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Home - Cover Stories
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HARD WIRED
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Jeff Slobotski stirs
Omaha’s creative pot
by Jill Bruckner Robberts
If enthusiasm is the runway for innovation, Omaha’s Jeff Slobotski is poised for flight. Recently named one of Midlands Business Journal’s 2009 Top 40 under 40, and one of the Omaha Jaycees’ Ten Outstanding Young Omahans of 2008, Slobotski seems hardwired for success and committed to creativity.
“I’ve always been interested by innovative, new ideas, companies and products,” Slobotski said, adding this “probably peaked about two-and-a-half-to-three years ago when I was traveling pretty regularly for my previous employer.”
Many of the cities Slobotski visited were “highly creative and had vibrant startup and entrepreneurial ecosystems,” he said. “I knew that we had many of the same individuals with the passion, drive and intellect right here in our own backyard.”
While Slobotski realized some communities seemed eager to connect creative thinkers, he noted Omaha’s innovators were running parallel. In fact, the city boasted a troupe of talented individuals traveling a path of good intentions, often without intersecting.
“The problem or issue was that no one was really doing much to connect and highlight the various groups,” he said. “To borrow a Midwestern, agriculture term, we were siloed doing amazing work, but all heads down, working hard on businesses.”
An Omaha native and married father of sons Cayden (age 5), Logan (age 2) and 10-week-old Joey, Slobotski saw a need for a citywide, business relationship-building forum. He spun it into an online innovation: Silicon Prairie News (SPN).
Launched in April 2008, Silicon Prairie News (siliconprairienews.com) is a resource and a conduit, championing Midwesterners with big ideas and heady ideals.
“Silicon Prairie News has provided the community of creatives, innovators and entrepreneurs a voice to highlight the work they’re involved with as well as serve as a catalyst for connecting people through the various events that we either host or promote,” Slobotski said.
SPN offers news, information, links and updates to and about a wide range of people and programs with forward momentum. From innovators to entrepreneurs, SPN covers the creative set.
“What excites me is the platform that I have, along with the team at Silicon Prairie News which includes business partner Dusty Davidson and his team at BrightMix, along with Danny Schreiber, our managing editor,” Slobotski said.
He said the group is able “to help shape, modify and influence both the image as well as culture in our city.”
“Much work has already been done through the efforts of Saddle Creek Records, the Scott Technology Center and Film Streams,” he said. “And we are continuing to raise the level of activity and external awareness for what we’re doing here. It’s amazing that within a few short years, through the community at large, we have been able to see businesses launched, connections made and received national recognition for what we’ve done.”
Davidson, CEO of BrightMix and co-founder of Silicon Prairie News, concurred.
“Our vision for Silicon Prairie News is to help to grow and promote the budding tech, startup and creative communities in the Midwest,” he said. “We know that the talent exists here, and we want SPN to be the voice of those people helping to promote them not only locally, but on a national scale. We feel that the site can be the go-to place for information about the innovative and exciting things originating in Omaha and around the region.”
The Next Level of Networking
SPN isn’t Slobotski’s only initiative. He’s director of innovation and new media at the AIM Institute, a not-for-profit consortium of like-minded thinkers and doers united to “transform communities, organizations and individuals through information technology,” according to the organization’s mission statement.
AIM strives to build IT bridges through leadership, recruitment, education, outreach and more. Like SPN, AIM encourages growth through creativity and empowers organizations by promoting IT-resource management.
In fact, partnering and open communication helps AIM and SPN reach individuals and promote success.
“It seems like there is generally a great amount of respect and cohesiveness between the various efforts which are taking place in the community,” Slobotski said. “People generally have a passion for their own work, but also a motivation to help and see other startups succeed as well. The openness and connectivity at the various levels from investors, to businesses, mentors to entrepreneurs … the ability to find the resources and help you need is impressive.”
Slobotski suggested this is “something that you might not see in other locations. I find it exciting that by inspiring a relatively small group of people within our community, that excitement builds incrementally and people feed off the energy and ideas.”
The proof: Networking’s next steps are a leap beyond a cup of coffee at the corner cafι or a polite lunch with a potential client.
“Ideas alone won’t change the world, but tie that idea to a group of like-minded individuals working together and watch what happens,” Slobotski said. “Through my work at Silicon Prairie News and the AIM Institute we aren’t trying to say we’re better than any other city, only challenging people here to realize the strengths we have and determine the right next steps to make things happen.”
Those “next steps” have morphed into many things. One of which is the annual Big Omaha Conference (BigOmaha.com), an opportunity for innovators to “inspire new thoughts and completely new ways of thinking,” according to organizers.
Moreover, both Davidson and Slobotski, part of the Big Omaha Conference visionary team, share a strategic outlook that is as much about social networking as it is about gritty, hands-on community interaction.
“The movement and energy around social entrepreneurship, or building a business defined by the social impact and ability to influence change, is both exciting and interesting to me,” Slobotski said. “When you look at a business like TOMS Shoes, who has introduced a simple idea of giving one pair of shoes to needy children for each pair sold, I start to get excited for other ideas that are out there waiting to be exposed. We don’t have to sacrifice either a profit or human compassion to run and launch a business.”
Davidson echoed Slobotski’s remarks, adding communication is elemental to maintaining viable business and community connections.
“We both tend to stay informed on the latest news and trends from the startup community throughout the country,” Davidson said of his business partnership with Slobotski. “We’re constantly sharing links and articles back and forth, and spend much of our time discussing similar efforts going on in other parts of the country.”
Such communication, coupled with educated observations of success stories in other regions, works in synergy with Slobotski’s AIM position. He said his AIM role “is to create and develop partnerships between business leaders and entrepreneurs in Nebraska, as well as provide resources and knowledge to its members around many of the new and innovative ways of sharing information.”
No Such Thing as Standing Still
Committed to constant innovation means moving ever forward. This also means maintaining an attitude of collaboration and openness in an IT-friendly environment.
Researchers, for example, note successful organizations embrace emerging technology with equal parts urgency and enthusiasm. IT is both businesses’ dessert and main course turning what is pleasurable into what is profitable.
Case in point: At the AIM Institute, employees and member organizations “help IT professionals and educators connect with each other and consider new ways to apply IT,” according to AIM’s leadership initiative.
Moreover, young executives, such as AIM/SPN’s Slobotski, seem to recognize technology is “fun,” and formerly static means of marketing (from direct mail to now slumping television advertising) aren’t moving consumers to action. Social networking, in tandem with face-to-face idea exchange, seems to show the most promise when it comes to getting messages to the masses.
Slobotski said Omaha can remain innovative and continue to share its message as a progressive population if the city’s business and community leaders:
* Encourage experimenting, thinking, trying and tinkering with ideas.
* Lay out bold goals and a vision for where we want to be.
* Don’t fly by the seat of our pants reacting, or following other cities that appear innovative.
* Develop incentives to attract innovators to Omaha, as well as ensure that we retain and treat well those innovators who are here.
“People will leave if their knowledge and expertise is overlooked or they are treated better elsewhere,” Slobotski said.
Despite the seriousness of attracting innovative solutions to often complex problems, Slobotski and Davidson point out that engaged workers (workers who like what they do) are key to long-term success.
BrightMix, Davidson’s software-solutions endeavor that lends its expertise to SPN’s online presence, was launched with “the idea that the key to building a successful company is to combine a great culture (no TPS reports!) with really smart, passionate people. As such, [we] have built a company where [we] work on some of the most exciting projects around, in an environment that is both fun and interesting.”
Like Davidson, Slobotski notes rewards and enrichment abound with involvement.
“I love meeting with people who are recently new to town, [have] moved back or [are] students to learn more about what makes them tick, what they’re excited about. Having the platform and ability to link these folks with the resources they need keeps me going. It’s not that I have to be recognized or in the middle of these interactions, but I get a sense of personal accomplishment when I see someone succeed, a new business launched or recognition garnered for the work that’s taken place.”
In addition to career and family, Slobotski is involved with Packs of Promise, a nonprofit he founded to assist Omaha’s homeless during the winter months. He’s also active in the Omaha Chamber of Commerce’s Young Professionals Council and CORE Community Church. |
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