Hello greater St. Paul and beyond. Thanks for having me to this bLog. I don’t know how to put this, but I’m kind of a big deal. People know me. I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany. You might recognize me (or my dog) from Twitter. Maybe you’ve seen my bike in your rear view mirror, or pulled over on the side of the road. Maybe we’ve raised a glass of Surly Furious at the Tap. In all likelihood, none of the above are true, but at the very least, I hope you caught the Anchorman reference. I’m not very important, but… (more…)

Minnesota Public Radio is head and shoulders above the rest of Minnesota’s major media outlets in terms of audience involvement and has been for a long time, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised that they’d host their own BarCamp-style event, but it blew my mind grapes a little.

Along with the MinneBar/MinneDemo folks, MPR presents PublicRadioCamp.

Minnesota Public Radio produces tons of really interesting content, data, audio, meta-data and feeds. PublicRadioCamp will be a day spent collaboratively remixing and mashing up these goodies.

In addition to their public feeds and data-sources… we’ll have the same highly-granular access to audio-clips, transcriptions, photos, etc. used by their own newsroom. Their newsroom uses them to create their on-air and web-stories. What could you do with them?

Expect studio tours and other goodies.

Saturday, July 12th, 2008, 9:00am (registration at 8:30am), at The UBS Forum at MPR studios in downtown St Paul.

I have nothing to offer in terms of actual technical skills, but this looks like great fun to attend (and I’m unavailable that day, dammit). I hope there’s some sort of organized public display of the results.

(via @sandentotten)

This photo uploaded on April 25, 2008 by Aaron Landry is the kind of Saturday we’re having in the Twin Cities.

Today, I know that many of you were in conference rooms all #minnpost this and #minnpost that like a *bunch of nerds, but from what I can tell the rest of the world was out and about freaking out. 

Parking lots were full, lines were super long, and it seemed everyone had to get flowers for Mothers Day Then I spent the afternoon #tilling, #planting, #**, and #carryingFurniture for @abossyFriend.

Did anyone make it to the plant sale at the Arboretum?

(*Actually, I can’t wait to hear all about it)

(#** Twitter talk:minnebar)

MinneBar -– one of the largest BarCamps in the world – is being held this Saturday at the University of Minnesota’s Coffman Union.

For those unfamiliar, BarCamp is an ad-hoc “unconference” — a user-generated conference that’s rich with participatory workshops, discussions, demos and more. Lots of discussion about start-ups, programming, open source and social media in talks mostly run by average people who are passionate about learning, sharing and collaborating.

This year’s schedule of events runs 8:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m.

Here are just a few panel highlights: Blogging for Benjamins; This Thing called Twitter; Social Search in the Corporate Enviroment; The Mathematical Foundations of Music; Why Should I Care About Grails? Full list here.

More than 400 people have registered already. Everyone is welcome, and the event is free. More info here.

(Geek note: If you’re planning to be there and are on Twitter, be sure to use #minnebar as your hashtag and follow @minnebar for updates.)