In May, we announced an official date and time for the  first-ever (to our knowledge) Minnesota Blogger Conference. To refresh, this is an event aimed at bringing the Minnesota blogging community together for both education/training and networking (sorry, I know that’s a bad word for it) opportunities.

I’m co-organizing the event with Melissa Berggren–and we recently enlisted the assistance of YPCTC founder and all-around rock star, Katie Schutrop and Lindsey Verbeten.

Today, we wanted to give you a quick heads up about the schedule and speaker list that is coming together. We’re about 90 percent of the way there, but we thought we’d share what we have right now. Keep in mind, much of what you see below is based on your requests, comments and suggestions via surveys and e-mails over the last two months. The sessions will be divided into four tracks: Community, Content, Technology and Pro-Blogging.

Sessions and Speakers

Ways to Generate Content for Your Blog – Erica Mauter

Ins and Outs of Blog SEO – Adam Singer

Making your Blog into a Book – Carrie Pauly

Blogging 101: Tips for Getting Started  – Julio Ojeda-Zapata

Working with WordPress/Design/CSS tips – Toby Cryns

Get a Book Deal and Mainstream Media Coverage from Your Blog – Bonnie Harris

Blogging Authentically and Finding Your Voice – Heather King

Growing as a Writer – Kate Hopper

Hosting Blog Giveaways (without giving away your integrity) – Molly Snyder

WordPress Think Tank – Ray Champagne, Tim Elliott, Gillian Reynolds

Panel: How can Bloggers and PR folks get along? — Jen Emmert, Sally McGraw, Tony Saucier, Greg Swan.

We also have a number of other sessions in the works, including discussions around building revenue, photography and leveraging social media to promote your blog. If you have ideas for potential speakers for these sessions, please let me know. And, we’re working on a keynote-type opening session featuring some of Minnesota’s pioneer bloggers.

We’re also working on a Web site where we’ll house all information for the Minnesota Blogger Conference–we hope to have the site up soon. In the meantime, you can track conversations about the conference on Twitter using the hashtag #MNBlogConf.

Finally, we’re still looking for a few sponsors to help offset some of the basic costs of an event like this (technology, food, etc.) If your organization would like to be involved, please contact myself or Melissa (@marketingmamamn) directly. We’re not looking to make money from this event–we just want to break even. But, we need the support of a few sponsors to make that happen.

We hope you’re as excited about this event as we are. Look for more information on the Minnesota Blogger Conference Web site (URL TBD) soon.

Note: Photo courtesy of Jassy-50 via FlickR Creative Commons.