Guest Instructors

Jen Barnett

Jen Barnett was blogging in 2001 before blogging was cool, whether offering recaps of “The Apprentice” from a business school perspective or taking on pop culture and daily life through her MySpace blog. She has written and maintained blogs for two Time Inc. magazines (Health, Southern Living) and organizations as different as Goody’s Family Clothing and Emory University. Jen also worked as an online specialist with Southern Progress Corporation. A veteran of advertising and marketing, she earned an MBA from Emory’s Goizueta Business School in 2005.

Jen currently works as managing editor of the Visit South travel site and writes on the Points of Interest Blog.

She loves letterboxing and collecting cats.

André Natta

Andre Natta André Natta, CMSM, is the principal of Urban Conversations. He’s a native New Yorker (The Bronx) who originally thought his life would be spent behind a drafting table, leading to him study architectural history and architecture at The Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. He received his Certification in Main Street™ Management from the National Trust Main Street Center in 2008 and has previously worked as a Programs Assistant for Marketing at the Savannah Development and Renewal Authority and as Senior Main Street Coordinator at Main Street Birmingham in Birmingham, Ala., where he makes his home with his girlfriend and two cats.

André currently serves on the Jefferson County Historical Commission as a city appointee and serves as a co-chair of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Young Professional Roundtable (a networking opportunity for YP organizations he helped found in 2006). He is also a founder of WordCamp Birmingham, Birmingham’s edition of the unconference for users of the popular web publishing software, held annually in late September and is a member of the 2009 class of Leadership UAB. He operates a hyperlocal site about Birmingham, Ala., named The Terminal. [Photo: Bob Farley/f8Photo]