You missed out on something special if you weren’t able to attend the first Big Omaha conference last Friday.  Unlike many business, tech and web conferences I’ve attended over the years, this one left the hype, posturing and egos at the door.  Even with the stellar line up of big name presenters like Jason Fried, 37Signals (Basecamp), Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV, Micah Baldwin, Lijit Networks, Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Threadless and more,  it was an amazingly real, heartfelt and candid discussion about what it takes to start and sustain a business and to keep that drive and entrepreneurial spirit alive and well — complete with an exploration of success and failure.

Big Omaha from Mike Malone on Vimeo.

I walked away re-energized.  And not just by the speakers and the event (all of which were very well done due to the efforts of Jeff Slobotski, Silicon Prairie News and Dusty Davidson, Brightmix), but also because of the passion that I saw and felt among the 400+ attendees of the Big Omaha conference.  It was exciting to see so many creative thinkers united towards a creating a more exciting and progressive future right here in Omaha.  And it isn’t some City led effort to correct the misperceptions as a flyover state, the exciting vibe is coming from the community itself.  And that’s pretty cool!