Here are the contact center experts who will choose the three caption finalists for the ACCE 2008 & Toonblogs.com Contact Center Cartoon Caption Contest:

Bruce Balentine
Executive Vice President, Enterprise Integration Group

At ACCE, Bruce will speak on trends in call center automation. Bruce is a design consultant specializing in speech, audio, and multimodal user interfaces. During his 14 accumulated years working with speech recognition and related technologies, He has designed more than a dozen user interfaces for telecommunications, desktop multimedia, entertainment, language training, medical, and home automation products. He received his undergraduate degree in 1971 and his Master's in 1975 from the University of North Texas with work in electronic music and intermedia. Bruce is also the author of the industry best-seller; "How to Build a Speech Recognition Application," which is considered the definitive style guide for human factors design in IVR. 

Lori Bocklund
President, Strategic Contact, Inc.

At ACCE, Lori will speak in numerous sessions. Lori is President of Strategic Contact, an independent consulting firm focused on helping companies optimize the strategic value of their customer contact technology and operations. During her more than 19 years in the call center industry, 14 of them as a consultant, Lori has acquired an understanding of a broad spectrum of systems, applications, and operational environments. She shares her knowledge and experience through speaking engagements, articles, a two-day call center technology course delivered through ICMI, and the book she co-authored, “Call Center Technology Demystified” (Call Center Press). Lori has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from South Dakota State University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from George Washington University.

Drew Daly
Senior Director of Sales, World Travel Holdings

At ACCE, Drew will speak on managing and motivating remote agents. World Travel Holdings sells vacations and cruise packages directly to consumers through multiple brands, including CruiseOne, CruisesOnly, Cruise411, Rooms.com, and Vacation Outlet. It owns licensing agreements with third-party travel companies such as American Airlines, Orbitz, Overstock.com, priceline.com, SAM'S CLUB, and Wal-Mart. In mid-2006, World Travel Holdings more than doubled its size when it acquired National Leisure Group, a leading vacation package distributor. The company was founded in 2005 by Brad and Jeff Tolkin. 

 At ACCE, Anne will speak on training and development skills for supervisors. Anne is one of America’s leading experts, with experience spanning more than twenty years in the field of executive and professional coaching, organizational development, team-building, facilitation and customized training. She is also a prolific author, has published more than 50 articles, and recently published her first book. Anne is principal and founder of Call Center Coach, LLC, which is focused on executive coaching and management development. She holds a B.S. degree in Consumer Education from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an M.S. degree in Human Development and Adult Education from Syracuse University. 

Daniel Ord
CEO, OmniTouch

At ACCE, Dan will speak on "mystery shopping" studies and coaching. Daniel is CEO, of OmniTouch and a recognized expert in the Customer Contact industry. He brings over 18 years senior experience in Customer touchpoint management, consulting, training and research. An acclaimed international speaker and facilitator, Daniel has spoken for industry events and conferences ranging from Singapore, Hong Kong, India, the U.S., the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Cyprus and more. Prior to founding OmniTouch, Daniel was Regional Director, Training & Consulting for OgilvyOne in Asia, part of the global WPP Group. In the U.S., Daniel was Vice President, Call Centre & Distribution Operations for a US$100m consortium of direct marketing companies acquired by Time Warner.