PETER SHANKMAN
     PR Week Magazine has described Peter as “redefining the art of networking,” and Investor’s Business Daily has called him “crazy, but effective.” Peter Shankman is a spectacular example of what happens when you harness the power of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and make it work to your advantage.

     An entrepreneur, author, speaker, and ingenious worldwide connector, Peter is recognized nationally and globally for radically new ways of thinking about social media, PR, marketing, advertising, creativity, and just about everything else, as well.

     Peter is the founder and CEO of The Geek Factory, Inc., a boutique Marketing and PR Strategy firm located in New York City, with clients worldwide. His blog, which he launched in 2002, (www.shankman.com) both comments on and generates news and conversation.

      Most recently, Peter launched Help A Reporter (www.helpareporter.com) which connects journalists with the sources they require using a social media platform. HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is already over 36,000 members and growing, and has a growing stable of national journalists using the service on a daily basis.

     Peter founded AirTroductions, the world’s first social network for business travelers after a particularly brutal inter-continental flight. Launched in 2005 to instant media attention, AirTroductions was acquired in mid 2007 and relaunched in January of 2008 as TripLife, the largest social networking and connections website for all travelers.

     Peter’s PR and Marketing clients have included the Snapple Beverage Group, Walt Disney World, Vantage Point Venture Partners, American Express, Discovery Networks, New Frontier Media, OpSec Security, Napster, Juno, GenuOne, Dream Catcher Destinations Club, Harrah’s Hotels, and many others, and he sits on the board of both Scott-e-Vest, the world’s first technologically enabled clothing line, as well as TripLife.
    

     Peter is the author of Can We Do That?! Outrageous PR Stunts That Work and Why Your Company Needs Them (Wiley and Sons 2006) and a frequent keynote speaker and workshop presenter at conferences, trade shows, and private companies, including The U.S. Department of Defense, The Public Relations Society of America, Saatchi and Saatchi, , CTIA, CTAM, CES, PMA, Mobile Marketing Asia, Advertising Week, and the Direct Marketing Association, among many others.
To punctuate his full-throttle schedule, Peter is a marketing pundit for several national and international news channels, including Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC. He is frequently quoted in major media and trade publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, and USA Today.      

     Peter started his career in Vienna, VA, with America Online as a Senior News Editor, helping found the AOL Newsroom and spearheading coverage of the Democratic and Republican 1996 conventions, which marked the first time an online news service covered any major political event.

     Born and raised in New York City, Peter still lives there with his two psychotic cats, Karma and NASA, who consistently deny his repeated requests to relinquish the couch. In the few hours of spare time Peter has per month, he’s a frequent runner, with 13 completed marathons and three Olympic distance triathlons to his credit, an amateur boxer, and an “B” licensed skydiver, specializing in free-flying.
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