This year’s Big Omaha experience was filled with great speakers, good friends, great food, interesting stories, fun interactions, emotional stimulation and a boat load of inspiration.  I have listed five examples here.

Thing # 1:  The first wonderful thing that happened to me was that my old college friend Chris Rouw showed up along with his partners at Far Reach Technologies, located in Cedar Falls, Iowa.  Chris was one of the first people I ran into on opening day.  I got to meet the team and he demonstrated an app that they had built for Dwolla which helps you to locate merchants in your area who accept payment via Dwolla.  Pretty neat – these guys are blazing a trail in the mobile payments world, and that is just one example of Far Reach’s, well, far reach.  Sorry (had to be done).  Far Reach is a neat company, just celebrating their fourth “birthday” and it is run by some outstandingly smart and extremely nice people.  You should check them out.

Thing # 2:  Another really neat thing that happened this year was that Big Omaha provided us all with two books to take home – both authors were speakers at this year’s event.  The first was Sarah Lacy (senior editor at Tech Crunch).  Her book, Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky:  How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit From Global Chaos (affiliate link) discusses her forty-week excursion into a host of developing markets around the world and what she observed while there.  Her talk gave brief synopses of a few examples.  You will be inspired by her study of how real-life entrepreneurs in little-heard-of places are making their hustle pay off for both themselves and the customers they serve.  The second was Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, The Thank You Economy (affiliate link). If you don’t know Gary already by reputation, then just look back on any of his previous speeches and you’ll feel the genuine, engaged enthusiasm that he seems to have for every task that he undertakes.  The basic message is to pay attention to how we are being marketed to and to ride the wave as this shifts.  We can all have serious advantage in marketing today because now “the ears are more important than the mouth.”  His talk was encouraging and his book has been, too, so far.

Thing # 3:  For those who know me, all three of you know that I am a huge train nut.  While eating lunch on the last day of the conference, I had the opportunity to briefly chat with John Henry Muller of What Cheer.  Turns out he was the creator of the wildly popular (can we actually say ‘viral’ or did it not meet the definition?) web contest to select the route of the Union Pacific steam excursion this year.  The Union Pacific Railroad runs their Heritage Fleet and their steam excursion program to demonstrate the history of railroading in America.  These are always popular with all the rail fans, but I think even John Henry was surprised at the response that his creation generated for the UP.  It was a pleasure for me to visit with him.

Thing # 4:  The reason I went to the first Big Omaha was simply for the opportunity to meet Gary Vaynerchuk and see if he is as good and nice in person as he seems on video (he is).  The reason I decided to attend again at the second, and now third, event was that this serves as a wake-up call to the spirit.  If you listen to your inner voice, you will begin to hear a set of “New Year’s Resolutions” that we start on in May.  For me this year, the new year’s resolution came with a corollary.  The resolution is “This will be my year to begin a side business that I can develop into a marketable property at some point.”  The corollary:  ”It doesn’t HAVE to be in the technology field.”

Thing # 5:  Finally, the last example I will share here is that I ran into my old programming TA from college.  He was a monitor in the computer lab and would help out with any questions we had while attempting to produce functional Pascal programs.  Tej Dhawan is well established in the tech world and worked for a long time in a specialized  software company.  His new gig is at a tech incubator in Des Moines, called Startup City Des Moines.  It is designed to assist fledgling companies get their wings and fly strong.  Though I didn’t get enough time to talk, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I did have with Tej and I will be following along with the progress at SCDM.  You should too.

Well, there you have it.  Five pretty cool things that happened to me at Big Omaha.  There were more, to be sure, but that’s it for now.  What I hope you take away is that although the event is organized with an eye to even the smallest detail, and while everything is in its place and well-planned, you just never know what serendipitous little moments are going to happen at Big Omaha.  That’s where the memories get made.  Thanks for reading!

5 Cool Things That Happened to Me at Big Omaha is a post from: shannonehlers.com

In those last two years of my tenure at this large ag seed company, many things happened.  One event that stood out was that the entire company was purchased by a huge multi-national chemical concern.  A quick look at the parent company’s portfolio of businesses and locations made you think that the world was more dependent on what happened in a particular company than on what happened in any particular country.  The question presented itself to me at that time:  Is there such a thing as corporate sovereignty?

With that question, several others also arose.  Two specific questions that stuck in my mind at the time: “Is there such a thing as corporate food domination?” and “How much involvement in the food distribution system by a single company is healthy?”.  My employer at the time provided roughly half of the corn seed sold in America.  A large percentage of this corn was basically grown as the bulk feedstock for animals (beef, pork and chicken).  The animals’ ultimate fate was, of course, our dinner plate.  The nutrient density of the corn, and thus, of the meat, was “programmed” genetically by this old stalwart seed company.  That in itself was acceptable – the history of the organization was shining, with a long list of good and benevolent achievements.  As time wore on and the impending purchase became imminent, however, examining the situation more deeply gave the impression of a rapidly spreading three alarm fire.

The first alarm rang out when, after a brief courting period and a joint venture, the aforementioned large chemical concern purchased the seed company outright.  Is it still a benevolent business, seeking to help farmers be more productive through the broad application of the science of genetics?  Or is it now simply a platform to sell chemical crop protection products?  At the time, we all knew that we were the same company as when we started.  But who could guess what the future held?  The second alarm, at least for me, sounded when it became evident that the new owner had deep involvement in all aspects of food processing and distribution systems, from packaging and processing all the way to contaminant testing of finished foods, from production aids to the means of delivery.  They owned proprietary products in each critical phase of food production, processing and distribution – now including the raw genetic material that formed the starting material for that food.  The third, and maybe the loudest, alarm sounded after examining the other crop products that were available to this parent company.  Their own existing genetics programs and the programs obtained thru their new purchase provided avenues to control large amounts of available germplasm for wheat, rice, corn, soybean, sunflower, canola and a myriad of minor crop germplasm bases.

Vertical integration in the food industry reached a new milestone with this “merger” of a chemical giant with what had previously been the largest and perhaps the most innocuous seed company, having no previous ties to anyone except their own shareholders.  With the new ownership, what did the shareholders cede to this large chemical manufacturer?  Did they merely hand over control of an undisputed pioneer in the agricultural genetics industry?  Or was it actually a large chunk of the food supply that they served up on a platter?  Does it matter?  Will we all someday become ‘citizens’ of this new genetics giant by virtue of simply eating?

Corporate Sovereignty? is a post from: shannonehlers.com

It occurred to me one night, at about this time, that of the business people I know, very few are involved in any way with blogging. Some of these folks are responsible for some major revenue streams. Some are influencing opinion at very lofty levels. Some are simply feeding their family from their businesses. But of the entire cross-section, I imagine only a small percentage are doing any blogging.

I could spend hours (well, OK, actually I could spend MINUTES) debating why more business people aren’t into blogging. My hunch is that they just haven’t made time yet for this activity. Rather than debate the “why”, though, I thought it might be more interesting to ask “Does it matter?”  For our discussion here, I will introduce a hypothetical business, a small manufacturer of widgets.

To the small manufacturer, who sells her entire production run of widgets to the east coast widget wholesaler, does it really matter whether or not she has a blog that is updated periodically?  The east coast wholesaler is certainly not going to buy more than her production run, and he probably won’t be influenced by her blogging anyway.  So what possible benefit might she hope for?  Could she even get a logical return on the time she spent writing posts?

The answers to these questions, and other questions about the efficacy of blogging, can be found by learning how the blog is targetted.  Who will the usual reader be?  Will they come back again and again in order to get the freshest information?  Are they mostly current customers or are they mainly potential customers?   What age are they?  These and other questions need to be considered.

By working on a targetting strategy that focuses on the demand engine for the product, blogging can certainly play a pivotal role in the marketing of both products and ideas.  If, for instance, our small widget factory publishes a weekly post on widgets, the history of widgets, alternative uses for widgets, the state of the widget industry, and so forth, all about widgets, then eventually someone will notice this and begin sharing it across the web.  If the information is very practical, it will take off even more quickly.  This generally leads to a later purchase, due to the the Widget company’s “top of mind” position.  This strategy focuses on the retail customer – a.k.a. the demand engine for the product.  Although the wholesaler is already buying every unit of widget produced, he or she will likely continue to do so if it appears that demand remains strong.

Other benefits include the ability to ‘crowdsource’ work in creative areas, the ability to drive blog traffic to the corporate site, the ability to constantly provide up to the minute news about the business, the ability to maintain a 24 hour billboard for the business, the ability to quickly promote new products / services / ideas via social networking, and the list goes on.

So yes, I believe blogging can matter greatly to a business, no matter the size of the business.

Does Blogging Matter to Your Business? is a post from: shannonehlers.com

While cleaning my den recently I came across this old wood plane, purchased for a pittance on a tool auction years ago, and now used in my den as a decoration.  Looking at it, I wondered how many previous owners had also handled this tool?  How had they used it?  Had it also been a decoration for them, or was it a tool used every day?  Had it been used in a cabinetmaker’s shop?  In a coffin maker’s shop?  Had it been a trusted tool handed down from father to an apprenticing son?  Had it been replaced by a shiny new power tool?  If so, did technology trump artistic and aesthetic form?

This last question stuck in my head.  It seems that everything is now faster, more instant, electronic.  Everything now has powder coating, plastic handles, and power cords.  We don’t stop, though, at electric power alone.  Some tools now even come with lasers to aid in sighting the cut line.

Living in an analog world is now frowned upon.  We see it in so many ways.

For instance, my family is preparing several of my grandmother’s possessions for sale at auction, as she downsizes from a five bedroom home to a small apartment.  One of the numerous intriguing items I’ve come across is an old Victrola record player, which must be cranked before the music is played from the thick, waxy records.  As I look at it and the records, I wonder if any of these songs are available in my favorite online music store?  Will the next generation of music lovers ever know these songs or the somewhat tinny sound of the giant conical speaker when they plug in their “ear buds”?  With my mp3 player and the hundreds of songs it holds and plays at my demand, I wonder how high would a stack of old 45s be if I had all of those songs in that format?

Looking through a different lens, I’m a chemist by trade and training.  For over seven years I’ve had the privilege of working for a small company dedicated to preserving Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), an holistic system of medicine at risk of becoming a lost art, were it not for a few dedicated souls working diligently to preserve it, not the least of which is my boss.  We utilize high technology in our laboratory to determine the quality of our raw materials and finished products, and we also utilize arguably low-tech manufacturing practices, in order to replicate the traditional processing techniques used for generations in the Chinese medicine system.  All of this stands in stark contrast to our modern western system of medicine, where we typically seek instant relief of our symptoms but sometimes forget to treat the cause.  It all forms an interesting mix of centuries-old  tradition and appropriate technology, and the whole thing is run by a guy I like and respect.

Of course, nowhere is the change from manual to power, analog to digital, more evident than in the field of photography.  There are entire companies built on the digital photography industry, and entire companies shifting from film to digital.  Likewise, entire industries are now needing to retool if they are to survive this transition.  Kodachrome film, for instance, is being phased out, prompting many who celebrate film photography to remove their hat and pay their respects to a film widely recognized for its superiority, but soon to be a nostalgic touch point from a bygone era as we move to digital image acquisition, processing and display.  Even the image at the top of this post, my old wood plane, has never seen print, going directly from an electronic image sensor to solid state memory to a server and now to your monitor.

And speaking of that wood plane in the image, has it been replaced with a shiny new power tool?  How has woodworking changed?  In many ways it has changed greatly, and in other ways, not at all.  In the era of CNC lathes and power drills, there are still folks like Robby Pedersen, who runs a working museum that builds furniture using techniques from the 1800s.  My mother, a tour guide, told me about him after one of her contacts in the tourism industry presented her with some literature.  And then there is Roy Underhill, who just published a new book on woodworking, starting from the beginning, in the forest felling  a tree.  For more on planes, especially hand planes, made the old fashioned way, check out Philly Planes, a british maker of planes that seem more like art pieces than tools.

All of these examples demonstrate someone exerting a resistive force, standing up for something of value against a rising tide of change.  In most of these cases, we see a blending of new and old techniques, while many around us would urge abandoning the latter.  Do you know of something worth preserving, something worth standing up for against a rising tide of change?  Click the comments link, under the post title, to the right, and tell it!

In With the Old, In With the New is a post from: shannonehlers.com

I love fall.  It is by far my favorite time of the year.  Harvest happens now.  My birthday is in the fall.  The endless heat of summer actually ends.  The bugs go away.  It’s all good.

The video above is of a harvest of a different kind than we are familiar with in the midwest.  This is the grape harvest in the Napa Valley, at a winery that bears my last name.  These guys are doing it right – check out the other videos on their YouTube list (especially the one describing biodynamic practices).  Very cool.  I’m no wine conniseur but this is some very good wine, highly regarded and quite popular in the restaurant trade.  If you’re up for something nice, pick up a bottle at www.ehlersestate.com.

Fall is my Favorite is a post from: shannonehlers.com

Straight from the horse’s mouth

Below is a video produced by the helpful folks at LinkedIn to help newcomers understand the whole bit a little better.

What is LinkedIn? from LinkedIn Marketing on Vimeo.

From Chris Brogan

Next, I wanted to recommend one of Chris Brogan’s many excellent posts that discuss LinkedIn and making your LinkedIn profile work for you. He gives specific tips on making the profile that is displayed publicly much more functional for both employees and freelancers. There is much more useful info on a host of social media topics at http://www.chrisbrogan.com, as well.

A Related Note

While reading and commenting on a post on Chris Brogan’s blog, I met the guest author, Becky McCray and she ultimately asked me to write a guest post for her own blog, Small Biz Survival. She suggested discussing how LinkedIn can work for small town professionals. The resulting five tips were published last month on http://smallbizsurvival.com (thanks for the opportunity Becky!).

Other Resources:

http://www.linkedin.com the main site

http://www.linkedintelligence.com a helpful site for users

http://blog.linkedin.com/ the LI blog

LinkedIn Tips is a post from: shannonehlers.com

What is this event? It is the annual shareholder meeting for Berkshire Hathaway. Several years ago, I started purchasing “Baby B” shares (a class B share of Berkshire Hathaway) for a retirement account that I own. Each B share is valued at 1/30th the price of the class A shares.

With the shareholder meeting taking place just an hour’s drive from my home, I decided to attend one year. After attending my first shareholder meeting, I was hooked. The environment is one that helps to educate the investor, celebrate the consumer, and update the owner on the company’s progress over the last year. For anyone who is interested, the stock symbols for Berkshire shares are BRK.A and BRK.B and plenty of good information, including the annual report and Mr. Buffett’s instructive annual letters to shareholders, can be found at the company website.

The format of the meeting is very simple – you arrive at the Qwest Center Omaha by 6:30 AM and rush to a seat in the auditorium, you watch the annual company movie which generally includes numerous skits by Buffett, and has included guest appearances by any number of celebrities. Once that is over, a Question and Answer session begins, generally at about 9 AM and proceeds until around 3 PM. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger take shareholder questions all day long.

For those who get antsy when they sit too long, there is also an exhibition hall with booths from many of the companies owned by Berkshire. Companies like See’s Candy, Dairy Queen, Justin Boots, and many others have displays and for the bargain shopper, this is the place to be. My favorite vendor in this area is the “Berky Bookseller”, a moniker adopted by a favorite local bookstore while they set up a huge booth to sell books focused on this magnificent company and its maestro. Generally two or three authors are available to autograph books as well. Combined with the Q&A with Buffett and Munger, the book store provides an excellent value for the self-taught student of business.

I will be sure to report in with my impression of the meeting and any highlights I think you might find interesting.

Choose Your Destiny is a post from: shannonehlers.com