BIG Omaha cuts price in half for first 99 students

Talk about a discount, folks.

BIG Omaha promises to be a fabulous event. Just look at the lineup of speakers. It’s not often that even one of these thinkers and doers comes to Nebraska. The organizers behind the first-ever BIG Omaha are pulling them in all at once for the event on May 7-8.

Not bad.

What’s better, though, is they’re making students quite a deal: $99 registration for the first 99 to register.

That’s half-off the current registration price of $199.

Look at the schedule.

• Entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk who draw huge crowds at South By Southwest Interactive will be there.
• Heck, one of the speakers, Matt Mullenweg, founded the company that produces the open-source software that runs my site.
• Love Threadless tees? Yep, they’ve got people coming.
• Think Basecamp’s simplicity is genius? 37Signals’ Jason Fried will be in town.
• That’s just the beginning, though. There’s not a weak spot to be found in their schedule.

The bottom line

If nothing else, ask yourself this: How could this conference not be an awesome opportunity when they managed to work cows into the logo for an event targeting entrepreneurs, creatives and innovators?

A lesson for all you event planners out there: If a cow is in your logo, I’m there.

You should be, too.

Register today to ensure you’re among the first 99 students.

Siftables: The smartest toy blocks you've ever seen

I normally stick to journalism- or media-related topics on this blog, but these were just too cool to not share.

Plus, I find innovative ideas – no matter what they deal with – inspire me to think outside the box.

Now join me in wishing you had a set of blocks like this when you were a kid:

A few shoutouts to keep spirits high

This week has been more than a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. I’m sure any Web staff member at a college or professional newspaper has more than a few tales about the frustration that comes with their job.

I sought suggestions via Twitter the other day for how to motivate print-centric staff members to think multimedia. I didn’t get too many responses, sadly. Ryan Sholin (@ryansholin) helped spread the word, and Aaron Jacklin (@aaronjacklin) suggested having staffers read Journalism 2.0, which he said helped him see the light.

I’m still working on motivating the bulk of my staff, but I’ve been absolutely elated with the progress made by some very dedicated co-workers.

And I think they deserve a little recognition, even if it’s just a blog post:

Casey Welsch (@caseywelsch) has produced video after video and coped with Final Cut-induced headaches. Watch his latest edition of the DN Film Forum on “Revolutionary Road” here.

Last week, Adam Templeton (@adamt) took control of a flat-screen TV that the Daily Nebraskan has in our student union and was charged with the task of getting it to display a variety of multimedia content. (It hadn’t been used in a couple months.) As of last night, it was nearly ready to go back up.

I also have a sports section filled with superstars, including a host of writers who blog each week:

• Kris Knowlton and Luke Nichols on the men’s basketball blog
• Nick Filipowski on the women’s basketball blog
• Max Olson on the track and field blog
• Mike Schaefer on the wrestling blog

Filipowski and sports writer Spencer Schubert also shot and edited a post-game press conference video after NU’s loss to the Kansas Jayhawks last night.

Last but not least, Scott Nelson and Anthony Troester run their Techspeak blog and podcast.

No effort will ever come out perfectly, and we haven’t yet begun to reach our full potential, but I am so lucky to have these people on board.

So, feel free to check out the fruits of their labor:

• Film Forum video
• Techspeak podcast
• Men’s basketball live game blog