Members of the first Big Omaha planning team pose for a picture at the one-day event.
At my first Big Omaha I landed a job, but it wasn’t with another attendee or sponsor, it was with the company behind the event, the less than one-year-old Silicon Prairie News.
Six years ago, I worked in the same office building as Jeff Slobotski, and at least once a week, I’d make my way over to his desk to chat startups and hear the latest on the “web 2.0 / social media conference” he and his co-founder Dusty Davidson were planning. I was eager to be a part of it as I was hankering to get involved with the startup scene—my former employer once gave me an internet-use warning for visiting Twitter and Silicon Prairie News too often.
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Jeff invited me to volunteer, and by April, the month before the inaugural Big Omaha, I was sitting in on the planning team’s weekly meetings. In addition to helping with logistics—ordering the foam “Big Omaha” sign (above) is still my proudest contribution—I also blogged about the event on Silicon Prairie News. It was this latter responsibility, I was later told, that gave Jeff and Dusty an idea: maybe we should hire Danny to be a full-time writer. Thanks to the sell-out event and its cast of sponsors, the idea became a reality when weeks after the event they offered me the first full-time position on the Silicon Prairie News team.
This is what Big Omaha means to me. It’s the reason I am where I am today, but my story is just one of many connected to the Big Omaha mission, community and its people. This is my Big Omaha story. What’s yours?
In celebration of hitting Big Omaha’s five-year mark this May, we’re collecting stories from the event to share with our community.
Maybe you…
- Met your co-founder
- Introduced yourself to a future investor
- Started a company
- Changed your career path
- Raised money for a cause
- Began working for a charity
- Stayed up all night playing werewolf
Whatever your story—short, long, serious or silly—we’d be honored to hear it.
Fill out our story form or send it our way (email editor@siliconprairienews.com).
Want to submit your story as a video? Contact editor@siliconprairienews.com.
Credits: Photo by Malone & Co. / Big Omaha
