Another adventure begins. Goodbye Omaha.

My time in Omaha is coming to an end.  On Friday, February 3rd I’ll have relocated to San Francisco.

When looking back at the past three years it’s hard to decide what to put in this rather long retrospective post.  But I’ll use it as my last opportunity to highlight, clarify, give thanks, and try to explain why I’m taking on this new adventure.

I moved to Omaha thinking I’d have to dodge cows on the way to the office every day.  I thought I’d really dislike the city, but the job I moved here for would make it worth it.  Many of you know how quickly I discovered the opposite.  I fell in love with Omaha, its people and vowed to leave my job within a year.

Being around the Omaha community I learned, for the first time, about taking risks, trying something new, and that putting your all into something wasn’t just something for the “other guys”, it’s something everyone should do.  I knew quickly I needed something more than “a job”.  I also learned of the support system sometimes needed in order for you to take those risks.  Omaha provided that for me.

I attended the first Big Omaha and  left with an idea.  Something I wanted to build because I wanted to use it myself.  The idea of Hollrback was born.  With the help of my friend Kat I compiled a video to try and drum up some support for the project.  Before long project “Mysterious Dottie” was in full swing.

Through the experience of Hollrback, among many other things, I started to learn the city that I previously decided I’d be more than happy to live in for the rest of my life may not be for me after all, at least in the short term.  I started to feel like personally I was missing out on something.  Something I’ve been needing to learn, not even knowing what it is.

On top of that I’ve been slowly finding that my idea of the startup culture that I wanted to experience was something different than what was aimed for in the Prairie.  I wanted endless incubators, .com veterans, mentors and people willing to invest (not just financially, but that too) into the people here.  It made me realize instead of continuing my never-ending stream of regional constructive criticism, trying to turn it into what I want it to be, instead I should just go.

This isn’t easy, though.  I feel like I’m giving up on Omaha.  I care a lot about this place, the people.  I know many are probably thinking by this point “just go already and shut the hell up”, but I’ve always only wanted the best for everyone.  I wasn’t always happy with just warm fuzzies and people giving each other high fives and pats on the back.  To me it’s not about how many people can think nice things about other people.  To me it’s about execution.  I’ve failed with my first attempt at execution, but damnit I tried.  I’ve wanted Omaha to be full of people building awesome stuff to fulfill whatever vision they have.  But it’s a very service-oriented city.  Consulting firms, financial services, branding agencies, development houses.  I’m not interested in doing work for people.  I want to build stuff to put into real people’s hands.  The public.  Not ten people in an office somewhere to help them turn $1million into $2million.

But I never would have known this about myself if it weren’t for Omaha giving me the opportunity to learn it first hand.  Seeing the DownsDesigns, the What Cheers, the Princess Lasertrons, the Rahul Guptas, the Secret Penguins branch off from whatever they did before and start doing their own thing under their own rules.  Showing me that “having a job” is never the goal, and it’s about doing something awesome that you care about.

I wouldn’t be moving on if it weren’t for Silicon Prairie News highlighting others and giving me something to aspire to.  For highlighting little things I do, even when I tell them it’s dumb.  (The post they wrote about my Chrome Plugin was the 2nd most read story on SPN last year, after I told Danny it was stupid and a waste of his time.  He did it anyway.  I was wrong.)  For creating Big Omaha and letting that inspire me to try something for myself.  Danny, Jeff and Dusty are probably sick of listening to me after three years, but I’ve never had anything but the upmost respect and admiration for what they’re doing.  For reference: Here’s the full catalog of things they felt worthy of discussing when it came to me.

As an example of SPN picking up on the goofy things I do in the early days, here’s the first interview they ever did with me to discuss “Retweet Thursday”.  News was slow back then.

Going forward I just hope something I did here in my short time has made some kind of impact. I always tried to be the best representative of the city of Omaha as I could be when going out to meet the rest of the world.  I always told them how if you need to go somewhere, and you don’t know where to go, put Omaha first on your list.  This place can give you clarity that you didn’t even know you needed.

I’m not one for heady advice one liners, but I can leave with you the one thing I told myself when given this opportunity to pick up from my Omaha life and build a new one:  Live the life you’d be jealous of.  So that’s what I’m doing.

Come visit some  me time.  I can’t promise I’ll have room in my apartment, though.  Housing is a little tight out there.

Barcamp Omaha 2010 was rad (and the jam was fun)

Thanks to the organization team of Barcamp2010 here in Omaha it was another great event.  Learned some stuff and had some fun.

Also thanks to everyone to indulged me in my attempt for a lunchtime jam session.  I can’t honestly say it was the most musical thing ever performed, but we all had fun anyway :)  Thanks to everyone who took part!  It was nice to mix things up a bit.

Photos and video stolen from this post.

Barcamp 2010: The Musical

I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to do for Barcamp this year. I was chatting over lunch today with this week’s Coworking Wednesday participants about how I wished there was something different I could do. Something collaborative and break the mold of what an unconference session should be. I mentioned music stuff and @whatevermatt mentioned a drum circle.

I thought about that a while (at least 2 to 3 minutes) later that day (today) and thought I’d see if I could pull something off.  So here’s an attempt to get a jam session rocking at Barcamp.

So here’s a call to all Barcamp participants who have access to any kind of simple, acoustic, portable instrument that is jam-able (hammered dulcimer, Roland 808: maybe not so much.  Think hand drum, acoustic guitar, rain sticks, stand-up bass, iPhone, didgeridoo, you get the idea.)

And don’t worry, I already talked to @lasertron about a way to do it so speakers don’t get upset: she suggested to have it at lunch!

This is informal, and it’d be cool for as many people to join in who are willing.  If you have any extra gear at home that might be appropriate for this, bring it!  I’ll bring what I have as well.

Tell your friends!

Choices, decisions and fear: Part 2.

I’m a fan of transparency.  I like to know what people are up to, and I think there are people that like to know what I’m up to as well.  This includes the background and emotions behind major life decisions.  So here’s my story.

If you’re reading this you already know it’s been a rough couple months as far as my career path goes.  I knew I needed to move elsewhere, but I didn’t know in what capacity.

I didn’t know if I was unhappy with the company, unhappy with my role, unhappy with my direction, unhappy with those I worked with… I just didn’t know.  What I did know was that I was unhappy and I saw no chance of that changing without a major overhaul in my “professional” life.

So I took a step back and looked at the world around me, specifically those who inhabit it.

I looked at what others do, not particularly career wise.  But what their life consists of.  I looked at the tweets people made and took note when I said “I wish my life could have what they’re doing right now.”

This consisted of things like “I wish I could go to South By Southwest next year” or “I wish when AIM has breakfasts I could attend” or “I want more time to spend on projects that I care about, personally and professionally.”

Having a list of what’s important to me right now and in the short term made me realize that in order to pull off a big change, it requires big changes.  None of what I want out of life can happen as long as I’m working for a large corporation where I’m nothing more than a number.  Where taking a day off in order to take part in something much larger than a 8-5 is frowned upon.

So a lot of thought and discussion went into what I did today.  I put in my notice to leave West Corporation.

In the words of Gary Vaynerchuk “Don’t come up and say ‘I quit my job!!!’ and expect me to be happy for you.  Don’t you have bills or anything?”  And yeah, I kind of have to not be homeless and keep my car and stuff.  So it turns out working is a requirement.  Details.

In comes multiple discussions with Rahul Gupta’s Dispatch This.  He came to me personally saying he wanted to bring me on as a developer for his product.  We met a few times and now I’m hired to work there in a part-time capacity.

It’s a huge win to know I have guaranteed income coming in, if only part-time.  But I do have to make up for the rest.  Luckily it turns out there’s some really neat people in Omaha who need stuff done and would like me to work on them on it.

This includes joining up with the Contemporary Analysis team to grow their budding IT branch to include web hosting, development, and further expanding their options to clients as a one stop shop for products provided by CA.

All of this is really exciting for me.  It gives me the opportunity to work on a handful of products both on the Dispatch This side, where they have a steady client base, and on the “i have this great idea, work with me on it” type stuff elsewhere in the community.

But to be honest I’m scared shitless.

Do I know what the steps are to make this bohemian technology lifestyle work?  Absolutely not.  Is it possible that I fail?  Absolutely.  Is it worth the risk?  To me, yes.  Others (parents) think i’m an idiot to give up everything I’ve worked so hard for in cube-land.  But I don’t see it as that at all.  I’m happy to give up my cube, my required office hours, my high stress/low productivity environment.  Giving up my lack of pride in return for some real excitement with what I do with my time is a pretty ok tradeoff for me.

In all seriousness I’m giving up a good salary, benefits, and a “you know what you’re doing today, how much money you’ll get every couple weeks, and the fact you don’t have to worry about that.”

But I’m in a place where I think the risk is worth it.  I may fall on my face in complete failure.  But a failure story is still a story.  I’m certainly not making any stories where I’m at now.

Thanks for the support everyone.  I never would have done anything like this without all the ass kicking from people like Rahul Gupta, Brian Smith, Dusty Davidson, Steph Monge, Tim Kephart and so many others.

I’m cautiously optimistic that things will work out.  But please wish me the best.

Gabe Kangas Association for Awesome is proud to sponsor Omaha Bar Camp 2009

The Gabe Kangas Association For Awesome

The Gabe Kangas Association for Awesome (GKAFA) is proud to announce they will be sponsoring this year’s Omaha Bar Camp.

As you may know The Gabe Kangas Association for Awesome is the branch of Gabe Kangas who’s goal is to spread awesome both in local and remote markets.  When the opportunity arose to take part this year team awesome jumped at the opportunity.

GKAFA has a long history of spreading awesome via sponsorships.  You may recall the time the organization left change in the “give a penny/take a penny” jar at the gas station, or the infamous “let me buy you a coffee”  event of 2003.

Tickets are going fast, so make sure to head over to the Omaha Bar Camp page and pick one up for the almost nothing price of $5.  This includes a T-Shirt and Brain Toniq thanks to Ninth Divison.

The Gabe Kangas Association for Awesome is very excited to be a part of this year’s Bar Camp and can’t wait to see all of you there.

Talk to you soon,
Gabe Kangas
Chief Awesome, GKAFA.