Tara Hunt is a true pioneer in online marketing and one of the most respected authorities on online communities—how they are evolving, how they are changing both culture and business, and how businesses must behave in order to succeed in the participatory web economy.

For her work in this area, Fast Company magazine named Tara to its 2009 list of the Most Influential Women in Technology in 2009.

She is one of the most respected and cited thought leaders in community marketing—how to delight and enchant the people in the communities your company serves with products, experiences and communications that honor the expectations of online customer communities.

Community marketing is not about pushing messages or creating strong brands, but building relationships and engaging communities. Tara is an expert in using the tools and the opportunities of the participatory web to succeed, tools for building social capital—that is, whuffie.

Tara is the author of The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business, a breakthrough book on community marketing. It provides the strategic map and specific tactics for success in the new economy and its elusive, lucrative world of online communities.

In the world of Web 2.0, market capital flows from social capital—from what Tara calls whuffie. This is the future of business and Tara Hunt has the knowledge and experience of someone who's spent her career mastering how it works.

Tara was instrumental in making BarCamp, an international network of user-generated conferences, a worldwide phenomenon. She also is an active promoter of the Coworking movement, in which independent workers share workspace.

She speaks frequently at conferences around the world, including Mesh, the Future of Web Apps, ETech and Web 2.0 Expo. She blogs at horsepigcow.com