I spent the day at MinneBar on the University of Minnesota campus. It’s been interesting to watch this annual event grow over the past few years. Solid attendance (400+) and a packed docket of sessions made this (un)conference well worth my time. The new design track of sessions was a hit with me too. It was great to see so many familiar faces, connect with new folks and even meet some Twitterers in the flesh.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Jamie Thingelstad led an aptly named Power WordPress session. He obviously knows his way around WordPress! He shared some incredibly valuable plugins, practices and SEO tips. Easily one of my favorite sessions of the day.
• I got a personal demo of Seesmic, a video conversation platform, from Thomas Knoll. It’s sort of like Twitter with video or video blogging with video comments. Very cool and worth watching in the coming months. I wish him all the best in his move west.
• Looking forward to the evolution of the Refresh TwinCities group. Exciting changes on the horizon…
• The State of the State: Technology in Minnesota panel raised some good issues about encouraging local startups and entrepreneurs. It was barely over when a summary was posted to the Blog Herald by Matt Kraven Craven.
• I was lucky enough to play with a laptop from the One Laptop per Child initiative. The design was quite innovative, very sturdy too. The display is color indoors and switches to monochrome in full sunlight. It even flips back on itself for reading ebooks. I’d love to see this feature on other laptops. It would be something to get these in the hands of children around the world.
• Consolidating all the demos into back-to-back lightning sessions was another welcome addition this year. My friends at Localtone Radio showed off their site and even gave me a shout out for doing the design (Thanks guys!). I was also impressed with demos by Scribblr Scribbls , FanChatter, CodeMorphic.

A big thank you to the organizers and sponsors. I’m really looking forward to next year.

Tags: barcamp, minnebar, minnesota, unconference