Bento Box portions will be created by John Butman, Seth B. Minkin and Dave Balter. John will primarily write, Seth will mainly paint, and Dave will sorta freak out along the way.

John Butman

John Butman began his career with a fine arts degree from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied film directing with Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone and writing with the poet M.L. Rosenthal. He spent several years writing, producing, and directing short films and theater in the Boston area, then devoted most of the ’80s to work as creative director for marketing communications firms in the U.S. and U.K., creating messages and media for businesses and non-profit clients throughout the United States, Europe, and in the Far East. His media work has won more than fifty awards and citations in festivals and competitions worldwide. In 1989, John began writing books — as author, editor, and collaborating writer — mostly about business and social change. Some of his fifteen titles include Trading Up: The New American Luxury, and Townie, a novel. He continues to be passionately intrigued about companies of all sizes.

Seth Minkin

Seth Minkin’s artistic influences are broad – from indigenous and eastern art to contemporary artists such as Cy Twombly, Francis Bacon and Carroll Dunham, whose work reflects the imperative of process.

His paintings show a private world of improvisation, spontaneity, humor, pathos, exaggeration and abandon. The images are often figurative, organic, personal totems reflecting his travels, and his interest in antiques and children’s art. In close view, they can become highly abstract. He develops his paintings without preconceptions, letting the paintings take form from a matrix of inner – outer dialog, observation, and chance discovery.

Dave Balter

Dave Balter is the Founder and President of BzzAgent. Dave has over 10 years experience in marketing, previously founding and running two promotional marketing agencies, the most recent being sold in October 2001. He has also spent a number of years working for a variety of corporations, including Kessler Financial Services, where he managed direct marketing and affinity program implementations for Fortune 1000 clients, and Webb & Co., where he analyzed circulation and fulfillment operations, and performed statistical modeling for consumer catalogs. Dave was named to the “40 under 40? by the Advertising Specialty Institute in 2001 and by Boston Business Journal in 2006, and one of the “Top 7 individuals changing the face of beauty” by Women’s Wear Daily in 2004. Dave holds a provisional patent in the process and systems of Word-of-Mouth marketing and research. He is also a founding member of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) [and currently sits on its board], where he co-chaired the Ethics council and helped develop the first-ever Word of Mouth Ethics Code. He is a frequent speaker to corporations and universities on the subject of Word-of-Mouth and non-traditional media. He holds a B.A. in Psychology from Skidmore College.