The Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) technology community is a vibrant place to be. One of my favorite events of the year is coming up in three weeks, the 11th annual MinneBar un-conference. If you are at all a member of the technology community, sign up for a free ticket and join us for a day of learning, sharing ideas and networking. Did I mention there's free food and beer?

The local version on the BarCamp network, MinneBar is one of the largest BarCamp events in the nation. This year, as it has been for the last 6 years, MinneBar is held at the Best Buy Campus in Richfield, MN. Fifty minute sessions are held throughout training classrooms and an auditorium on the campus while the cafeteria is used for free breakfast, lunch and beer after the day's sessions. That's right, stay fed and hydrated while you are learning for free, thanks to the event's sponsors. (Thanks to Best Buy for hosting the space.)

What kinds of sessions will be taking place throughout the day? Well, right now anyone can propose something in the MinneBar Session Picker and others can vote that they will attend the session. The best sessions will get put on the schedule that goes out a few days before the event. As you can see, sessions may be presentations, panel discussions, or even just meetups or discussions among the community members that attend. The topics can vary, from technology topics such as hardware, software, web services, or more to how technology imp\acts the community or even the business side of technology and the local technology and venture capital market. As a PHP web developer, personally, I don't find many of the sessions impact my everyday professional work, but it's great to be curious and learn about other parts of the business and other ideas that local peers are working on. And everyone is there to learn and share knowledge, so feel free to ask questions and discuss ideas as it seems appropriate. Minnebar is also a great chance to see other developers that are local but I do not often see.

How do you attend this event? The tickets are free, but there are some hoops to go through to get them. Sign up for the Minne* E-mail List to be notified of details, but at precisely 7pm on Wednesday, April 6 and 2pm on Thursday, April 12, about 500-600 tickets each will be released on their EventBrite registration page. I recommend you be signed into your EventBrite account and reloading the page to get a ticket, because these tickets usually get snatched up in 5-10 minutes. So set your calendar and you can get a ticket! It's free and just takes a bit of scheduling.

Thanks to the Minne* sponsors and organizers, and I'm looking forward to attending my eighth MinneBar on Saturday, April 23rd!