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.

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.

Please RSVP today and tell your friends.

See you in a few days!

Tell us something about you that you would never tell your mom? Six months shy of my 21st birthday I got caught – by the police – purchasing a handle of gin. Also I’m getting another tattoo.

In your spare ten minutes each day, what would you wish you could be doing? What are you actually doing? In my spare ten minutes I wish I could be at Anthropologie. I’m actually reluctantly returning messages via the phone. Which begs the question of why people don’t use email. Email is great and doesn’t require me to hem and haw on the phone I can do my work without having to speak to anyone. I like that.



If money was no object, what item of clothing or accessory would you like to have? A simple yet ornate Tiffany right hand ring. Inscribed would be ‘SINKing and loving it!’



You’re five minutes away from work and realized that you forgot something. What would be that one thing that would make you turn around and go back home? KLONOPIN!



Describe yourself in 5 adjectives? Indolent. Mercurial. Wino. Fun. Loyal.

If you were granted three wishes from an angel or genie what would you want? 1) A book deal that left me enough freedom to write but still do what I do 2) Someone to unpack my apartment/decorate/clean 3) To be three sizes smaller (oh, vanity!)



When you were growing up what did you want to become when you grew up? A Senator who was picked to be a Presidential nominee’s running mate and we end up winning (duh) so I become Vice President.



Which is the trait you love the most and least about yourself? I love to write and yet I spend so much time surrounded by words and thinking of words and then I get upset when people don’t like the particular words I’ve chosen. Because they’re buttheads (I picked that word out just for them).



Do you have a tattoo, where is it located and what does it stand for? I have a tattoo of a butterfly on the inside of my right ankle. It stands for “I just moved to DC, I’m 17 years old, I have a fake ID and so what ridiculously stupid thing can I do with my fake ID? I know! Get a tattoo of a stupid, ubiquitous, BUTTERFLY” Clearly there’s a lot of meaning to it.



What do you do when (you think) no one is looking? Pretend I’m being interviewed on Meet the Press or The Daily Show. I’m usually in the car. But I’m laughing my ass off and talking a lot and wildly gesticulating. I’d make an awesome interviewee.

For more from Heather check her out at http://nopasanada.org; @TheHeatherB on Twitter

“Latoicha is the founding partner of the firm, Phillips Givens LLC. Her practice includes representation of start-ups, small, and mid-sized businesses in intellectual property matters. Specifically, she provides legal services in the following areas: trademarks, copyrights, legal issues in new media, and licensing issues. She also writes a law blog entitled http://www.iplaw101.com/. There she provides practical tips for individuals and small businesses in solving basic intellectual property issues. Latoicha is a frequent speaker on intellectual property issues and has been featured in the Atlanta Tribune Magazine and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She is also a contributing writer for Black Web 2.0, the Brand Protection Council, and the United Kingdom Management Forum. She is also writes a beauty blog entitled Luxetips at http://www.luxetips.com/ There Latoicha shares how every woman can live the luxe life regardless of occupation or budget. Follow her on Twitter @IPLAW101 and @Luxetips.”

AND

• Tell us something about you that you would never tell your mom? No comment. LOL!

• In your spare ten minutes each day, what would you wish you could be doing? What are you actually doing? Lounging in the Sun. I am actually checking email or my social media accounts.

• If money was no object, what item of clothing or accessory would you like to have? Louis Vuitton Train Case.

• You’re five minutes away from work and realized that you forgot something. What would be that one thing that would make you turn around and go back home? My cell phone.

• Describe yourself in 5 adjectives? Outgoing, Emotional, Sociable, Funny, Optimistic

• If you were granted three wishes from an angel or genie what would you want? To be absolutely happy….always!

• When you were growing up what did you want to become when you grew up? Actually a Doctor and then a Lawyer, and Business Owner. I am doing 2 out of the 3.

• Which is the trait you love the most and least about yourself? I am so emotional. I love it because I am always feeling an emotion. I don’t like it because sometimes it makes me crazy!

• Do you have a tattoo, where is it located and what does it stand for? NO.

• What do you do when (you think) no one is looking? Dance and sing wherever I am.

Karen Walrond is a former lawyer, former engineer, and a current writer and photographer. Her fine art pieces and projects have been included in exhibits around the country. She was one of the founding contributors to the collaborative website, Shutter Sisters, a photoblog aimed at inspiring and creating community among avid women photographers. She is the author of Through the Gadling Lens, a weekly column on the travel site Gadling.com, with tips and other information on how to take amazing travel shots. She has appeared on both local and national television shows, including an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. And she’s the creative mind behind the blog Chookooloonks, a website that helps readers see that their ordinary lives are, in fact, extraordinary; and the author of the upcoming book, “The Beauty of Different,” a book that helps readers see that their differences are, in fact, their superpowers.

Please add Karen to your list of favs (if you haven’t already)
http://www.chookooloonks.com/

Karen Walrond is a former lawyer, former engineer, and a current writer and photographer. Her fine art pieces and projects have been included in exhibits around the country. She was one of the founding contributors to the collaborative website, Shutter Sisters, a photoblog aimed at inspiring and creating community among avid women photographers. She is the author of Through the Gadling Lens, a weekly column on the travel site Gadling.com, with tips and other information on how to take amazing travel shots. She has appeared on both local and national television shows, including an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. And she’s the creative mind behind the blog Chookooloonks, a website that helps readers see that their ordinary lives are, in fact, extraordinary; and the author of the upcoming book, “The Beauty of Different,” a book that helps readers see that their differences are, in fact, their superpowers.

Please add Karen to your list of favs (if you haven’t already)
http://www.chookooloonks.com/