Willow Baum Lundgren is a business activist, entrepreneur, writer and new school marketer for the social media age -- a time when the stories we're naturally inclined to share, over coffee or the Internet, are what's driving our world.

With a bias toward word of mouth marketing, Willow coaches authors, entrepreneurs, brands and non-profits how to earn growth in a networked world, and efficiently connect with stakeholders, despite a dizzying range of media and marketing options.

Willow is a creative problem-solver, cross-pollinating ideas, people, alternative and traditional thinking. Her pragmatic, agnostic perspective is informed as much by her four, uber-digitally savvy stepchildren (ages 10 through 19), as by 20 eclectic years of music/entertainment, technology and consumer marketing.

Longing for more meaningful, interpersonal, tangible work, Willow jumped into an enriching mix of activities in Summer 2008:

• dedicating six weeks as an Obama Organizing Fellow in the swing state of Missouri;
• volunteering for VITAS Innovative Hospice; and
• facing the fear of creative self-expression through the phenomenal, cross-genre Mark Twain Writers Conference, offered through UMKC.

Since 2004, Willow has been adept at Web 2.0 marketing and content distribution strategies. Previous highlights -- see Portfolio for most recent work -- include:

• working in the emerging social media monitoring industry, a rich source of cultural anthropology and market insights;

• managing and monetizing -- through product development, streamlined operations and alliances with promoters, broadcast and digital partners such as MTV and AOL -- online communities for recording artists, the likes of Aerosmith, Christina Aguilera, 3 Doors Down, Godsmack and international pop diva Anastacia;

• developing business, marketing and product strategy for nearly a dozen early-stage companies, from AllHipHop.com, a leading online hip hop music community, to a subsequent start-up founded by an originator of HEAR Music;

• providing interactive marketing and promotion for The New York Times best-selling author and clinical psychologist Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.; and

• creating and implementing integrated marketing strategy for consumer brands including Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Daimler-Benz, Gillette, Hasbro, IBM, Iomega, Lever and MCI, back in the “Friends & Family” calling plan days when they were scrappy, treated stakeholders supremely well and challenged AT&T with élan and a vengeance.

Willow was a governing member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) in its infancy, and served on the committee to elect its first Board of Directors.

Recent speaking engagements:

• Digital Hollywood (panel)
• American Marketing Association
• International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)
• Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)
• Direct Marketing Association of Kansas City
• Truman State University

Recent publications include:

• "Four Lessons B2B Marketers Can Learn from Einstein, a Waitress and a Wild & Crazy Guy," Bulldog Solutions' Marketing Watchdog Journal. September 2007
• "Secrets of the Stylists: Exposed," KC Magazine. March 2007
  
• "Marketer, Beware: The Threat of Blog Spam ("Splogs") to Word of Mouth Marketing & Market Insight." Paper prepared for the book Measuring Word of Mouth, Volume 2 published by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. May 2006