Guest Blogger: Lior Shamir
October 26th, 2009 by: admin
Lior is the Founder of We Are Listening, an online international song contest and song critique platform headquartered in London. The company’s exclusive career-launching contest prizes have landed their winners on the stages of the world’s largest music festivals, placed their songs on internationally syndicated television shows, and secured the most desirable co-writing, publishing and recording opportunities in the business. Distinguished contest panelists include executives at EMI, Universal, and SonyBMG; songwriters credited by Faith Hill, Lenny Kravitz, and Chaka Khan; producers credited by Sting, Bjork, and Dido; and professors at the world-renowned Berklee College of Music.
Joel Harrison is the owner of AlbumArtDesign.com, a full-service creative agency specializing in design for cover art, web sites, tour posters, e-mail campaigns, merchandising and apparel for the music industry. Recent clients include Epic/Columbia Records, Fueled By Ramen, Bombtrax Records, and LifeForce Records. Joel is also a musician and songwriter, he is a certified Pro Tools Engineer, and has worked as a producer for Brickhouse Recordings in Orlando, FL. Now living in Franklin, Tennessee, Joel currently works with Indevo Records and Band With a Mission.
Refe Tuma is the author of 
For close to a decade, Lance Brown has owned and operated One Moment Management–a management company dedicated to building artists through new and aggressive marketing campaigns. While there, he built artists such as Matchbook Romance (Epitaph), Plain White T’s (Hollywood), Escape The Fate (Epitaph), Millencolin (Epitaph) and Hyper Crush (Universal Motown) to name a few. In addition to his marketing and management background, Lance has a deep understanding of sales and distribution and has consulted with various independent record companies helping to break previous sales records.
Brandon Hance is considered a visionary in the social commerce industry. His combination of music industry expertise and social networking research set the stage for the development of Inhance Media where he created a division specifically focused on artist services: Audiolife. He is an extraordinary leader and a two-time national championship quarterback for the USC Trojans. Personal credits also include an advanced degree from USC’s Thornton School of Music, also earning academic awards and honors from the Marshall School of Business, the Thornton School of Music, and Pac 10. His music industry career includes talent management at The Firm in Beverly Hills, where he worked with platinum artists such as Snoop Dogg, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Ice Cube, Backstreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson and Enrique Iglesias among many others.
Ana Khachatrian is the Editor and Online Marketing Manager at Audiolife. Since graduating from USC with a degree in Business Administration, she has formed a strong interest in Social Media Marketing & Communications. Combining her past experience in the music industry with her recent experience with blogging/social media, Ana is determined to share her knowledge with artists looking to utilize Web 2.0 to their benefit. In her spare time she likes to read, blog about music, play guitar, watch movies and attend shows. Occassionally she unsuccessfuly knits.
Rick Gonzalez is a creative marketing, branding and management executive with 16 years of experience in entertainment. During his career he has marketed and/or managed multi platinum recording artists Korn, Incubus, Rage Against The Machine, Cypress Hill, System Of A Down, Deftones, Rob Zombie, Jurassic 5 and NEA Jazz Master George Benson. Along with his marketing and artist management background, Rick has also produced and managed world tours, celebrity events and trade shows, conceptualized and created a music division for Sole Technology along with developing media, merchandise and apparel strategies for record labels and recording artists. 
David Rose has over 15 year of experience as a technology industry executive and is the former head of Business Development, New Media, eCommerce and IT at Yep Roc Records & Redeye Distribution. He is currently the Managing Editor at 
Greg Rollett is the author of 
