APPTITUDE

I recently returned from my third trip to South by Southwest – SXSW. I haven’t seen official stats, but it felt like larger swarms of people descended on Austin for this year’s Interactive portion of the SXSW festival. Some people say larger swarms mean more buzzwords, as modea.com depicts in their slick infographic (http://www.modea.com/buzzwordbingohd/sxsw/). The larger number of participants certainly didn’t mean more variations in advice from C-level keynote speakers. When asked, “If you could give one bit of advice what would it be?”, their response was overwhelmingly, “Follow your dream.” One can only think these speakers spent their time working on other portions of their talks and were blindsided by this cutting question.

But SXSW didn’t disappoint. I went to the festival to learn more about how other people build great products, and I walked away with insightful advice and a peace of mind that InspiringApps is on the right track. I had the opportunity to listen to leaders in the mobile-consumer-application space talk about how they get closer to their user base and how they assemble their teams.

Hands down my favorite part of SXSW is the people I met. This sounds cliche but it’s true. I had an opportunity to meet people from across the country and world, who have built and are building companies similar to InspiringApps.

It’s hard to quantify the knowledge you walk away from SXSW with. You suffer from FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) the entire time you are there. Then you sit down on the airplane headed back to the ‘real world’ and your eyes gloss over from all the information you have jammed into your head over the last several days. One thing I know for sure, I arrived home with a new level of passion and appreciation for the work I get to do every day and the people I get to do it with.

InspiringApps would like to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

This time of year it’s nice to step back and think about what we’re thankful for. At InspiringApps, we’re thankful for an ever-growing technology scene that allows us to continue expanding on what is possible. We’re thankful for a group of amazing clients who bring their challenges to us and trust our team to help them find effective and innovative solutions. And, we’re thankful for each other because, quite frankly, working here is fun!

On a personal level, I am thankful for my sweet kiddos (Maddie, 3 and Spencer, 6 months) who teach me something new every day.

Now it’s your turn, what are you thankful for?

Weyerhaeuser wanted to provide a tool for carpenters and contractors to determine appropriate beam sizes for their deck building projects in under a minute. InspiringApps made that a reality. View the complete case study here to see how this app gives precise and speedy feedback to deck building professionals.