaining and growing an audience in the world of online media. This experience has led him to consult, research and teach in a number of areas:

• traditional and viral marketing in online spaces,
• building community and facilitating conversation with an audience, and
• developing creative strategies both for individuals and for companies as a whole.

Using a mixture of personal stories, real world examples and speculation in a fast-paced and humorous way, Ze looks at ways of thinking about creative development that allow for the unpredictable future.