Dusty and many others worked very hard on the Big Omaha conference and the question was at the end of the day, was it as success. Well, It looks like it was. A big technology and news website, ReadWriteWeb, did a write up on Big Omaha and gave it really good reviews. There’s also a video of Dusty and Jeff (one of the other organizers of the event and good friends of ours) that you should check out to see how professional Dusty sounds. I’ve been giving him some lessons on public speaking and he’s really been getting a lot of practice Check out the article to hear what others said about the conference!

One of Dusty’s goals when starting BrightMix was not only to be a forward thinking company but to also be active in the community and to help encourage entrepreneurship locally. While doing this, some of his efforts have been highlighted in some of the local papers. Here are just a few.

Venture to offer a co-working combo BY STEFANIE MONGE WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Omaha entrepreneurs in need of work space will have another alternative when a new venture that seeks to expand companies and foster creativity opens later this summer. The project — called Jailbreak Omaha — will function as part co-working space and part incubator for startup companies. Co-working involves individuals and small companies sharing office space to save money and exchange ideas. The concept is gaining popularity among freelance workers and independent designers across the country, said Dusty Davidson, one of the project’s coordinators and co-owner of Brightmix — a small Omaha-based Web development company. So Davidson and other project coordinators, including Jeff Slobotski of Silicon Prairie News, decided to open a co-working space in Omaha. They want to bring “the coffee shop crowd” together to work and to collaborate, Davidson said. It can be difficult for small companies to rent office space when first starting out, he said. Entrepreneurs frequently work out of their homes or coffee shops as an alternative to paying for space. Davidson said the group is looking at locations in or around the Aksarben Village area because of its central location, proximity to the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the new development in the area. He and his partners initially chose the name Jailbreak as a code name, modeled after a similar place called “Gangplank” in Phoenix. The group liked it, and the name stuck, he said.

And here’s another article below.

New program brings UNO delight By Chad Purcell WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER When Dusty Davidson and Kevin Zink first opened BrightMix, a company that develops Internet-based software applications, they worked out of Zink’s basement. Within three months, Davidson and Zink moved into their own Omaha office space. Today, just two years after startup, they employ three other computer whizzes and oversee a paid summer internship program. Davidson, who graduated from Iowa State with a computer science degree in 2003, said he never imagined when he got out of school that he’d be his own boss. He worked at an unsatisfying corporate job before he ever got the bright idea to create BrightMix. But Davidson said he might have been able to get where he is today even more quickly had he been enrolled in a program like the one the University of Nebraska at Omaha will begin offering this fall.

It’s amazing how much Dusty and BrightMix have accomplished in just a little over 2 1/2 years.  Not only has Dusty been in the paper, he’s also been speaking around town.  It seems that almost on a week basis Dusty’s going somewhere to speak about BrightMix, Silicon Prairie New, or just entrepreneurship in Omaha.

We are still living in the Old Market but sometimes I feel like we’re living in a little fixer upper because we’re always doing something to the BrightMix office.  Dusty and his business partner, Kevin decided they needed to create more space at BrightMix.  Within the past year BrightMix has gained two full-time employees and several other people coming in and out of the office that are taking up space. This summer the BrightMix crew (including myself) and others helped to update the basement and make more room for Silicon Prairie News to move in to the basement.  Here are some pictures but go to Office Construction, Round 1, Office Construction, Round 2, and Office Construction, Round 3 for more pictures and updates.