Jerry Michalski is consultant, and founder of the independent consultancy Sociate. He helps companies to develop strategies that build authentic, productive relationships with their customers as well as among their employees. This usually requires a blend of corporate strategy, social dynamics and social software.

Between 1993 and 1998, Jerry was the managing editor Esther Dyson’s monthly tech newsletter Release 1.0″>Release 1.0, as well as co-host of her annual conference, PC Forum.

During the dot-boom days, Jerry was an advisor to eGroups (now YahooGroups) and Pyra (now Blogger, part of Google).

Before, Jerry worked as a technology analyst, whereby he focused on the technological aspects rather than on the business side. Furthermore, he spent five years at New Science Associates, a technology market-research firm later bought by Gartner. Before that he worked for an internal strategy startup within Price Waterhouse.

Jerry posts his ideas on his weblog Sociate, as well as in his online Brain. He is also the founder of the Yi-Tan Collective, where he hosts a weekly live call-in conversation, which is available as a podcast.

Jerry works with larger companies such as UBS, Target and Boeing, but also with smaller players such as IDEO; educational institutions such as the Wharton Executive Education Program and non-profits such as the Institute for the Future. Jerry also acts as a technology advisor to startups ranging from TheBrain.com to Socialtext and Seedwiki.

Jerry’s talks answer questions such as: How will increasing openness and transparency transform businesses? How can companies communicate authentically with their stakeholders? What are the trends, and what roles and job-titles will be commonplace in 10 years?

In his talks he maps new territory and guides people through it, he challanges his public with new ideas, connects large-scale change and technological innovations to business strategy, and he facilitates productive workshops.