This year, we’re so excited to bring the Blogalicious Beauty Bash! to our conference lineup. We’ll have tons more news and info on this glam event later, but – in case you want to up your beauty swag factor (what gal doesn’t?) – you can enter for a chance to win a Makeover Momma VIP Swag Bag full of goodies to keep you looking fabulous.

Head on over to Makeover Momma for the full contest details and to enter to win!

Today, we are pleased to announce that Mr. Marc Morial of the National Urban League will be making a keynote address at Blogalicious.  He will share with us his perspective on how bloggers and social media enthusiasts can and should use our powerful influence to effect change for our communities.

Here is more about Mr. Morial:

Marc H. Morial – National Urban League, President and CEO

Entrepreneur. Lawyer. Professor. Legislator. Mayor. President, U.S. Conference of Mayors. CEO of the National Urban League, the nation’s largest civil rights organization.

In a distinguished professional career that has spanned 25 years, Marc Morial has performed all of these roles with excellence, and is one of the most accomplished servant-leaders in the nation.

As an Entrepreneur, Morial started several successful small businesses — an apparel wholesale company, a special events company, and a janitorial company, his first venture at age 15 with two childhood friends.

As a Lawyer, Morial won the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Pro Bono Publico Award for his legal service to the poor and disadvantaged. He was also one of the youngest lawyers, at age 26, to argue and win a major case before the Louisiana Supreme Court.

As a Professor, Morial served on the adjunct faculty of Xavier University in Louisiana, where he taught Constitutional Law, and Business Law.

As a Louisiana State Senator, Morial was named Legislative Rookie of the Year, Education Senator of the Year, and Environmental Senator of the Year, while authoring laws on a wide range of important subjects.

As Mayor of New Orleans, Morial was a popular chief executive with a broad multi-racial coalition who led New Orleans’ 1990’s renaissance, and left office with a 70% approval rating.

As President of the National Urban League since 2003 he has been the primary catalyst for an era of change — a transformation for the nearly 100 year old civil rights organization. His energetic and skilled leadership has expanded the League’s work around an Empowerment agenda, which is redefining civil rights in the 21st century with a renewed emphasis on closing the economic gaps between Whites and Blacks as well as rich and poor Americans.

He has been recognized as one of the 100 most influential Black Americans by Ebony Magazine, as well as one of the Top 50 Nonprofit Executives by the Nonprofit Times.

Read more about Mr. Morial HERE.

My #1 reason is so I know I will go no matter what if my registration is complete and I’m also saving. It’s a win win situation! Can’t wait for Carnival either, I’ll be reppin’ Jamaica hard!

Twitter Link!
http://twitter.com/JaelDesignsInc/statuses/16577703161

Jen….please contact us with your info.  Congratulations!!!!!

We’re extending our early bird until July 7, 2010. Hopefully we’ll get it all together and we’ll have the site up and running with all the information you need to register for the best blogging conference of the 2010!

Here are the sessions we have lined up so far. Remember, early bird registration ends this week, on July 1st. Don’t delay!!

LIFESTYLE TRACK
1. Chronicles of Fit Divas
2. Social Media Moms
3. Best Business Practices for the Lifestyle Blogger
4. Building Your Social Media Tribe
5. Style File: Trends in Fashion & Beauty Blogging
6. Love That! Design Blogging
7. Foodies

TECHNICAL TRACK & WORKSHOPS
1. New Bloggers Guide: Blogging 101 & 201
2. Building Your Media Toolkit: Kits, Training and More
3. The Smart Girl’s Guide to Smartphones & Apps
4. Twitter 201 – Creating True Engagement with 140 Characters
5. Strike a Pose: Taking Better Photos for Your Blog
6. How Important Are Your Stats?
7. CSS, HTML & Blog Design
8. Blogger’s Toolbox: Platforms & Plugins
9. Vlogging 101
10. Good Blog Writing: A Workshop

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRACK
1. Marketing to Latinas
2. Making Your Blog Your Business
3. Bloggers as Brand Ambassadors
4. The Book Deal: A Guide for Bloggers
5. Self-Promotion: Be Your Own CEO

We also have a great and easy contest going on where you can win one free night at the Ritz Carlton, South Beach, our conference hotel! Check out the contest and rules here. Hurry, the contest ends July 1st!

We’ve been busy for Months! Weeks! Days! finalizing our speakers and sessions to ensure that we have a great agenda for you all.  Although there are still a few more days to submit your speaker proposals, we would like to share a few of the fabulous sessions and speakers on our line-up.  (As a reminder, you can submit your speaker proposals until June 30, 2010.)

Before I go into the details of some of our speakers, let’s do a little preview of what we have lined up for the weekend.

• We have will have three breakout tracks –  entrepreneurial, technical, and lifestyle.
• Conference begins Friday, October 8, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. and ends Sunday at 3pm.  This means more time to learn, mingle, and celebrate our diversity!
• We will provide daycare for those attendees wanting to travel  with their children/families.
• Another great line-up of fabulous women and men!
• Early bird registration ends July 1, 2010- don’t delay in registering early!

So let’s get right into it and start highlighting just some of the speakers and sessions we have planned for Blogalicious Weekend 2010!

The Session: Building Your Social Media Tribe. Learn how to promote, gather, and engage your community by women that have built and gathered their own communities. The speakers will share their social media tools, how-tos, and best practices for all those attendees that want to gather their own communities, regardless of its niche!

The Track: Lifestyle

Speaker Highlight: Ana Flores; Spanglishbaby.com

If you haven’t met Ana Flores of Spanglishbaby yet, let me introduce you to one of our favorite bloggers.  Ana Flores is truly a child of two worlds.  Born in Houston to parents from El Salvador, Ana grew up in El Salvador until she headed back to the U.S. to attend the University of Florida and receive a Bachelor in Telecommunications-Production.  Since then she has worked as television and entertainment producer, with a specialty in the U.S. Hispanic industry, both in the U.S. and in México.

Ana and her husband moved to Los Angeles five years ago when the TV industry came calling back.  They thought they had escaped it all when they moved to Playa del Carmen in México to act as irresponsible beach bums, but the offer was too tempting to pass up.  Three years ago, they joyously welcomed their daughter into their bilingual and bicultural family.  These days, Ana Lilian is splitting her time as a brand consultant building bridges with Latina bloggers, a freelance writer and TV producer, and dedicating precious time to her labor-of-love blog for parents raising bilingual and bicultural children: SpanglishBaby .

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The Session: Bloggers as Brand Ambassadors. This session will be a hands-on workshop to train bloggers in handling the ups, downs, and unexpected of being a brand ambassador. The speakers will share three different case studies that can arise when bloggers work as brand ambassadors and will lead a conversation on possible approaches and devise the best possible solutions and outcomes. Participants will come away with tangible, useful, and lasting problem solving skills, not to mention a better understanding of the large companies and brands that retain bloggers for their marketing campaigns. Awesome!

The Track: Entrepreneurial

The Speakers: Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann are the founders and principals of The Motherhood Creative.

Cooper spent two decades working in top tier public relations agencies in New York and Washington DC before co-founding TheMotherhood.com and TheMotherhood Creative.  In addition, Cooper has written for numerous media outlets including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the HuffingtonPost, MomsRising and BlogHer.com and has been featured in several books about mothers online. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband and their four children where they are active in their community and spend far too much time carpooling to and from sporting events.

We are thrilled that the awesomely fabulous ladies of The CleverGirls Collective will be hosting The Bay Area Blogalicious Mixer…

The Blogalicious Mixer is an intimate afternoon of wine, women, and blogs, celebrating the diversity of women of all ethnicities in social media.
Above all, the Blogalicious Mixer is a party!  You’ll enjoy:

• An afternoon in one of San Francisco’s most celebrated event locales
• Delicious snacks of the healthy and chocolate varieties
• A hosted wine bar
• Gift bags
• Celebrity guest, Kim Coles 

June 13, 2010

Blogalicious will be heating up Chicago in June. Join us for an afternoon of relaxation and fun. Come to connect with old bloggy friends; come to make new ones; come for an afternoon away from the kids; come for an outing with the kids. It doesn’t matter what the reason; just come and enjoy! Light refreshments will be provided, and kids are welcome.  The event is free, but space is limited so please RSVP today.

Heating up Chicago is sponsored by:

June 19th, 2010

Blogalicious and The Red Pump Project are teaming up for what promises to be a fun-filled night. We invite you to Say RED: Cocktails and Conversations in celebration of the Blogging While Brown conference, Juneteenth and raising awareness about HIV/AIDS – the perfect combination! There’s one requirement though – you MUST wear red pumps. It’s not that difficult and it’s super fab. If you don’t have red pumps, we’re giving you 2 weeks to get a pair (and if you can’t swing pumps after a day of conferencing, we totally understand, so we’ll take red shoes:).

We are still finalizing the location, but make sure to RSVP because space will be limited.

There are so many reasons why South Beach is a great place to hold the second annual Blogalicious Weekend Conference that we decided to try and list them all, right here!  Let’s face it,  between the possible celebrity sightings, to the fabulous restaurants, and beautiful beaches, South Beach is hot and sexy.   Let’s not forget the surrounding Miami neighborhoods that offer an eclectic mix of urban lifestyle living and traditional Latin flavors.  I mean really, is there a better place to hold a conference? Not just any conference, but a Blogalicious conference.

We don’t think so! And based on the standing ovation you guys gave us last year when we announced Miami as our next location,  we think you all agree - Miami is it!

But aside from all the great things about Miami, how about all the great reasons why registering for Blogalicious before our early bird prices end on July 1st is a great idea?

When you combine the great things about Miami and the reasons why you have to register early, we’ve got our very own Top Ten list!

Here are the Top Ten Reasons to Register Early for Blogalicious 2010

1)  When you watch the next episode of Basketball Wives, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you too, will have a chance to visit the same restaurants, boutiques, and hotel as Evelyn, Jennifer, Suzie, and the rest of the gals. You might even spot one of the gals since the second season was just picked up by VH1.

2)  You’ll save $65.00 on registration which equals two mango mojitos, a nice Cuban dinner, and Cuban dessert at a great South Beach restaurant.

3)  You won’t end up on the waiting list because Blogalicious 2010 WILL.sell.out.  We’ve doubled attendance this year but passes are going fast.

4)  You already booked your room at the Ritz, so go ahead and register!

5)  The “I’m Going to Blogalicious” badge is not only a cute accessory to your blog, but another way to let everyone know you are going to hottest conference this year.  Woot!

6)  The early flamingo catches the Blogalicious worm. You’ll start to get exclusive, attendee insider tips, news, and benefits so don’t miss out!

7)  Registering is already on your to-do list so register today and scratch that sucker off- done!

8)  You don’t want to spend your Blogalicious money on your summer vacation with the family, boyfriend, girlfriend, your dog, or whomever.

9)  Will Smith said it best in 1998, “Bienviendo a Miami… [it's] the city that keeps the roof blazing!”

10)  When will you ever have another chance to stay at a luxury South Beach hotel like the Ritz Carlton for only $199 a night?!

So  here is what we are doing. We are holding a contest where you can enter for a chance to win one free night at the Ritz Carlton, South Beach.  That’s a prize value of $199, plus taxes.

Here’s all you have to do to enter to win one free night:

1) Tweet your reason why registering for Blogalicious before the early bird is a fabulous idea.  We’ve listed our reasons above as an example.  Be sure to use the hashtag #blogalicious10 in your Tweets.

2) Leave us a comment  with your reason(s) in this post and provide a link to your tweet so that we know you did it. One entry for every unique tweet and comment!

3)  Get two entries for every unique post on your blog. Like Rule #2  above, leave us a comment here so we know you did it.

Additional rules:  You don’t have to be registered for the conference to enter this contest, but you must be registered by 11:59 pm July 1, 2010  to win.  If you are not registered by July 1, 2010 you can’t claim your prize and we’ll give your night to the next winner!  You must also claim your prize by 5:00 PM EST on  July 12, 2010.

One winner will be selected at random and announced on Friday, July 2, 2010.

So what’s your reason!?

Thanks to the Washington, DC Economic Partnership for lending us their swank space for our event, as well as to Niambi Jarvis and the DC Office on Women’s Policy and Initiatives, and Food Arts DC for the delectable refreshments.

If you missed the event, don’t worry – you can check out photos here.

Stay tuned for a meetup in your neck of the woods soon!

Wow! The 7pm movie on 5/27 is SOLD OUT! If you weren’t able to get your ticket, no worries. Come on out and meet us at Zengo for happy hour at 5pm! We’ll be networking, chatting and mingling in our Blogalicious fabulousness.

Carrie and her girls are back!

Join the Blogalicious DC community on Thursday, May 27, 2010 for a night out to celebrate spring, girl power, and each other.  We’ll be meeting at the bar at Zengo at 5pm for Happy Hour and then heading over to watch the 7pm show at Regal Gallery Place Stadium 14.

You MUST PRE-ORDER your tickets to guarantee admission to the movie. Click here to purchase your movie tickets from Fandango. Make sure to purchase a ticket for the 7PM SHOW ON MAY 27th.

Gather your best girlfriends and get Blogalicious!