Archive for 'omaha'
A day in LNK for the American Marketing Association social media panel
Posted on 27. Feb, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
On Thursday in the early AM I was picked up by my getaway driver (really–check his business card!) Steve Gordon, owner of Rdqlus, to speak at an 8am breakfast panel hosted by the American Marketing Association in our fair capital city of Lincoln. We were joined by several other expert panelists including Danny Schreiber of SiliconPrairieNews.com, Deb Averett of Fresh Nest Design and TooLuLu, Christy Nelson of TooLuLu, Khara Plicanic who owns Kabloom Studios, and Lori Havens, Social Media Guru at Ervin & Smith Advertising and Public Relations.
So that’s a lot of people.
I was really hoping that more people would be attending than were on the panel. I was thinking…8am on a Thursday? With an admission fee? With metered street parking? Sure thing, good luck with that.
And I was SO HAPPILY SURPRISED to see person after smiling person walking through the door of the Lincoln Community Foundation building filling up rows and rows of tables–they even had to bring another one in!
I was also impressed by the participation and enthusiasm of all the attendees. After the scheduled one-hour panel session, we stayed about an hour longer to mingle and chat with other local small business owners, marketers, and people who were just interested in getting started and finding motivation.
Hopefully we were able to offer some helpful insights!
On our way home, Steve and I stopped at my Favorite Restaurant in the Whole World, Bread & Cup. I had a sandwich on homemade bread with their homemade peanut butter and apple butter. Served on a stark white plate with a side of apple slices. I love simple food. The owner, Kevin, who I often talk to on Twitter, even came over and introduced himself. Kevin, I love your restaurant.
Today is our district competition for forensics. I’ll be getting up to leave for the bus at 4:30 AM. Wish my kids luck! Whoever makes it to the top four gets to be driven to the state competition by me when I’m 8 months pregnant. Go Blair Bears!
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omaha area readers–check out the cover of omaha magazine!
Posted on 17. Feb, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
A few weeks ago I was asked by the editors of Omaha Magazine to participate in a feature they are doing on young local business owners (I wrote about it earlier here). Today I finally saw the cover. I am shocked!
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week 26, today’s outfit, and a peek at a new photoshoot
Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
Quick post because I have to go get some sleep…I’m feelin crazy big!
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Silicon Prairie News website launch!
Posted on 14. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
Silicon Prairie News is a local blog and event producer (Big Omaha, anyone?) dedicated to exposing and and supporting the region’s creative business owners, artists, and organizations. And today they launched their gorgeous, newly redesigned website! It’s cleaner, easier to navigate, and I also like that they now have a searchable video library. There will also be more relevant content to visitors outside the region (many of you!).
Founded by Dusty Davidson and Jeff Slobotski and maintained with the help of several talented writers, SPN has had a hand in the success and advancement of so many young local professionals (like me!). Whether it’s the scrappy independent designers or successful local entrepreneurs, the organization works hard to elevate our exposure and I deeply respect their mission! I know I couldn’t run my business anymore without the support of my local community and Jeff and Dusty have been two of my most encouraging personal friends.
I’m excited for the launch party tonight. If you can’t be there, you can track the conversation on Twitter by following the hashtag #SPNLaunch or @Siliconprairie!
For a while now, national players have been noticing the electricity and culture of innovation in Omaha, and SPN is in the middle of all of it. Check out their new website today and leave them some comment love!
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22 weeks: pictures from new year’s eve
Posted on 04. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
On New Year’s Eve we went to Goo, a dance party hosted by The Slowdown (where we got married in 2007).
I was going to wear my favorite Karta dress and I was elated that it still fit me, but after I got my hair and makeup done and Dave came to help me zip it up, the zipper split.
While Dave worked hard googling “split zipper” and trying to fix it, I moped for half an hour or so because I couldn’t find anything else that fit and was remotely formal. But I think I did a good job of prettying up this big tent-y dress from Ryu. And luckily it was comfortable.
Dress: Ryu
Belt: Kimchi Blue
Tights: Forever 21
Shoes: Etienne Aigner
The theme was “masquerade” so we went as kitties.
What did you do to ring in the new year? Quiet and relaxed or crazy and wild?
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today’s outfit
Posted on 01. Jan, 2010 by Princess Lasertron.
The other day, we went to Paxton Manor, a beautiful building in the Old Market where my grandfather lives with his wife. (Film director Alexander Payne lives there too, and there’s my namedrop for the day.) We had dinner together in the neighborhood at a new Indian restaurant called Flavors. I’m not a connoisseur of Indian food, but that place is my new favorite in town.
shirt: odille
sweater: mossimo
skirt: american apparel
tights: target
belt: kimchi blue
scarf: mossimo
coat: liz lange for target
bag: bcbg
shoes: madden girl
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snowmaha
Posted on 14. Dec, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.
I feel like one of the only people who hasn’t been outside enjoying the beautiful downy snow dump we got last week here in the Midwest. I hear kids outside after school playing, and Professor Lasertron just tuned up his snow bike to trek to work every day. We even got three snow days in a row last week and since Dave works at the local university, he got to stay home too! Five-day weekend!
I just hate being cold.
So I’m not going out there.
But here are some other really gorgeous Snowmaha 09 pictures that I wanted to share. You can live vicariously through them as I do!
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just some pictures and a hello.
Posted on 22. Nov, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.
Hello! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I have been working on a huge beautiful pastel project for a spring issue of a national magazine coming up next year. They photograph these things really early so I have to get it finished in the next two days and sent to them!
Today I dyed a whole bunch of silk and wool. I love doing this, and it’s easier than ever in our new kitchen because I don’t have to worry about getting dye on the stainless steel.
Here is the rest of what I have completed so far…not much. Just playing around with some options.
I did order a whole bunch of this cute masking tape from Present and Correct. When I received it, I was pleased to find out it is much thinner than regular household masking tape, making it perfect to use as a floral tape. I am eager to use it in lots of projects this year.
Earlier tonight we had a little pre-Thanksgiving family dinner at my grandpa’s house.
Other things we did this weekend…
…saw a movie at our new fancy sit-down dinner theater. I found out my glasses broke and Dave said, “it’s okay, they’re much more ‘Gaga’ now.” The bathrooms also had the coolest wood-grain cinderblock things. I want my whole house made out of them.
…a little antiquing. This is my new favorite secret source for well-priced vintage furniture in town…I want this little grey couch so bad for my huge gross basement studio! With the yellow walls it would be perfect.
…a little putzing around
…and I’m 17 weeks now! On Wednesday we find out if we’re having a David Junior or a Megan Junior. I can’t wait and yes I will blab it to the world.
xo
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my projects from silver bella
Posted on 17. Nov, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.
This is how I started my weekend. This is the first thing I was greeted by.
Max the Cat made by Jennifer Murphy sat on my table during her snowman clip ornament class. I am so in love! Look at his sweet face. I wanted to take him home, but someone else beat me to it!
This is me with Jennifer after her class. This is also me awake at 9am. For maybe the 3rd time in my adult life.
Pam Garrison’s Holly Days Countdown wreath class was fun–she spread out ALL these vintage materials and supplies on a front table for us to run our hands over and pick through. It felt like kindergarten.
Pam also passed around two of her inspiration journals and each page was so awe-inspiring. This was my favorite so I snapped a little photo…I felt like a little thief there shyly snapping one photo of this page and then dropping my camera in my bag. I wish I could draw like that.
In my last class of the event on Saturday afternoon, I was with Jennifer again making a little pom pom bird in a shadowbox. Here are all of the projects from our work table…
I sat next to Meg Duerksen
Things I don’t have photos of because I figured I’d just nab some off Flickr later:
…Jo Packham’s keynote speech that brought me to tears. I wish it could have been about 30 minutes longer and I wish we could have had time to ask questions.
…Kaari Meng’s expert jewelrymaking class
…All of the bella swaps, where the ladies created handmade items ranging from charms to books to aprons to share with their friends
…The opening class hosted by Fiskars
…The generous swag bags made of vintage fabric and stuffed with amazing goodies!
Finally, here are some final pictures of the projects I made:
xo
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quick princess lasertron interview on silicon prairie news
Posted on 04. Nov, 2009 by Princess Lasertron.
Jeff Slobotski of Silicon Prairie News interviewed me last night at the Omaha TweetUP/ShirtUP about the exciting week I’ve had with the new website and magazine. I encourage you to visit their website–if you are local, it is an awesome resource for information about movers and shakers and events around town. And if you aren’t a Silicon Prairie native, you can still gather inspiration and motivation from their interviews and articles.
If you are on Twitter and your city does TweetUPs, I definitely encourage you to go! I always meet new and inspiring people at events like these. To me, they are better than other networking events because there are so many people around my age. It’s never like a cocktail mixer where you have to wear a suit and bring a resume and sell yourself (and bore people to death) like back in the day–you just show up as you are and before you know it, you’ll be connecting with dozens of people who are sure to become not only networking resources, but friends. That has been my experience.
I have worked with photographers, event coordinators, publicists, journalists, designers and developers, and even received clients from events like these. I actually first met Eric Downs, who designed my new webpage, at a TweetUP.
And if you are in Omaha, follow OmahaTweetUp on Twitter so you don’t miss the next event!
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barcamp omaha wrapup: share your passion!
Posted on 07. Oct, 2009 by admin.
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
