Less than a month out from a really important business week for Omaha. Two unrelated annual events are scheduled for early May.

The first is the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder's Meeting. Thousands of very wealthy people pack the arena for the event. It also brings in a ton of economic activity for the city in a single weekend. The fun thing people always like to say is for that weekend it is cheeper to fly from NYC to Paris than from NYC to Omaha.

Here is the meeting last year. Not your average meeting space.


The next much smaller yet IMO nearly equally important event is the following weekend. "Big Omaha" hosted by Silicon Prairie News is the much respected tech and entrepreneur conference held in the Old Market. One of my favorite events in Omaha every year. http://www.bigomaha.com/

Some pub after last year's conference. http://thenextweb.com/media/2011/05/...ever-attended/

I’m well aware that the claim of “most important conference” is a big one. If I didn’t feel that was true, though, I’d have never said it. Big Omaha is, in a few words, what would happen if TED were in the business of technology conferences. Big thoughts, huge calls to action and absolutely zero crap. In a world of bubble rumors, huge egos and even bigger failures, Omaha, Nebraska holds the conference that is the antithesis to all of these things.
And what one of last year's speaker's had to say.


And the promo video.
http://vimeo.com/37327105