Big Omaha

A couple months back, I started seeing things pop up in my Twitter stream about a little conference called Big Omaha. Some tech dudes and entrepreneurs that I follow were speaking, the content seemed interesting, and with Omaha being so close to home, I really had no reason to not attend. Plus, we rarely get baller tech guys speaking in these "fly over" states.

So after talking to Nick a bit, we ordered our tickets. I'm so freakin glad we did.

I haven't really ever been to any startup/entrepreneur conferences before, so the content just blew me away. So inspirational, so motivational. I'm pretty sure Nick would agree.

It's hard to really pick all my favorite speakers, but the ones that REALLY blew me away were Scott Harrison of Charity: Water, Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library, and Tony Hsieh of Zappos.

Scott Harrison's amazing/gut wrenching story and solid approach to charity was out of control. He literally had the entire conference choked up... while we were collectively emptying out our wallets. I really hope his presentation goes online so I can make y'all watch it. Totally awesome.

Gary Vaynerchuk is the shit, but he's incredibly, incredibly humble about it.... j/k. His confidence and ego are both amazing and hilarious. It's awesome how much he "knows" he's the best in the world. I mean, I like to tell y'all how awesome I am - a lot. But the way this dude does it is amazing, and it is obviously working out very well for him. I also hope this presentation goes online. One of the best talks I've ever heard (...as long as you're comfortable with a million f-bombs).

Tony Hsieh of Zappos is also ridiculous... Much more polished, but his values and ideas of how to build and run the best customer service team in the world are amazing. Their unique philosophies, interviewing techniques, and maintenance of employee relationships... Absolutely awesome. Again, I hope this presentation goes online... But if not, check out his book coming out next month.

Aside from that, every speaker really had great things to say, even the girl who told everyone to leave their communities and move to San Francisco, New York, or Boulder... but a few of my other favorites were Dan Hauser of Grasshopper, Jason Fried of 37signals, Dennis Crowley of Foursquare, and Matt Mullenweg of WordPress.

Anyway, yeah, so glad I went. I'm super excited for the future... Both with my full time job and side projects with Nick. I need to surround myself with much more of this stuff.

    written by 28 year old Derek Brooks

    Dude the guy Zappos is droping a book in June but groupon.com has it as a deal for $10. I wanna buy it but i'm $10 short... Hahaha.. But it comes out in June so I think I will grab it then

    Paul posted

    life-changing event for me, thats all i can say

    nick posted

    yeah, he gave us free advance copies of that book after his talk. ;)

    derek posted

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