Bright Ones: Alisa Hansen is Socialized

There are a lot of bright people who work in the field of marketing. There are few who stand out for their forward thinking mentality and vibrant outlook on the continuous changes ravaging the space. With the :30 long under fire and marketers flailing about trying to determine what's next, it's nice to know there are few smart people out there who can help guide them through the perils of this sea change.

Alisa Leonard-Hansen works in the New York office of Arizona-based digital marketing agency iCrossing, writes for the company blog and shares her own thoughts on social media (or that fact there's no such thing) on her own blog, Socialized. There, she offers her outlook on social media or, according to her, "the current iteration of the web."

Right now she's working on a project for internet service provider EMBARQ which is running a YouTube video promotion highlighting the provider's faster speeds. You can check out some of the more interesting video submissions here.

Alisa is a passionate, intelligent thinker who isn't afraid to voice her opinion such as when she's poking holes in buzzwords like web 2.0, trumpeting the benefits of the social graph or brainstorming the ideal social measurement tool.

Alisa, who loves dogs, is prolific on Twitter and isn't afraid to call out panelists at conferences she thinks are just passing unnecessary wind to the audience rather than imparting usable information.

Alisa is the kind of person you want working with you if you're not interested in the "yes man" type. That's not to say she's the belligerent sort who's impossible to work with which would be far from the truth but she will use her gifted intelligence to challenge what she believes needs challenging.

I've known Alisa for about year and can say she's a wittylicious conversationalist and someone who truly "gets" what's going on in marketing and advertising today.

First in what we hope to be a profile series of bright people in the digital space.