Explore Minneapolis Agenda Features Brand Case Studies, Deep Learning

We’re just a month and a half away from Explore Minneapolis — the third in our five city, intensive learning events in 2012. Today, I’m proud to announce the full agenda and topics for the two-day event, Aug. 16-17 at the Double Tree by Hilton Park Place in Minneapolis.

Please read on, but for the full agenda as a PDF, visit it on Scribd. If you want to see the full topic descriptions, visit the Explore Minneapolis Topics page over at GoToExplore.co.

As you probably know from our previous announcement, the speaker lineup is lead by Jay Baer who will open the event on Thursday, Aug. 16 with a keynote talk called “Know Way: Deploying Useful Content To Build Customer Relationships That Last.” And I’m going to mentally wrestle The Ad Contrarian himself, Bob Hoffman, in our Fireside Chat. (We may sell that on Pay-Per-View.)

Our other, previously announced, speakers include our own Nichole Kelly, Chuck Hemann of WCG World, Tom Webster of Edison Research, Tim Hayden from Edelman Digital, Tamsen McMahon of allen+gerritsen, Kevin Magee from Expion, DJ Waldow of Waldow Social, Nick Westergaard of Brand Driven Social and Jeff Rohrs from Exact Target.

Now, we can add more! Kevin Hunt of General Mills and Scott Gulbransen of H&R Block will headline a brand-focused lineup that brings practitioners, not just advisors to the table. Hunt, who oversees social media for General Mills’s roster of recognizable brands including Betty Crocker, Cheerios, Pillsbury and Yoplait, will discuss building a recipe for reputation protection in the social world that can encompass a single or multiple brands. Gulbransen will present the H&R Block case study of going from stayed to social and breathing creative life into brands that aren’t typically thought of as outside-the-box thinkers.

We’ve also organized three important panel discussions that will bring even more brand-side case studies to the table. Our brand case study panel will include Bridget Jewell of Mall of America, Jamie Kennedy of O2 Media and Lifetime Television, Adam Kmiec of Campbell’s Soup and Greg Gerik from 3M. Our B2B case study panel will include Zena Weist of Expion, author of The B2B Social Media Book co-author Kipp Bodnar, strategist Sarah Worsham and more. Finally, Arik Hanson will lead a public relations discussion featuring Heidi Sullivan from Cision, Heather Whaling of Geben Communications, Robert Koski of Carmichael & Lynch and more.

In addition to our brand talks and panels, we’ve also added the following speakers and topics to an already impressive lineup:

• Jolina Pettice from Top Rank Marketing – She’ll talk about optimizing for the B2B marketplace
• Marcus Sheridan, The Sales Lion – Marcus will drive home the point of content being your best sales tool.
• Kipp Bodnar from HubSpot – Leads? You want leads? Kipp will wax poetic on using social media to drive lead generation.
• Brannan Atkinson and Arienne Holland of Raven Tools – A fun he said-she said battle royale about Pinterest, personal branding and public relations.
• Jennifer Kane of Kane Consulting – Jennifer will look at the seven deadly sins of social business to help us understand how to make that move from just using social media to being a social business.

And until July 15, you can get two days of awesome for $250! That will include a Thursday sponsors cocktail reception and breakfast and lunch on Friday. Plus, all attendees at Explore are invited to our private Yammer community for further networking and resources, including access to the speakers for questions, presentations and more and networking with previous attendees as well.

Do Not Wait To Register! Our seats do fill fast and that $250 price goes up in two weeks. The full price of the event is $450, so SAVE $200 NOW!

Here’s the full agenda in PDF form for your printing or downloading pleasure:

Explore Agenda Minneapolis

For a full description of the topics, check out the Explore Minneapolis topics page over at GoToExplore.co. And when you’re done, register for cryin’ out loud! This event is going to rock. You should rock with us!