Wisconsin Blog Summit II

The participants for the Wispolitics Wisconsin Blog Summit II have been announced. I'm a bit non-plussed over their selection. Many of the people were on last year's panel, I would think that there are other rising stars in the Cheddarsphere who could have been invited to be panelists...

From the Wispolitics site (I deleted the blog addresses, which appeared after each panelist's name, for brevity):

Ed Garvey
Charlie Sykes
John Kraus, Democratic consultant
Brian Fraley, Republican consultant
Jessica McBride
Tim Cuprisin, media columnist
Steve Jagler, executive editor, Small Business Times
Andy Tarnoff, publisher

Jennifer L. Peterson, A Godfrey & Kahn attorney in Madison

Eugene Kane, columnist
Jennifer Morales, Milwaukee school board member, blogger for OnMilwaukee.com
Dasha Kelly, magazine writer, author and poet, blogger for OnMilwaukee.com

Boots and Sabers (Owen Robinson)
Folkbum (Jay Bullock)

Most of the participants are media celebrities or political consultants who, for the most part, seem to be blogging to supplement their day jobs.

Something strikes me about the way they introduce the panelists. Can you tell who the REAL bloggers are? They're the ones identified by their blog's name first, then their real names. Everyone else is identified by name first, then blog.

I'm not saying they're putting together a bad program, in fact most of it looks interesting. And it's always nice to put faces to blogs. My schedule tells me I'll be in Milwaukee that day, so if all works out, I'll probably attend.

Updates:

I guess I'm not the only one who is a little disappointed by the panels...

Sean laments the panel at the summit. I think he would have been a great addition to this year's event. He could have had his own discussion on his adventures at CPAC in Washington DC a few weeks ago.

Aaron also agrees that too few commmoners were empaneled (is that a word?).

Scott thinks that if we wanted to hear radio and TV personalities talk about blogging, we'd turn on our radios and TV's...

Seth has an insightful conclusion to his post on this topic:

This is not to say that the summit won't be a beneficial event for bloggers of all shapes and sizes. The panel topics all look interesting and pertinent. Nevertheless, the main discussions that take place on all of them [the panels] except the last are going to have the distinct perspective of those who really don't need their blogs to have a seat at the table.