Alt Summit Conference Recap - What I Learned From a Rookie Perspective

I wanted to put together a recap of my amazing time at the Alt Summit conference that I attended last week. I would have liked to get this up sooner than today, but hey, life happens. Lots of traveling,working behind the scenes to start implementing all that I learned and catching up on sleep. This conference was truly a whirlwind and was one of those experiences that re-start the fire in your belly, and you want to get everything done right at that moment. So if you are disappointed at the lack of posts lately, I apologize, I will be getting back into the swing of things soon.

The conference was held at the gorgeous Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The hotel was beautiful and the food was amazing! I can’t believe that growing up in SLC, I had never been there before!

Day 1 Lunch: Chicken Pot Pit – Heavenly

This conference is a designer’s mecca. I saw so many amazing outfits, jewelry and handmade business cards. I am not a designer by any means. In fact, I do not have a creative bone in my body, but I like to write, so I told everyone that was my creative niche as I handed out my Vista Print business card. Some of these girls went all out and had sewed fabric on their cards, or made little envelopes. It was truly inspiring. Even though I am not too creative, it was fantastic to meet all of these amazing women and how they inspire their audience and themselves with their art. Not to mention their outfits. I spent weeks trying to figure out what to wear, but I was outdone 10 fold, but truly inspired to update my wardrobe.

Strawberry Shortcake: 1 of 2 desserts for my day

The reason a non-designer like myself decided to attend this event was the classes. I learned so many amazing things it will truly make my 2012 where I want it to be, and that is the best!

Meeting new friends at lunch with a surprise gift!

I must send a shout out to one of the best people I met at the conference. Pam Kueber from Retro Renovation. Pam truly acted as a mentor to me and gave me such insight and information that I have not been able to get from anyone else, and I learned so much from her with just our short meet. If you want to see a fab website and happen to love retro design, you have to check her out. Thank you Pam, your words changed me more than you know.

One of my favorite highlights of the conference were the key note speakers. Ben Silbermann, the founder of Pinterest was one of the keynotes. It was amazing because he was so humble and down to earth. I was surprised to learn that he attended Alt Summit two years ago with just an idea of Pinterest, and two years later, he was back as a key note speaker. I thought that was so incredible. Ben spoke about how he intended to go to medical school but ended up in business school. Ben moved to Silicon Valley because he wanted to be where all the innovative minds are. He got a job at Google and and couldn’t be happier, but he knew he wanted something more. Ben decided to quit Google to start an iPhone and iPad app company that inevitably failed. Ben started to think about what he was passionate about and remembered his passion for collecting things as a child and putting his collection on a board held by large pins. That is where Pinterest came from and it has just blown up.

Some of my favorite quotes from Ben’s talk:

“Pinterest is the most beautiful place to discover things you love.”
“Design is fundamental to the way think about the quality of a product.”
“Pinterest is by invitation so that you’re already connected to a user to build a strong positive community.”
“Articulate what you love on Pinterest then get out there and live it.”

The second key note speaker was Gretchen Rubin who wrote the book on “The Happiness Project.” I don’t know where I have been, apparently under a rock, but I had never heard of this book, but it needs to be on my must-have list of books to read for 2012. Gretchen said that she had an epiphany a few years ago and asked herself what she wanted from life, and all she wanted was to be happy, so she went on a journey to find out how to do that, and now has a best-selling book.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from her talk:

“The days are long but the years are short.”
“If you get rid of it, you don’t have to organize it!”
“To achieve happiness you have to get enough sleep!”
”One of the best ways to be happy in life is to make other people happy.”

Is it an accident that most of the pictures I thought were most important are food? Nah.

I learned so much, and I can’t wait to take my blog to the next level and I can’t wait to share it with you. I am going to add a lot more of me to my blog and get more personal. I hope you will enjoy the journey I am ready to take and move to the next level.

I met so many amazing people and this is on my list for Must-Go for 2013. If you have not attended this conference yet, I highly recommend, and this is coming from a non-designer.

Comments

Mary Hone says

January 26, 2012 at 9:10 pm

I went to Alt last year and loved every minute. I learned so much, I was a real rookie when I went. I missed it this year, which was really frustrating because I live 60 miles from SLC. I listened in on twitter though, and took notes.(is that lame) Come hell or high water I’m going back next year. And yes, The Grand America is fabulous!!

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