A New Omaha Rising

Dusty DavidsonMatt SecoskeJeff Slobotski

silos

TechiesWeb Designers

Entrepreneurs

MusiciansArtists

Innovators

Interesting people doing interesting things, without knowing about each other.

We are changing that.

Social Media is helping to bring our divergent communities (developers, designers, entrepreneurs, innovators, etc) together.

How did we get here?

Sarah Lacy’s money shot

"They live and breathe the Web 2.0 movement, are excited by it, and want to jump in."

"Omaha is looking at what is has — a different culture of innovation, ... a creative class — and trying to build a community that will support anyone who has a good idea and the stomach to try to start something."

Barcamp Omaha• 30+ attendee-led sessions

• 100+ attendees

• 15+ sponsors

• Great opportunity for networking / sharing ideas with our “creative class”

• Building Community!

Video UpdatesPodcastsUstream

Soo...where to from here?

Keep moving forward

events, events, events

Infotec 2009

BIG Omaha 2009May 7th & 8th 2009

Warren?

Bring together local resources

Creative incubator

Market-driven innovation

• National partners

• Identifying key “pain points” amongst companies, and pairing seasoned entrepreneurs with then to solve those problems

Other social media initiatives...

• “Siloed” but lots of people out there

• Number one priority is to keep building community+ events, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, interviews, stories...+ without community, the other endeavors are difficult (or impossible) to foster

• Work with city leaders and other entrepreneurs to build infrastructure around this community

• Begin to launch companies, highlight existing companies, showcase cool things 

Wrapping up

Thank you!