Mike Bonifer

Mike Bonifer (b. 1953-12-31 in Jasper, Indiana) is an American businessman, writer, director and educator. He is Co-founder and Partner at bigSTORY, a business consultancy.

Early Days[edit]

Mike Bonifer grew up on a farm near Ireland, Indiana, the oldest of six children of Bob and Fern (Henke) Bonifer. He attended St. Mary's grade school in Ireland, and graduated in 1971 from Jasper High School, where he participated with distinction in basketball and band, and was the recipient of the school's top scholar-athlete award. He attended the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 1975 with a degree in Business and Philosophy. After a short stint with Procter & Gamble Bonifer began writing professionally. In 1977, he co-wrote (with L. G. Weaver) Out of Bounds -- An Anecdotal History of Notre Dame Football.

The Disney Years[edit]

In 1980, Bonifer began working for Walt Disney Studios where he was the publicist for the motion picture, TRON. He was a founding producer for The Disney Channel, where he produced and directed the award-winning series, Disney Family Album. With Disney art director Paul Wenzel, he created the packaging for Disney Home Videos, produced Disney's first web sites for motion pictures beginning with Toy Story in 1994, and wrote books on the making of the studio's films TRON and Dick Tracy.

In 1993, he co-wrote (again with L. G. Weaver) and directed the feature film, The Lipstick Camera for Triboro Pictures and Sibling Entertainment.

Early Dot-coms[edit]

From 1997-2001, Bonifer served as the senior Creative executive for several dotcom-era internet companies, including BoxTop Interactive and iXL, where he oversaw the creative direction and content of early web sites for a prestigious list of clients, including Disney and the Smithsonian. In 2001-2002, he served as the Vice-President of Creative for Vidyah Productions, an online video streaming company.

In 2004, with Kevin Wall and David Asarnow, Bonifer co-founded the online entertainment company Network LIVE, a producer of the Live 8 concerts, and a forerunner to Control Room, the company that produced Live Earth. In 2006 and 2007, he served as Chief Storyteller for Live Earth - Concerts for a Climate in Crisis.

From GameChangers to bigSTORY[edit]

In 2006, with Dr. Virginia Kuhn, Associate Director of the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California, he founded the business education company, GameChangers, LLC, which offers a curriculum based on improvisation techniques described in his book,GameChangers -- Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, published in January, 2008.

GameChangers merged with Beehaus, another business consultancy headed by Jeremi Karnell, to form bigSTORY. Mike Bonifer serves as Co-Founder and Partner of bigSTORY, the first company in the world to practice quantum storytelling, an emerging science that accounts for how stories are created, live in networks and influence behaviors. He has conducted storytelling training and strategy engagements for Fortune 500 companies and emerging enterprises.

Sources[edit]

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