Blogging While Brown 2010 Conference Badges

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Blogging While Brown 2009 Schedule and Workshop Descriptions

For more information about the Blogging While Brown conference for www.bloggingwhilebrown.com

SPEAKER BIOS

Monroe Anderson

Monroe Anderson is a cyber columnist who is a veteran, award-winning Chicago journalist. His columns appear on his political blog, Monroe Anderson (http://monroeanderson.typepad.com/), as well as on the Ebonyjet.com, Huffingtonpost.com, Newsvine.com, UK/EU Progressive and AgoraVox websites.

As a career journalist for more than three decades, Anderson has worked for some of America’s best-known media corporations—Dow Jones, Johnson Publishing Company, the Tribune Company, Post-Newsweek and Viacom. In 1988-89, he had a stint in municipal government, serving as Press Secretary for Chicago Mayor Eugene Sawyer.Anderson has executive produced and hosted his own local CBS TV show, Common Ground, written signed op-ed page columns for both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, and was the editor of Savoy Magazine.Anderson was a reporter on the Obama press bus covering the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. He was also an accredited blogger at the Democratic National Convention.

Cheryl Contee


Cheryl Contee is a partner and co-founder of the social media consultancy Fission Strategy where she specializes in online advocacy, engagement, and communications. Prior to launching Fission Strategy, Cheryl was Vice President at Fleishman-Hillard San Francisco where she acted as lead digital strategist for the West Coast, helping clients manage their brands and online campaigns. Before Fleishman-Hillard, Cheryl led the interactive team as Vice President at Washington , DC public affairs firm Issue Dynamics Inc. where she launched and led the group blog BloggerRelations.com. Previously, she was the Web Director for Oceana, an international marine conservation organization. Before Oceana, Ms. Contee launched 40 multi-lingual Web sites for Discovery Communications as Senior Producer for International Networks for television brands Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, Discovery Health, Discovery Kids and more.

Cheryl serves on the board of Netroots Nation, the preeminent organization and conference for technology and progressive politics and also chairs the board for CommonGoods.net. She writes as Jill Tubman for the award-winning & top-ranked black political blog JackAndJillPolitics.com which she founded in 2006. Cheryl has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, San Francisco Magazine, BBC and CNN among other media appearances. Cheryl's work in the interactive sphere has been recognized with over 20 awards. Cheryl was appointed Fellow for the Edge Program founded by tech legend John Seely Brown at the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine in 2008. Cheryl is regularly invited to speak at conferences and events. She received her B.A. from Yale University with a major in ethics, politics and economics and has an international executive M.B.A. from Georgetown University . In her spare time, Ms. Contee enjoys hiking, yoga, movies and tai chi sword.


Carmen Dixon Rosenzweig

Carmen Dixon Rosenzweig guides truth seekers who have a strong conscience and a desire to make the world a better place by showing them how to engage in honest and authentic conversations about race armed with understanding but without shame or overwhelming fear.

Those who work with Carmen can expect to emerge with renewed feelings of optimism and a re-energized connection to humanity and sense of possibility.

Prior to creating All About Race, Carmen spent more than a decade on the front lines of broadcast journalism, corporate public relations and crisis management honing her skills as an expert communicator. As an ABC News producer, Carmen won three Emmy Awards. She is a graduate of Yale University.

Now Carmen writes for AOL BlackVoices, hosts “All About Race on BlogTalkRadio’ and conducts seminars and motivational presentations from the place on the racial frontier where the quest for understanding and tolerance faces down anger, reluctance and fear.

Eric Easter
Eric Easter is Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing, Inc. He writes about politics, culture and technology for ebonyjet.com.

Hajj E. Flemings
Hajj is the founder of Brand Camp University the premier personal branding conference and author of 'The Brand YU Life: Re-thinking Who You Are Through Personal Brand Management'. He has been featured on ESPN.com, BusinessWeek.com, BlackEnterprise.com, various blogs and travels nationally speaking as a branding expert enabling personal and business brands to remain relevant. His branded clients include NFL athletes, Ford Motor Company, Skechers Footwear, U.S. Department of Defense (Telecom Division) and numerous colleges and universities to name a few. His book was selected as one of Fast Company Magazine 2008 Readers Choice Business Books of the year.
He is a former collegiate athlete turned adjunct lecturer at his alma mater, Michigan Technological University, where he wrote the personal branding curriculum. He received his Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and his MBA from Lawrence Technological University.
He is married to his lovely wife, Kasandra.

Milt Haynes, PMP

Milt is a sought after motivational speaker, coach and mentor and has helped thousands advance their careers in IT. Milt founded Blacks Gone Geek a social networking initiative dedicated to promoting Blacks in Technology. Milt uses blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, Facebook, LinkedIn, CollectiveX, Yahoogroups, Twitter and his web site, (www.blacksgonegeek.org), to stay connected with an online community of IT professionals.
Milt has been a BDPA (Black Data Processing Associates) member for over 18 years and has served as BDPA Chicago Chapter President and National BDPA President. Milt currently serves the Chair of the BDPA Chicago (www.bdpa-chicago.org) Corporate Advisory Council (CAC). Milt has received over 20 awards and honors at the local chapter and National level including the most prestigious National BDPA Outstanding Chapter President Award, Outstanding Contributor Award, Member of the Year Award, Presidents Award, Service Award and the Spirit Award. Milt holds a Bachelor of Science in Computing Science from Columbia University, New York, New York. Milt spends his spare time enjoying family activities with his wife and beautiful 12-year-old twin daughters, volunteering for BDPA initiatives.


Angel Laws

Angel Laws is the 24 year-old creator & editor of popular online entertainment blog, Concreteloop.com. Now coming up on its 4th year since conception, the blog has been featured in TIME, Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe and countless other magazines and media outlets. Angel is also a part-time photographer (photosolitude.com) traveling nationally with various celebs covering exclusive events and photo shoots.

Fredric Mitchell

Fredric Mitchell is a professional web developer specializing in Drupal development over at brightplum.com. Although his affinity for all things interweb borderlines on unhealthy, his wife assures him that his son will grow up just as much of a tech nerd as he is. You can also find him giving back and blogging over at ybpguide.com, a site meant to engage the young innovative tech evangelists of color.

Bruce Montgomery- To be added


Jonnice Slaughter
Jonnice Slaughter runs a successful Public Relations and Branding boutique named ChatterBox Publicity, LLC, headquartered in Atlanta, GA. The firm’s client roster includes music conferences, film festivals, faith-based events, models, actors, media personalities, charity events, consumer and lifestyle products, restaurants and fashion and beauty experts. Their clients have been seen on BET’s 106 and Park, BET’s Hip Hop Awards, BET’s Lift Every Voice, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, VH-1, MTV, The Insider, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, CNN, Essence Magazine, NY Times, Detroit Free Press, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Rolling Out, Clutch Magazine, Billboard, Ebony, Jet, People, US Weekly, and more.
In 2008, ChatterBox Publicity made the transition from traditional publicity and Public Relations to focus on strategies that incorporated digital and social media. Jonnice Slaughter shares tips and explains the emergence, fascination as well as the need to utilize these tools on a weekly basis on the popular blog, FlackMe.com, where she is one of the PR industry featured experts.

Pam Spaulding

Pam Spaulding is the editor and publisher of PamsHouseBlend.com, honored as Best LGBT Blog in the 2005 and 2006 Weblog Awards. A regular contributor to the progressive blogs Pandagon and The Bilerico Project, Spaulding has also guest blogged on Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory on Salon, and Americablog. She received the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award from The Monette-Horwitz Trust for making significant contributions toward the eradication of homophobia.

Spaulding has provided commentary on CNN during the 2008 presidential election cycle; Pam's House Blend was also credentialed as part of the general press pool to cover the 2008 Democratic National Convention. A Durham native, Pam lives in the Bull City with her wife Kate; they legally married in Canada in 2004.

Megan Tady

Megan Tady is a blogger, grassroots organizer and online outreach specialist for Free Press, the national, non-profit media reform organization. She blogs for Free Press Web sites, including SavetheInternet.com and StopBigMedia.com, and has a column at In These Times where she writes about media access and ownership, quality journalism and an open Internet. Other media-related articles have been published by AlterNet.org, ColorLines, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s Extra, and the Women’s International Perspective (Wip.net). Megan also produced two documentary series about the digital divide in the U.S. called Five Days on the Digital Dirt Road and Wired Less: Disconnected in Urban America. Prior to joining Free Press, Megan was a national political reporter for In These Times magazine, a staff reporter and editor for The New Standard, and worked extensively as a freelance journalist.

Blogging While Brown 2009 AT &T Scholarships Now Available

AT&T is funding a number of scholarships to attend the Blogging While Brown conference. The scholarships cover full conference registration. In addition, AT&T is funding full scholarships to attend the pre-conference boot camp for non bloggers on Friday morning and afternoon prior to the start of the conference.

If you are interested in the scholarships, you can learn more at BloggingWhileBrown.com and click "Scholarships" in the menu bar. You can go directly tot he scholarship form by going here.

2009 "Call for Workshops" Now Open

Workshop Submission Guidelines
Call For Workshop Proposals
Planning is well underway for the 2009 Blogging While Brown Conference. The International Conference
for Bloggers of Color (bloggingwhilebrown.com) is scheduled for June 19-20, 2009 at the University Center in Chicago, Illinois.

Blogging While Brown promotes intellectual, social, and cultural development of the blogging community by
bringing bloggers of color together in one location to share knowledge with each other. Last year's inaugural Blogging While Brown Conference was an excellent opportunity for many bloggers of color and their readers to meet and interact for the first time. Participants were able to discuss current issues of interest, network with like-minded individuals and organizations, as well as learn about the latest technology to assist bloggers with publishing their work and improving their readers' experience by fully utilizing in the latest social media offerings.

Blogging While Brown is currently accepting proposals for workshops that will appear at this year's conference in Chicago. There are three conference workshop tracks:

Track No. 1 - John H. Johnson Track
This track will feature sessions related to blogging about current events, news, politics, activism, and bloggers who are leveraging their online resources to get offline results.

Track No. 2 - Window Synder Track
This conference track will feature sessions related to the nuts and bolts of blogging such as technology, blogging widgets, increasing blog traffic, legal issues, design, layout and improving the reader experience.

Track No. 3 - Madame C.J. Walker Track
This conference track will feature sessions related to the business of side blogging, monetizing blogs, better marketing of blog sites, and getting your work noticed and published by mainstream media outlets.

Who may submit workshop proposals?
All individuals interested in bloggers of color and the issues of interest to them are encouraged to submit
proposals. Individuals from for- profit and not-for-profit organizations are also welcomed to submit proposals for consideration provided the proposed workshop supports the theme, goals or workshop subject areas of the conference.


THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2009.

You can download submission guidelines here.

Committee Opportunities

Now that everyone has settled down from the election and the
inauguration, we wanted to provide everyone with an update about
Blogging While Brown.

Shawn P. Williams has graciously agreed to act as chair of the
Workshops and Panels Committee. Theo Johnson has agreed to oversee 
the conference webcast.

The "Call for Workshops" will be going out shortly. You can keep up
with conference events by following BWBconference on Twitter, or
subscribing to the Blogging While Brown Conference blog.

Committees

Last year, many of you expressed interest in serving on one of the
conference planning committees.  The committees are: Registration,
Workshops and Panels, Technology (webcast), and  Outreach.  If you are
interested in serving on one of the conference committees  email
info@bloggingwhilebrown.com .

Early registration ends February 1, 2009. You can go to www.bloggingwhilebrown.com for more information about the conference.

Sidebar Badges Now Available

For those who want to place a conference badge in their sidebar, they are now available at BloggingWhileBrown.com.

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Blogging While Brown 2009, Chicago, IL , June 19-20

It is my pleasure to announce that Blogging While Brown 2009 will take place June 19-20, 2009 at University Center in Chicago, IL.We're using Eventbrite again this year to handle registration. REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE. We're excited to announce that we've added a pre-conference intensive workshop called the Beginning Blogger Boot Camp. This pre-conference session is aimed at attendees who do not currently blog, but would like to learn how.

Housing

As you can imagine, housing in downtown Chicago during the summer can be somewhat pricey. Blogging While Brown remains committed to attempting to make attendance as affordable as possible. Although many hotels are available in downtown Chicago, we've also reserved rooms at the University Center for those attendees seeking a more affordable option.

During the school year, University Center serves as a state-of-the-art student residence, that opened its doors in the fall of 2004. Located in the heart of Chicago's Educational Corridor, University Center is just steps from Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University and Roosevelt University, the triad that formed this unique facility. Designed as a multi-institutional community specifically for college students from local neighborhoods and around the world.