About IdeaScale
We've been in business for over 4 years.Throughout this time, we've found that traditional online research methods were not effective in fostering a sense of community among customers. In addition, its no secret that your customers are talking about your organization all over the social web: on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc. Thus, IdeaScale was built to channel these discussions to both increase engagement and provide focused, effective feedback for your organization.
About Us
John Basile
John entered the world of the web in 2004 with Vintage Alpine, a small e-com website selling vintage ski clothing. After selling Vintage Alpine, John spent a several years in New York City as an online marketing and web professional. In 2008, he started Scraster Professional Screencasting, a boutique screencast video shop to help software companies like IdeaScale explain and sell their online services. John's involvement as IdeaScale's video producer let to blogging, then to support, and now to his current role in Business Development and Sales. John holds a B.A. in English and Economics from the University of Vermont and his interests include handball, radio, and NYC pizza.
Jessica Day
Jessica is Ideascale’s dedicated blog writer. She has also helped to create marketing copy for press releases, case studies, and more. She has been writing marketing copy for more than four years with digital firms, including Ascentium, a digital agency, and Knee Deep Marketing. Jessica holds a B.A. in English from Allegheny College. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Washington.
Mariano Garcia
Mariano holds a degree in Advertising Art from the Alfonso X El Sabio University and a master in Psychology from the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Argentina. He is responsible for the User Interface of IdeaScale. From creating animated .gifs to managing the production of huge Web 2.0 projects, he has worked in all the interface-related positions in the IT business and has a deep understanding of how to create effective, engaging and easy-to-use platforms. He is a member of the Usability Professionals' Association, and co-founder of the local chapter for Argentina. He is also a co-founder and head of UX for Confronte, one of the most prominent price-comparison sites in Latin America.
Rob Hoehn
Rob is the co-founder and President at IdeaScale. He has helped build feedback tools for the Obama Administration, Nancy Pelosi, Xerox, The Veterans Administration, and others. If you have a question about IdeaScale, you'll most likely run into Rob: whether its answering sales questions, tracking customer requirements, or following up on technical functionality. Rob speaks regularly at the University of Washington and blogs about crowd-sourced feedback mechanisms at blog.ideascale.com. Rob holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of Vermont.
Mainul Islam
Mainul has been working in Java EE for more than 10 years. He started his career as a teacher, but, soon enough he found more interest in developing Enterprise Software. He has worked as mentor and project manager in major software companies in Dhaka. He also worked for few New York based software companies in VOIP and Retail Marketing business. Mainul’s strength is to quickly learn any new technology and use it effectively. He likes to work with SaaS platform and Cloud computing and IdeaScale is the right place he found to work on those. He holds B.E. in Computer Science & Engineering from University of Madras. Mainul represented Grameen in UN ICT Task force in Shanghai, China.
Jeremy Przasnyski
Jeremy is a software engineer who has spent 10 years in the industry primarily focusing on J2EE enterprise solutions using agile methodologies & test driven development. He's also been very interested in learning mobile application stacks and cloud computing technologies, including iPhone, Blackberry, and Android. He takes pride in being able to jump into any layer of a software product and get his hands dirty immediately. He has implemented several enterprise & SaaS systems end-to-end and holds a deep understanding of how to design, implement, and test software products successfully. He holds a B.S. in computer science from Western Washington University.
Erik Siebert
After over 10 years in the music industry, Erik comes to IdeaScale to focus on Business Development. As the Director of Marketing for several major concert venues in the San Francisco Bay Area, he's shaped marketing campaigns both big and small. His areas of focus are social networking, public relations, and media buying. He also holds the distinct honor of being IdeaScale's de-facto sports expert. He holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Vermont.
Jing Zhang
Jing is a software engineer and web developer at IdeaScale. Before joining IdeaScale, he was an independent consultant for many large consumer-based web applications. His forte is front-end development, UX design, and mobile optimized web experiences. He was awarded one of the first Yahoo interface community award.
Advisory Board
Vivek Bhaskaran
Vivek Bhaskaran is the founding member and CEO of IdeaScale, one of the industry's leading providers of web-based research technologies. As Chief Executive Officer, he plays a key role in defining the company strategy and using technology and innovation continuously to maintain its leadership in the industry. He has played a pivotal role in the IdeaScale journey. Vivek completed his primary education in India before moving to Russia and then the US. He holds a B.S. in computer science from Brigham Young University, Utah.
Joe Peters
Joseph is one of the founding partners of Ascentum and is one of the leading minds in how technology and public participation intersect. He helps organizations build sustainable decisions to complex issues through public participation. As President and CEO, his responsibilities include marketing, and new technologies. Joseph is an advisor to the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and is a founding Board member of the Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation. He was a 2007 recipient of the Ottawa Top 40 Under 40 award, and holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa.
Rob Mariani
Rob is one of the founding partners of Ascentum. He has an MBA from the University of Ottawa. He brings to Ascentum strong business acumen and a background in Quality Assurance and service delivery. In his role Rob is responsible for collaborating on the future direction for Ascentum along with delivering creative, innovative and tremendously successful public involvement projects.
Romi Mahajan
A well-known speaker on the technology and media circuit, Mahajan serves on a variety of Advisory Boards and speaks at over a dozen industry events per year. In addition, he has been published prolifically in the Technology press. Mahajan graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, at the age of 19 with a Bachelor's degree in South Asian Studies. He also received a Master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
