Here is a list of panels up for vote that feature friends of SOBCon, including two to be hosted by SOBCon Co-Founders Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker. Please support ALL of these great people because we know they will “bring it” at the event.

Remember, voting ends on August 27th, so do it now. And if you have a panel and would like to add your name to this list, Tweet or DM us at @sobcon, or add a comment to this post.

Thanks, and let’s bring the spirit of SOBCon to SXSW!!

@lizstrauss @starbucker @caroljsroth Build, Buy, Partner: Time is Money
@starbucker @lizstrauss @caroljsroth From Jobbies to Businesses: Strategies for Irresistible Success
@ericlukazewski Confessions From Social Media Event Organizers
@JasonFalls Social Media: The Pink Collar Ghetto of Tech?
@renewabelle Making Sustainable Attainable: Energy Efficient Computing
@DaveMurr Have Fun to Increase Customer Engagement
@jeanniecw X Marks the Spot: Mapping The Customer Experience
@LisaPetrilli @judymartin8 Conquer Your Kryptonite: Superpowers Fueling Kick-Ass Business Deals
@LisaPetrilli @conniereece Resources Roulette: Winning Social Strategies for Shrinking Budgets
@ScottMonty @Schwen & @ShannonPaul Socially Regulated: Social Media in Regulated Industries
@jonathanfields Fear and the Art of Creation
@LucretiaPruitt @DaveTaylor Killing Clark Kent; When You Outgrow Your AlterEgo
@GlendaWH The untapped iPad Market: Is Your Site POUR?
@armano Why PR’s Future May Not Look Like PR
@BeckyMcCray Micro-Business Rapid-Response Success-Failure Q&A
@incslinger Converting Checkin’s to Cash: Why Location Marketing Matters
@SheilaS Tourism Catches On: Old Industry Meets New Media
@barrymoltz What We Can Learn from Small Town Entrepreneurs
@webby2001 Everything You Know About Social Media is Wrong
@unmarketing F U 2.0
@prebynski Leveraging Mobile Marketing Methods In My Strategy
@prebynski How To Get A Job Using Social Media
@dustinj Checking in with Successful Location-Based Campaigns
@technosailor Shattering Secrets with Social Media
@hardlynormal A Conversation About Social Change Through Social Media
@jeremywright Naked Dating: Finding Love in 140 Characters or Less
@tedmurphy Check-in, Get Paid: Rise of Cash-sponsored Social Media
@debworks Resistance is Futile! Assimilating Local Marketing
@CathyBrooks Who Are You And Why Should I Care?

His guests will include SOBCon Colorado speakers:

Liz Strauss (SOBCon Co-Founder)
Terry Starbucker (SOBCon Co-Founder)
Jonathan Fields
Shelly Kramer
Erika Napoletano
Sally Hogshead

We’ll be talking about the magic of SOBCon, the Colorado event, and how this “one-day business incubator” will give you a lot of tangible content from which you can learn, take home, and use in your busines.

And of course, we’ll be sharing some of our tips too!

Register here for this FREE event

Meet Liz and Terry at the #SOBCon hashtag to talk SOBCon.
Meet up with your SOBCon friends or make some new ones! Join us for the fun!

We’ll be sharing secrets and swapping strategies. You can bet on that.

Share your SOBCon memories and blog posts again.

Hear more about SOBCon Colorado and get your questions answered.

Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Terry doesn’t sing … yet.

Liz

Then Terry in the middle of huge business meetings, stopped long enough to put an event brite page so folks could reserve a seat. And folks signed up immediately!

Whoa! Thank you!

One of those folks was Eric who tweeted proud to be a SOBCon2011 pre-registrant!

I said, “It would fun to have a badge for that.”

And this came in my email today …

Isn’t it awesome?!!

Thank you Eric Lukazewski
Website: Echelon Design
Blog: Trade Show Insight
Twitter Name: @ericlukazewski

Laughing with gratitude. Thrilled with a smile.
Liz

The Chicago Social Media Club is doing just that.

I’m thrilled to announce that again this year, Social Media Club Chicago has offered to host an Opening Party for SOBCon2010! Terry and I will be there as will many of the speakers, panelists, and out-of-town attendees. It will be like a super-tweetup with a great conversation and an after party to boot!

Come see the great views! Meet the great people! Get in the spirit of Chicago Social Media!

Here’s a look at the 2009 SOBCon and Social Media Club Chicago event video.

We won’t make any promises – yet – about who might show up. Let’s just say that this might very well be the most connected night of your life.

5:30 – 6:15 Check-in and Networking

6:15 – 7:15 Program

7:15 – 8:00 Socializing Networking

After party – in planning stages

Sign up now so that you don’t miss a minute of meeting anyone who might be there!

Thank you, Barbara, Jeff, Amy and all of SMCC for honoring us again!

To win a free ticket to SOBCon 2010 all you have to do is nominate one of your favorite small businesses and tweet about it, including LoveALocalBusiness.com and #SOBCon (e.g. You might vote for @MacaronChicago to win a $30K grant on LoveALocalBusiness.com. Vote for them too http://bit.ly/XXXXXX #SOBcon).

Any nominations tweeted between April 2 and April 16, 2010 will be entered to win free SOBCon admission plus three nights hotel accommodations and a $250 Visa Gift card.

If you already have a ticket, you can offer your free ticket to someone of your choosing. Bear in mind that the more businesses you nominate, the better your chances are to win!

You can even vote for your own business! Go for it!!

Suppose you could take a weekend retreat away from the noise of the Internet …

• to focus entirely on your business
• to work with the support of a mastermind team
• to get quality time to interact with the top people in social media
• to get the best information AND time to discuss how you’ll apply it
• to work with sponsors who are doing the same thing
• in a room limited to 150 people — all focused in the same direction
• without worry because the food and the wireless are outstanding.

Imagine a weekend work retreat with these people totally invested in sharing this content.

The BlogIt EarnIt Discount Until April 1!!

I’m delighted to announce that Terry and I get to make this offer …

Write a blog post about what “The Virtual Meets the Concrete” means to you. We want to celebrate how our relationships online help our lives and businesses online and off. Tell us why online and offline relationships and strategies matter.

Here’s how to qualify for the discount

1. Write a blog post about a person (or people) online or off who has (or have) made a difference in your life. Celebrate how they have made your life easier, better, smarter, more productive, more meaningful.

2. Then let us know by tagging your post #SOBCon2010 and leaving a comment with a link to it on this post. Include a working email with your comment and as a thank you for sharing your story, we’ll send you a special code to take $250 off the $895 FULL conference rate – that’s over a 25% savings! (We won’t use your email to spam you.)

Or, if you can’t make to SOBCon2010, you could “pay it forward” and pass the discount on to one of your friends — or offer it back to us as a gift for us to pass on for you.

We’re doing everything we can to bring you all the value, the experts and expertise, and the time to work and network that you need to make your business outstanding and extremely profitable in 2010.

What could you do with a weekend of the time, expertise, and support you need to focus your business?

Each of our four charities — Anixter, Ashoka, InvisiblePeopleTV and Vitamin Angels — will discuss their strategy, current social media efforts, and online hopes. From there the room, comprised of some of the brightest minds in social media, will match the mission and goals of the organizations with the tools, with the end game of providing meaningful social media strategy that can impact the world.

Like Zoetica CEO Beth Kanter likes to say, “Even better, what if we all learned from the process?” In addition to group sharing, we will have break-out sessions where each table

Sounds like a plan to me. The following is a brief description of each of our four participants. I hope to see you at SOBCON!

Our Participants

Anixter: The mission of Chicago-based the Anixter Center is to enhance the ability of individuals living with or at risk of disabilities to live, learn, work, and play in the community. Each year, at dozens of locations across greater Chicago, Anixter Center provides an array of effective, innovative services to more than 5,000 children and adults. These services include education, employment, life skills, communication, recreation, health care, counseling, and support.

Ashoka: The global association serves the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women tackling system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, more than 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs have become Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries. With its global community, Ashoka develops models for collaboration and design infrastructure needed to advance the field of social entrepreneurship and the citizen sector.

InvisiblePeopleTV: Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal on Twitter) will come and discuss Invisible People. For years mark used the lens of a television camera to tell the stories of homelessness and the organizations trying to help. The reports were produced well and told a story, but the stories Mark produces now on Invisible People are much different. These are the real people, telling their own, very real stories… unedited, uncensored and raw. The purpose: To make the invisible visible.

Vitamin Angels: This socially-savvy charity seeks to mobilize and deploy private sector resources to advance availability, access and use of micronutrients, especially vitamin A, by newborns, infants and children in need. Vitamin Angels reduces child mortality worldwide by connecting essential nutrients, especially vitamin A, with infants and children under five. Essential nutrients enable young immune systems to fight infectious diseases, helping children attain good health and the opportunity to lead meaningful and productive lives.

• Chris Brogan
• Amber Naslund
• SOBCon Founder, Liz Strauss

This is a great panel of Social Media rockstars (all on the podium in Chicago), and they will be offering you a little sneak preview of some of the fantastic content they will be showcasing at the event – and offer their takes on why SOBCon2010 will be the best one yet.

(We’ll also be announcing the winner of the 2010 “Blog It, Earn It” FREE ticket – more on that later)

This webinar is exclusive to attendees and newsletter subscribers.
2/15 Update: Since it is Webinar day, here is the registration code