Hey Everybody,

If you are from the Midwest and reading a blog then you probably heard about BIG Omaha. It was happened last Thursday night and all day and night Friday. It was amazing.

Here is a brief description of the event from the BIG Omaha site:

What happens when the country’s foremost creatives, entrepreneurs and innovators descend on one place? That place explodes. Which is precisely what we plan for Omaha.The energy will be impossible to contain. We will begin building communities, companies and friendships. We will inspire new thoughts and completely new ways of thinking. We will develop visions: personal, shared, and civic.
Speakers will come from some of the most innovative companies in the nation. And you’ll hear fantastic stories from numerous emerging businesses.In the end, you’ll take away a network and an energy that will propel those new connections to greatness. For you. For your business. For your community.
Come to the heart of the Midwest. And let’s rebuild this country from the inside out.

I have to agree, the energy and the connection of an event like this can really spark a community. I am really excited to see what will come in the next few weeks. I wanted to write a quick post to say thanks to Jeff and Dusty for putting this event together. Thanks guys, you really made your vision come true.

I also wanted to share a few quotes from some of the speakers that I really liked. So here goes. A little wisdom from BIG Omaha, in case you couldn’t be there:

Jason Fried of 37Signals
“You know more about a project while you are working on it, then you do before you start.”
“Whenever you make something, you make something else. We are in the business of byproducts. Ruby on the Rails was a byproduct, our book was a byproduct.”
“What can you share? What can you teach?”
“Pay attention to what won’t change. Think of Amazon, they invest in customer service, shipping, selection. Don’t always be chasing the next fad.”
“Nobody gives a shit about Dell.”

Adriana Gasciogne of Girls in Tech
“Of all the fortune 500 CEOs, only 8 are women, but women make up 46.5 percent of the US workforce.”

Micah Baldwin of Lijit Networks
“We all say ‘it was a learning experience’ — no it wasn’t it was a failure.”
“Sometimes the best way to learn to duck is to get punched in the face.”
“It’s about being open to the idea that your plans will change.”

Ben Rattray of Change.org
“If your company didn’t exist, would anyone really care?”

Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV
“The Internet, this platform is going to fundamentally destroy everything (media)…TV is fucked.”
“The middle man is losing the game because the Internet as a platform is changing things.”
“One good business strategy — WIN.”
“I can’t beat math.”
“Everything that I believe in didn’t exist five years ago.”
“If you don’t go out and get it. I will.”

Here is a list of the amazing speakers that came to BIG Omaha. Thanks guys:

1. Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV
2. Jason Fried of 37signals
3. Jeffrey Kalmikoff of Threadless
4. Adriana Gascoigne of hi5 and Girls in Tech
5. Ben Rattray of Change.org
6. Micah Baldwin of Lijit Networks

Best Wishes and see you there in 2010.

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

With all the prediction talk circling the web with the start of the new year, I thought that I would drop a quick reminder that predictions are just that, predictions not destiny. The world can change dramatically and quickly. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Men might as well project a voyage to the Moon as attempt to employ steam navigation against the stormy North Atlantic Ocean.

- Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London.

They will never try to steal the phonograph because it has no `commercial value.

- Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

This `telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.

- Western Union internal memo, 1878

Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.

- Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946.

Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.

- Dr. Dionysus Lardner (1793-1859), Professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at University College, London.

There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.

- Albert Einstein, 1932.

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

- Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), ca. 1895, British mathematician and physicist

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.

- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

These came from the Our Time to Act Blog. They were originally published by Evelyn Rodriguez on her blog.

Hope you enjoy, have a great new year. Don’t take yourself or the world too seriously this year.

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

If you are in the Midwest and interested tech than you probably already know about the Silicon Prairie News. It is blog focused on innovation. They are based in Omaha, NE and run by two really nice guys that I had lunch with yesterday: Jeff and Dusty.

They also conduct all these embarrassing short video interviews (they use Vimeo). So you can see mine here.

They also recently put out a really nice piece on DocLanding. See it here.

Thanks SPN and best wishes with BIG OMAHA,

Will Flavell

Hey Everyone,

I’m sure that many of you have heard of Mike Wesch, he is a teacher at my alma mater, Kansas State University. He teaches a class called Digital Ethnography. It has turned out some really exciting stuff. His video on Digital Test: The Machine is Us/ing Us is amazing and I use it all the time to illustrate changes in communications.

I recently was forwarded his video on the changes in lifestyle habits of college kids. It is really cool. I wanted to share it with everyone. It is called A Vision of Students Today.

Check out his progress on research here.

Great Work Mr. Wesch. I am so happy to see at least one example of our education system tackling this important issue. I work with it everyday and was never taught much about it.

Great work,

Will Flavell