Pages

Monday, June 29, 2015

Alt Summit - Part Three: Dinners, Parties and Lounges

Sure, Alt Summit is about learning, but it's also about interacting and making new friends.  One of the bests parts of Alt is meeting other like minded people that share the love of creating.  And there are many ways to do just that, including attending a Tuesday Night Dinner, the evening parties or simply hanging out in one of the sponsored lounges.

TUESDAY NIGHT DINNER sponsored by Gumroad



A few weeks before the conference begins, you get invited to choose one of the "Tuesday Night Dinners" you would like to attend.  Each dinner has a sponsor and takes place at a SLC area restaurant.  I chose a dinner hosted by Gumroad and it was held at The Oasis Cafe.  Gumroad is a company that helps you sell products directly to your customers.  Whether it's a tutorial, music, book, whatever, they can help.   The dinner was fun, delicious and very casual.  Not a sales pitch at all, but yet Emmiliese, from Gumroad was there to answer any questions you had about their product.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Alt Summit - Part Two: Breakout Sessions, Roundtables & the Closing Keynote



There were so many options when it came to the classes to take at Alt Summit.  Pretty much all of them seemed very interesting, but I stuck to the more beginner level ones.  Eight classes in all and that doesn't count the roundtables or the opening and closing keynotes.  Though I could truly write a paper on each and every class, I know most people don't have time for that, so I'm going to summarize and give you the take-away points that stuck with me.  This is still a lot of information, so feel free to bookmark this post and revisit it and couple of times.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Alt Summit - Part One: Getting There and the Opening Keynotes


Justin Hackworth or Brook Dennis for Alt Summit


This blog has been something I have been thinking about for quite a few years now.  But I'm the type that if I can't do something perfect now, I will put it off until I can.  I guess it's a form of procrastination, but I prefer to think of it more as being a "perfectionist"... and that's a good thing, right?  At any rate, I had been putting off starting my blog for years, because I didn't have the time to do it the way I wanted.  After all, you can't profess to be somewhat of an "expert" in design, yet have a blog that looks less then "design-y".

But I set a goal for myself, a bit of a New Year's resolution, that 2015 was going to be the year I just did it... took the leap, regardless of if it was going to be perfect right out of the gate or not.  So thanks to a a business name I've had since becoming a freelance designer seven years ago, a $10 blog template I bought from a Graphic Designer on Etsy and blogger.com, here we are today.  This blog is still a work in progress and I'm working on finding my focus, look, stride, voice and consistency, but I'm doing it and excited about where I can take it.

Which brings me to Alt Summit.  I had heard about Alt Summit for many years and I hoped there would come a time when I could attend.  For those of you that are not familiar with it, Altitude Summit (or Alt Summit) is a conference for creative bloggers and entrepreneurs that is held in Salt Lake City twice a year (in January and in the Summer).  It is a place where, mainly women, though there were some men there as well, can come together, share information, collaborate and inspire one another.  It's three days of ideas, parties and fun and I'm so glad I was able to be a part of it this summer!

There was so much information and so many things to share, I've broken it down into five posts that I will share for the next five days (working on that consistency thing).  Today I'm going to focus on what I did to get ready for Alt and the opening keynote address.