Big Omaha Recap

16May09

The Big O

Big Omaha was radical, creative, and outright inspiring!  The conference was a mash-up for my mind.  The speakers dissected and retuned my brain to the new technological revolution.  I’ve been to a few conferences before and usually try to avoid them because, let’s face it, I can sleep at home.  At the end of this one, there was so much adrenaline pumping, Reflect7 would have thrown down in a cage match…  or at least an intense game of thumbwar.  I’m no tech-savvy genius.  In fact, I am pretty much tech-retarded.  Before the event, I didn’t know what the hell was going on…  I had no idea how big social media was getting.  Now, I see the F’ing light, and that light is bright.

Jeff and Dusty

First and foremost, let’s give props where props are due:  Jeff Slobotski of Silicon Prairie News, and Dusty Davidson of Brightmix.  These guys tore it up.  This was their first Big Omaha but it seemed like a seasoned event.  They decked out the place with style and personality.  There was always something to do, or something to see (reference “I’m a bathroom” pic below).  The place had attitude, but a good attitude.  Like, “hey little buddy, come into this room so I can give you a little tech-candy.”  And instead of throwing a bag over my head and kidnapping me, it gave me the candy, and it was laced with awesomeness.

Man Love

The scheduling went off without a hitch.  WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg couldn’t make it but Jeff Kalmikoff of Threadless.com decided to run an impromptu panel on the spot.  It worked out great, the speakers were able to align their commonalities and point out their differences.  Most differences seemed to be more semantics.  I thought they were all pretty much together.  You could definitely feel the man-love in the room.

For the born losers who didn’t attend, or for the people that just didn’t know about it, here’s a quick recap of the events (inside jokes notwithstanding):

Gary V. Wine TV at Slowdown

Slowdown: Booyah!  Every great event begins with a great preparty.  This place was awesome and had a nice indie vibe.  We were so sad to miss the Gary V. Wine Library TV Show but that’s what happens when you get caught up tweeting stupid pics at dinner.  We met a lot of great people here: the associates from Bozell, our Lincolnite friend Lateef, Shane from Intellicom in Kearney, and many others.  The free wine and large tweetscreen were the icing on the cake.  A special thanks to Dusty’s sister Sarah and her friends Jill and Katie for working the event with style.  Everything went smoothly and hanging out afterwards was a blast.  And even though Jill tried to kidnap a baby out of a minivan, you guys are still cool in my book (actually, a sort of scary cool).

After partying it up, Reflect7 went down the so called “pee-slides” and called it a night after scarfing down some pizza.

The next morning, we arrived at the Kaneko building and got our seats front and center.

Jason Fried

Jason Fried: The first speaker was this dude who formed a little company called 37Signals.  My partner JP suggested their book, “Getting Real”, earlier this year and I was completely blown away.  The book is great for anyone in business, not just software development.

Fried is your classic word-hater, but closet word-lover.  He hates words like “Entrepreneur” and “Monetize” but likes words like “Like” and “And”.  I would tell him to take his word-hating demon soul somewhere else but he’s so damn compelling that you have to listen.  And you’re glad when you do because he unearths these little rubies:

1)      Inspiration is perishable.  If you find yourself inspired then act in the moment.  Later, that inspiration will fade, and so will your motivation.

2)      Whenever you create something, you create a byproduct that you can also utilize.  37signals has a blog for usability and design.  That blog was synthesized into a book (“Getting Real”) which grossed them over $500,000.

Micah Laaker: Micah is a Yahoo developer who discussed some of the cool websites that he had been working on for Def Jams.   He also showcased some of the interesting Yahoo APIs.  Yahoo Pipes and YQL are two powerful ways to filter internet data.  I’ve used Pipes several times and the graphical user interface is a breeze.  Web 3.0 anyone?

Adrianna Gascoigne

Adrianna Gascoigne from Girls in Tech (GIT): Adrianna discussed the declining percentage of women in the tech industry.  How we as a community need to stop perpetuating the self-fulfilling prophecies that are being impressed upon young women these days.  Adrianna also talked about building a support network of women role models for the tech industry.  This is what GIT provides.

After reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success, I think Jason Fried should put the word “Talent” in his hatorade pile.  In fact, I’m sure it’s already in there.  In his new book, Gladwell describes talent as a social construct.  Talent is the willingness to practice day in and day out.  Not something you are just born with.  The people that work the hardest are those who are most successful.  And those who work the hardest do so because they are encouraged to by society.  Success is largely a social act and so is talent.

If we’re looking at talent as something out of our locus of control (men are innately good at math, women are innately good at communications) then we’ve just introduced a demotivator into our culture.  I thought this type of pigeonholing was so 1990s, but apparently it’s still going on.  Encouraging more women into technology will bring in more perspectives and greater flexibility, and hence, benefit the entire industry.

Micah Baldwin

Micah Baldwin: Micah has started six businesses and his latest is Ligit Networks, a search tool for publishers.  Micah embedded his powerful message in a funny, laid-back presentation.  His message: Failure is part of the process.  Failure is not the end, losing is the end.

In the beginning, you may have more failures than successes.  After a while, you start to learn and get better.  Then, your success rate starts to increase faster than your fail rate.  Soon your fail rate falls below your success rate as you enjoy more and more successes in your life.  Micah gets street cred for the Runner Up Best Quote:

Paraphrased: “I had like, retarded amounts of money.  I was rolling around in the shit…”

Jeffrey Kalmikoff

Jeffrey Kalmikoff: Jeff is the founder of Threadless.com, a multimillion dollar T-shirt company where anyone can submit designs.  Jeff’s presentation was on transparency.  Deal with your customers in an authentic way.  Don’t try to hide your screw-ups with spin-ally press releases.  Just be honest.  Be the first to tell your customers what happened, how genuinely sorry you are, and what you’re doing to fix it.

In his example, Jeff highlighted the great blog incident of 2006 where Threadless.com lost some 300,000 blog posts.  The company remained honest and forthright when communicating to it’s customers.  The first few responses back went something like this:

1)      It’s cool man, shit happens

2)      Out with the old and in with the new

3)      No worries

4)      I may know how to fix your problem

Similar responses flowed in until one of their customers found a way to use google’s cache to recover about 40% of the posts.  That’s not a group of customers, that’s a community with evangelists ready to fight for you on the frontline.  This is what Jeff and his team have created with Threadless: a community.

Ben Rattray: Ben came to the conference

with one purpose in mind: Save the World.  His superpower: Compellingness.  If you were there, you were compelled.  If he hasn’t compelled you yet, he will.  Ben is the founder of Change.org, a social network for activists.  Ben’s message: Do something with your life that matters.  He had great energy and great passion.  Check out his site for ways to get involved. Getting started is as simple as giving a bowl of rice…

Panel: Nick Hudson of Nomad Lounge hosted a panel discussion with local entrepreneurs.  Each panel member was able to share how they attained startup funding, their riskiest move, their startup story, and what keeps them up at night.  My major take away from this came from Charles Hull, founder of Archrival: “Don’t pitch, tell a story.”  Charlie basically bootstrapped his first large sale by having his friends “sign on” as Archrival employees.  At the pitch, they told a compelling story instead of competing with wireframe mockups.  Archrival got the account.

Gary V

Gary V:  Gary Vaynerchuck pretty much hijacked my brain and hasn’t given it back yet.  The Best Quote of the conference goes to him.  Actually he get’s Second Runner Up as well, both paraphrased:

1)      “T.V., Newspapers, Radio, they’re all dead.  Internet is killing them.  And that’s what’s crazy: The internet is only 14 years old, it hasn’t even had sex yet, and it’s already murdering these standards.”

2)      In response to a lady working with three young guys: “Cougar that shit up” (you had to be there)

Gary spoke on content, and how content is king.  With the stream-it-whenever-you-want-it feature of the internet, someone who loves thumbtacks can take advantage of well-targeted advertising (Linen’s and Things, Hobby Lobby, etc.).  We’re getting to a point where everyone will be their own distributor of content instead of the networks giants.  This puts a giant heap of advertising money (some 50 billion a year) into play for everybody.

Props and Slops

Props: I’m never too good to mention the same guys twice, so Jeff and Dusty each get a big “You tha bomb” knuckle explosion for organizing the event and coming through like the hauses they are.  I would be really interested to hear about their experiences setting up this conference.  I’m sure there was plenty going on behind the scenes but when the curtain opened, it was all finesse.  Great job guys, see you next year.

Props: All of the Speakers.  I mean that.  They were all great.  Everyone who shared in the local business panel was also appreciated.  Seeing locals who have made it brought the dream that much closer to reality.

Props: To the pizza delivery place.  You delivered on time and the pizza was great.  We didn’t have a microwave so I hot-ironed some slices the next night and they still tasted magical.

Massive Big Ups to my boys JP and Corey for making the trip such an adventure.  You guys are great and we definitely did it proper.  Massive Ups to Katie for making both of my boys look like chumps in a drinking contest.  12ozs in about 3 seconds, one word: Wow.  Massive Ups to Heather from Colorado for staying out with Reflect7 until 7am partying.  You tore up the Village People Slots.

Slops: The wordpress guy.  Just kidding, I’m on wordpress right now typing this.  Scheduling difficulties are going to happen and we hope to see you next year at Big Omaha.

Slops: Courtyard Marriot: Boo for charging for amenities that are usually free.  Your non-free continental breakfast was weaksauce.  I’ve been to places all around the U.S…  Days Inn has a better continental breakfast than yours and it’s free.  And what’s with the wi-fi charge?  Call me cheap, but aren’t we past that as a society these days?  Hell, I get free wi-fi in the airport, the same place that charges $12 for a Rueben.

Slops: The chair that I traded into for J.P. for the last two speakers of the conference.  The mofo was trying to swallow me up but I didn’t have the bullocks to switch out after manning up for J.P.’s small wiener.

Slops: The dudes who kept getting up to perpetuate arguments with Adrianna from Girls in Tech.  Let me just address all of those arguments right now:

1. No, Adrianna is not trying to discourage men from being in technology.  Just because there are more women doesn’t necessarily mean there are less men.  If the man growth rate (I just said that) stays consistent, because men are nurtured into technology, and the women’s growth rate rapidly increases because we start to encourage them, then the whole class gets bigger!
2. No, Adrianna will not go on a date with you.

Slops: Me.  Usually I can find at least ten things to give slops to.  I mean, I really like giving slops, and normally I’ll give them to inanimate objects like street signs and chairs.  That’s how great Big Omaha was, I’ve run out of slops prematurely.  Shut up!  It happens to every guy!

I’m out Big O – See ya next year…

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