At the invitation of RIT marketing professor Lee Minotti, Latinos Communications executives Camy Sorbello and Rudi Matic made a presentation on multicultural marketing and marketing to hispanics on February 6. The talk took place at the George Eastman building at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

The presentation and the question-and-answer session that followed inspired an article by Latinos Communications executive Rudi Matic: The Top Ten Mistakes When Marketing To Hispanics (And How Not To Make Them). The article is available here online.

Also, Latinos Communications executive Camy Sorbello was honored by Geva with a performance of her prize-winning short play about conditions along the Mexican border, River Out Of Eden. The play featured Geva Theatre actors Marcy Savastano as Elena Garcia and Ken Klamm as Juan Rodriguez, and was directed by Amy Jensen.

Members of the Rochester Hispanic Business Association will be having a networking reception at Nazareth College's Casa Hispana on February 17, 2006 at 7PM. There's a five dollar cover charge, and the reception will feature refreshments as well as flamenco guitar music by artist David Tamarin.

If you're interested in attending, please call Becky Brown at (585) 263-3684 or RHBA@RBAlliance.com.

More and more Rochester hispanics are forming successful new business ventures or rising to the top of leading local firms and organizations. The Latino contribution to the Rochester economy is an invigorating feature of an otherwise mixed economic picture. Yet many local hispanic families still live in poverty.

Rochester hispanics and the United Way are working together to take action. The Latino Circle is a group formed by the United Way and local latino leaders to improve conditions for all area hispanics.

To find out more about the Latino Circle and how you can take part, see the United Way's news release, or call Zory Martinez-Alloco at 585-242-6494 or at zory.martinez@uwrochester.org.

You may know that Conxion, Rochester's leading news and events magazine for Hispanics, has become part of the Democrat and Chronicle publishing group.

What you may not know is that they've also turned their web site into one of the best sources for local and national hispanic news anywhere. There are links to local weather, jobs, and shopping, news on everything from Salsa to books to baseball, reviews of hot local clubs, and interviews with local latinos.

For all things hispanic in Rochester, Conxion's web site is the one to see. If you're doing in business in Rochester, stop and visit the new Conxion web site. Everyone else is.

Hispanic employment represented one third of the total 2.6 million jobs created in 2005. Employment of Hispanics has increased annually by 847,000 jobs, bringing the Hispanic unemployment rate down from 6.5 percent in December 2004 to 6.0 percent.

On January 25, 2006, USHCC Foundation released a Request for Proposals. USHCC affiliated local Hispanic Chambers of Commerce may apply for grants of up to $20,000 each. The grant program is designed to provide technology resources needed for small start-up businesses.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners, there are now over two million Hispanic-owned businesses in the US. By 2007, one out of ten businesses will be Hispanic owned.

It isn't only in corporations and industries that latinos are moving into the top slots. For Hispanics, farming is a growth industry. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, even as the number of farms run by Anglo- and African-Americans declined between 1997 and 2002, the number of Hispanic-run farms grew 51 percent.

Hispanics are the nation's most entrepreneurial population, say the numbers reported by the latest Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity.

Alongside other indicators of Hispanic purchasing power, the latino demographic is emerging as the most energetic factor in the coming American economy. As of 2004, 0.48 percent of the adult U.S. Hispanic population started a new business each month, compared with only 0.39 percent of the non-Hispanic white population, and less for other key minorities.

What's the No. 1 selling car among Hispanics? Toyota. And the Camry is the No.3 selling model, according to Toyota officials. The Toyota company is happy enough about it to have paid around $2.5 million for the first bilingual 30-second commercial spot on the Super Bowl, but the reviews are controversial. See the ad and all the rest on Google Superbowl XL Commercials.

Hispanic Tips: Don't let the plain style fool you. Hispanic Tips is easily one of the best latino hispanic resources on the web (and they feature Latinos Communications too.) This is a site to bookmark.