President
Sanford Rosenberg, Ph.D. The President of MRA, Dr. Rosenberg has forty years of experience in working with film, video, and emerging technologies. He has consulted on a variety of media projects including film, television, games, and the web. These have included B2B, C2B and C2C web-based projects. His particular focus has been on the issues of privacy, security, identity, community, and personalization on the Internet. Dr. Rosenberg specializes in qualitative knowledge-based research, examining the relationship between language, story, structure, symbol, image, emotion, and the user experience, in any media.
He has extensive background as an Executive Coach and in business development, particularly in the Entertainment industry. Dr. Rosenberg is also a licensed psychotherapist, as well as an educator, and researcher in the area of symbolic processes, social psychology, and Psychographics.
He is often called upon to lecture on topics ranging from the independent movie business to the structure of moving story, to archetypal psychology, media and the Self. Recently, he presented at the Digital Indies Conference on the Internet, Privacy, Intimacy, and Community.
Member of American Psychological Association and Association for the Study of Sleep and Dreams.
He has also serves on a number of boards, and has acted as an advisor to both for-profit and non-profit organizations.
Founding partner, Front Street Productions/Front Street Pictures, producer of six films including “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” with Naomi Watts, Mark Ruffalo, Laura Dern, and Peter Krause, winner of the screenwriting award at Sundance and released by Warner Indies in the summer of 2004 and “The Deal,” with Selma Blair and Christian Slater, released in the summer of 2005.
Business & Media Research Associates
Alex Cohen Mr. Cohen is the founder of Ideon Partners, which consults on Intellectual Property and Patent issues. He was Senior Inventor for Intellectual Ventures, Executive Director for Undergroundfilm.org, VP of Engineering for OpenDesign, CTO of Pop.com for Dreamworks and Imagine Entertainment, Director of Technology for CNET, Director of Technology, Director Technology Netcenter for Netscape and CTO for Magellan Search Engine, McKinley Group. His specialties include IP and Patent Consulting, Venture Capital Technology consulting, Large Scale website project management and Search Engines.
David Rosen Mr. Rosen is a leading authority on the entertainment industry and the new-media technologies. He serves as co-managing director of Praxis, a business-development and marketing-services firm specializing in the emerging entertainment media. In addition, he serves on the boards of directors of the Independent Television Service, Film Arts Foundation and Shaping San Francisco. Mr. Rosen also authored “Off-Hollywood: the Making and Marketing of Independent Film” (Grove).
Byron Wagner, MetaWire C.E.O. Byron Wagner uses his unique skill of integrating technology and the arts to create innovative digital communications tools and solve problems for multinational organizations. His patents range from desktop graphic scanners, facsimile modems and real-time transmission of CD-quality audio over dial-up phone lines to global management of intermodal shipping. His clients include Apple Computer, MGM, IBM, The Walt Disney Company, Viacom, Time Warner, 20th Century Fox, Pepsi, Pacific Bell/SBC, Reebok and Nintendo. Mr. Wagner specializes in creating and managing unusual new technology projects and integrating secure global broadband connectivity for film, broadcast, on-line, and live event production.
Game and Social Media Consultant/Analyst
Jordan Blackman A social game design expert, Jordan Blackman brought CSI to Facebook with the smash hit, CSI: Crime City. He went on to Zynga where he led the creative team on FrontierVille, generating over $40 million while at the helm of the story and design roadmap. Jordan has written, produced or designed for numerous million-selling franchises, including FrontierVille, Delta Force: Black Hawk Down, Joint Operations, CSI: Crime City and CastleVille. Combined, these games have touched over 100 million people. Jordan has collaborated with top studios worldwide, including Telltale games, Area/Code, Other Ocean, Buzzmonkey, Ubisoft Shanghai, and Zynga SF. Partners Jordan has worked with include CBS, Ogilvy, Sony, Microsoft, WestEd and many more. He is an instructor of Game Design at the Bay Area Video Coalition. See his website JordanCo.
Psychological Research Associates
Yannis Toussulis, Ph.D. Dr. Toussulis specializes in human science research. He formerly directed the Consciousness Studies Program at Antioch University/West and has been a visiting faculty member at the Monterey Institute of International Relations. He has lectured and conducted seminars internationally for the past twenty-five years. These seminars have focused on an inter-disciplinary approach to psychology, media studies, comparative mythology/symbology, and intercultural studies. Dr. Toussulis currently conducts corporate coaching for executives in the communications industry and similar fields.
Daniel Gaylinn, Ph.D. Daniel Gaylinn, Ph.D. is a filmmaker and doctor of clinical psychology whose original research explored the therapeutic use of video for stress management with adolescents. He has presented at professional conferences and has been published in peer-reviewed journals since 2005 on the subject of the nexus between the emerging digital media landscape and a new orientation to consciousness. He has worked as a media consultant since 2007 is currently building a private clinical practice as a registered psychological assistant in San Francisco. A member of the American Psychological Association, the California Psychological Association, and the San Francisco Psychological Association, Dr. Gaylinn is a Board member and has served as the Executive Director for the Association for Transpersonal Psychology since 2004.
