We’d like to extend a big thank you to all of you who attended the 2nd Minnesota Blogger Conference last September. There was a packed house of attendees and a solid group of speakers. Months later we are still hearing great things from attendees on things they’ve learned and connections they’ve made.

Lately we’ve been getting a number of inquiries from bloggers and potential sponsors/speakers on plans for 2012, so we thought we’d take a moment to address some of these questions. We don’t have official plans at this point to host another conference this year, however we are continuing to discuss it regularly and hope to have a decision within the next few months. Our decision is really pending a few things:

1. appetite from the local blogging community for another conference 
2. interest and funding from potential sponsors to make an event possible
3. reliable and willing volunteers to serve on the planning team and work

Stay tuned and we’ll be sure to clue you in when we have something firm to report. If you’d like to get more involved or are connected to an organization who is interested in sponsoring the event this year in a significant way (and we aren’t talking product samples, yo), please give us a holler.

Thanks -

Missy Berggren and Arik Hanson

We will be sending out a detailed email next week but in the meantime we’d like to provide you some initial information.

What you need to know:

• Free parking  in the ramp next to the Midtown Exchange Building (courtesy of Allina) for those attending the event. Bring your ticket in with you and we’ll validate it when you check in.
• Lunch will be provided to attendees free of charge.
• Caribou coffee drinks, breakfast options and snacks will be available for purchase in our conference space.

Important information about your ticket:

• Tickets to the conference are non-transferable – meaning you can’t give them to a friend.
• If you are unable to attend, please email us and we will release your ticket to someone else who needs one.
• Allina is a secure location and needs all names of attendees submitted prior to the event. Drop ins will not be admitted.

How you can give back:

• We are happy to announce we’ll be featuring the Read Indeed charity for the conference this year. Read Indeed is a 501c3 nonprofit literacy organization and the vision of Maria Keller, a book-loving 5th grader who wants to make the world a better place—one book at a time. Maria’s goal is to collect and distribute 1,000,000 books to needy children by the time she’s 18. She has been collecting and distributing books since she was 8 years old—touching the lives of thousands of children around the world.
• If you would like to bring new or gently used children’s books to the conference we can help Maria meet her goal!

Picture perfect:

• Mandy Dwyer of Glimpses of Soul Photography has volunteered to take a limited number of professional headshot photos for attendees during the conference!
• The cost will be $30 and Mandy will be donating all of the money to the charity.
• This was a popular offering last year and we are grateful Mandy has volunteered to do it for us this year!

Were you hoping to speak at the Minnesota Blogger Conference? Have an idea for a topic you think would appeal to bloggers? Here’s your chance to throw your hat in the ring!

We’ve been holding onto one final spot on the agenda for just this purpose. Here’s the process:

• If you have an idea for a 45-minute session, please Email Us your idea and a brief description as well as three things bloggers can learn from your session. (Please review the current sessions and topics scheduled).
• You must submit ONLY for yourself and not someone else (and you need to be available to present at the event).
• We’ll take your submissions through the end of the day Monday, Sept. 5^th.
• On Tuesday, Sept. 6th we’ll take the submissions and run them by the MN Blogger Conference attendees for a vote via Survey Monkey (after all, who better to tell us what they want to see than then attendees themselves!). The idea with the most votes will be selected.
• We’ll announce the final session Tuesday evening!

Presentations must be limited to 1 to 2 speakers (no panels).

Need not be currently registered to submit for a session.

Off topic or otherwise irrelevant session proposals will not be presented for vote.

We are happy to announce that Lee Odden will be our featured keynote speaker this year.  Lee is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and editor of Online Marketing Blog which is rated the #1 content marketing blog by Junta42 and a top 10 blog by Advertising Age.

Lee routinely speaks internationally on Social Media SEO and Content Marketing and has participated in top conferences including ad:tech, Intel’s Social Media Summit and SES, where he serves on the board of advisors.

As a 14-year online marketing veteran, Lee has been cited by numerous industry publications and books including The Economist, DM News and ‘Marketing in the Age of Google’ by Vanessa Fox. Additionally, his first book, ‘Optimize’ will be published by Wiley in 2012.

See what Lee will be speaking about >>

We knew tickets would get snapped up quickly this year, hence our decision to release them in batches. We didn’t want people to miss out simply because they were stuck in traffic, at the doctor or at the cabin. Here are two more opportunities to get tickets to the 2011 MN Blogger Conference:

• noon, Wednesday, August 24
• 4 p.m., Wednesday, August 31

At those dates/times - click here to register:

When the last batch is gone, you will be able to add your name to a waitlist. There will also be a few contests to win tickets around town.

p.s. have you checked out our Sessions page recently? Most of the session descriptions and presenter bios are up now!

Thanks everyone who registered. For those that didn’t we WILL be releasing more tickets the weeks of August 22nd and August 29th. We will keep you informed as to the exact date and time.

The MN Blogger Conference will take place Saturday, September 10, 2011. We will be releasing tickets in waves (or batches) this year, to give more people an opportunity to attend.

• The first batch of tickets will be available at 9 a.m. on August 17.
• Additional batches of tickets will be released the weeks of August 22
  and August 29.

Tickets are FREE and we are thankful to our sponsors, Allina Hospitals & Clinics and TopRank Marketing!

Important details:

• There are a limited number of tickets for this event, so please only register if you are sure you can attend.
• Speakers, the planning team and sponsors do not need to register, as we will be holding tickets for you separately.
• Allina is a secure space and we must submit attendee names to security prior to the event. All attendees will be issued name badges and only those people officially on the registration list will be allowed to enter. If you cannot attend, you must release your ticket back to us and we will then give your spot to a person on a waiting list. In other words, you can’t give your ticket to a friend.
• An e-mail with information on parking, meals and other need-to-know info will be sent to attendees the week before the event.

If you have any questions please Email Us