WEST 2011 Leadership Awards June 8, 2011

Awardee: Laura Fitton

Laura @pistachio Fitton, once upon a time known as "Queen" of Twitter, is Twitter's own mom-at-home to tech CEO Cinderella Story, CEO/Founder of www.oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for Dummies. You can read her story in the Boston Globe, on Xconomy.com or watch her Mixergy interview.

Credited with explaining Twitter's business value to @GuyKawasaki, in a Google TechTalk, at top business schools and to thousands of others tech leaders, she's been speaking professionally about the business use of Twitter since October 2007.

She launched the first Twitter for Business consultancy in 2008 and began work on oneforty while writing Twitter for Dummies. Consulting clients included IBM, Ford and Johnson & Johnson and she's been quoted in more than 100 national publications including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Newsweek, and BusinessWeek. She also raised $25,000 for Charity: Water in December 2008 in the first major "donate by tweeting" charity campaign, @Wellwishes.

Laura believes that everyone can benefit - dramatically - from Twitter because of its power to overcome isolation. Watch her "Twitter: A Love Story" talk from #140Conf NYC.

"The people you meet on Twitter remove the obstacles that hold us back in our everyday lives."