barcamp omaha wrapup: share your passion!

Posted on 07. Oct, 2009 by admin in omaha, photos

There’s another Barcamp for the books. Omaha’s second annual Barcamp event was an open, collaborative representation of our most passionate local innovators and, once again, I left the weekend feeling completely exhausted yet resolutely driven and motivated.

If you have never heard of Barcamp before, it’s an “un”-conference format held in cities all over the world. There is no speaker list, no fixed schedule, and no rigid guidelines. Our open format offers attendees the unique opportunity to network, learn, and communicate about what they are passionate about! BarCamp conferences are held all over the world, but at BarCamp Omaha we do something special. Uniting techies, creatives, and entrepreneurs, we are not merely a “tech conference” or a “design conference.” Instead, we strive to include all local innovators and give you a platform to learn, teach, and explore the limits of your creativity. The goals for BarCamp are simple: come with an open mind and share what you are passionate about!

When attendees arrived in the morning, they enjoyed breakfast, coffee, wifi, and watched the planners buzzing around setting everything up last-minute. Anybody who wished to give a talk in the Creativity, Entrepreneur, or Tech tracks filled out a notecard which we organized into a speaking list on a huge piece of posterboard.

Photo: Andy Peters

Throughout the day, speakers gave open-ended talks on subjects ranging from glass-making, nurturing a creative community, building culture in your workplace, and SQL performance tuning. There were 32 talks and over 200 attendees, and I am really proud that we were able to create an inclusive environment that didn’t shut out anyone’s passions.

See for yourself!

I really want to thank the other planners, Matt Secoske, owner of Nimble Logic, a boutique web development company, Dusty Davidson, co-founder of BrightMix and Silicon Prairie News, Eric Downs, designer and owner of Downs Design (he’s the cute single one), and Jeff Slobotski, co-founder of Silicon Prairie News and Director of Innovation and New Media at the Aim Institute. We also couldn’t have done it without our sponsors. We cannot thank them enough. Please take a look at our sponsors page and find out more about these wonderful companies and people.

And finally, thank you to everyone who attended Barcamp Omaha! Whether you sat back and listened or prepared a talk just for us, we thank you so much. Without you guys this event would have been seriously lame, so thanks for believing the hype and coming on board for our little shindig. I know a lot of you traveled from far away (Roby Fitzhenry, badass designer from College Station, TX, Cat Hall from Des Moines, and Amanda Roberts, owner of Geek Details, I’m looking at you!) and we feel so special that you took the time to come enjoy the day with us.

So yeah I feel like I’ve really been blowing my load for Omaha here lately–tomorrow I’ll have some sweet new bouquet pictures. Believe the hype!!

xo