Entrepreneurship for Smarties

My first 30 minutes of BarCamp

Today’s BarCamp at UCA marks a milestone in the next generation of job creation in Conway and central Arkansas. I challenge someone to name an event in central Arkansas that matched BarCamp Conway in talent, conversation or entrepreneurial spirit. I came to this event expecting to be overwhelmed with tech speak and obscure social media platforms. Don’t get me wrong, I got plenty of that. But the heart of this event is a group of attendees who have a passion and committment to improve their business, organization or themselves. 

I’m not equipped to absorb the vast majority of info (see photo) presented today.  I’m active enough in social media and technology to post irratically on this little piece of web real estate.  However, I encourage all of you to get outside of your comfort zone. I did today and I feel better than ever about the future of entrepreneurship in Central Arkansas. Traditional business folks, go dunk your head in the technology tank.  Techies, put away the acronyms and remember that people, not computers, buy things.

Why was BarCampConway important?  I’ve got a few reasons.  Central Arkansas is long on talent and passion when it comes to new economy innovation.  Today is a big step towards creating the social infrastructure necessary to blow those good ideas up.  The most crucial component of technology infrastructure is local talent.  This event nurtured and celebrated that.  Finally, the tech/marketing/developer community can offer all of our small businesses tools to save money and grow profits.  They offer the professional services that can help your business survive and thrive.

I hope the BarCampConway attendees enjoyed the event as much as I did.  I also hope they will consider the benefits of chamber membership.  We are the perfect organization to marry these new economy business services with our 1,400 members.