It wasn’t that this conference had a slew of inspirational speakers, either, because to be honest not all of them were all that inspirational. Some of them sort of talked about themselves without offering any real insight, and others outlined their book for an hour, and still others tried hard not to drop names but couldn’t be helped.

But there’s something about OTA Sessions. Something pretty special. Something we don’t usually get in Sioux Falls.

OTA Sessions was about something and the speakers all offered context and though I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know, that’s not really what these conferences are for.

I didn’t receive any knowledge. That’s cool.

In it’s place, I received rejuvenation. All offered through three overarching themes.

Embrace your differences

Like Sally Hogshead says: it’s up to us to be ourselves. To steer clear of becoming someone we’re not. To find our difference and own it.

Being the underdog works. No marketing bull here, please – living in South Dakota is a constant fight to overcome our differences. It sharpens our tenacity and provides us with opportunities to embrace a landscape and culture that no one else can make claim to.

Our teachers and parents always tell us to “be ourselves, don’t follow the crowd, etc.” and we brush it off knowing we’ll grow into fantastic humans if we just get into the right cliques but, surprise!, we find that the best ideas and greatest moments come from those wackos who, for whatever reasons, clung to who they are and refused to be stripped of the junk they were born with.

Don’t patronize the differences. Just find them and make them great. Do that, and you’ve suddenly become interesting. What’s more: you’ve given yourself the freedom to brush off criticism.

Own your location

In the Midwest, most look to escape as fast as they can. Good for them. Maybe they’ll find their muse elsewhere. They have all of my well wishes.

That being said, I’ve got no patience for Midwest haters: the arrogance, the dismissal, the trivial comparisons. We’re not New York. We’re not Los Angeles. We’re nowhere, and that’s why we’re great – undeveloped by trends, we’re blank canvases, where creativity and innovation rule not out of vocation, but out of necessity.

To fill in the spaces, we must create.

Ultimately, there are two types of people who grow up in South Dakota – those who move away, and those who have the strength to stick around and make something with what they’ve been given.

On Friday, the Orpheum filled with the latter. Inspiring on its own, without the speakers, without OTA. Just that fact made me want to be better at what I do.

Accept your inadequacies

Because, ultimately, there are still people who still struggle with making something great.

For example: imagine you’re at a conference, surrounded by hundreds of intelligent people, watching speaker after speaker discuss their successes and insight and goals.

Before long you realize how far you have to go before making a significant difference in the world. How much work it is to be good at what you do. How much harder you have to work to be one of the great ones. How none of this is easy.

It’s a rush of forced inspiration, like adrenaline during a bear attack. To get from A to B you need a dose of reality-based C: a kick in the saggy pants and a yell from your idols – “YOU’RE STILL NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH.”

Happens every time. It’s always just in time, too. For two years, OTA Sessions has been a constant dose of humble pie. With a side of whipped panic.

Ultimately, OTA – itself a twisted acronym that stands for “Originality + Action,” isn’t about creativity or marketing or social media. It’s about community. It’s about displaying the power of an active and blossoming community, filled with people who stay true to the region, who aren’t afraid to be themselves and aren’t afraid to break away from the typical cynicism of talented professionals and dive straight into a new project.

To make something great on the ground they live on. To celebrate their differences. To live thinking that “anything is possible” isn’t as ridiculous as it seems.

Let’s talk.

If you are in the Sioux Falls area on Thursday, March 24th, take note: we’re going to get together and talk content.

Yeah, you heard me. CONTENT STRATEGY MEET-UP TIME!

It’s like this:

1. We get together. We will meet at Monk’s at 5:30 pm, with content smarty talk starting around 6:00 pm, or whenever we break the ice and stop looking awkwardly at each other. It will continue until it stops.

2. We plan for the future. The subject of the first meet-up is simple: what content-based topics do you want to cover? Content strategy deliverables? Online publishing models? The transition from traditional copy to web copy? Content Strategy Book Club? Any idea is a good idea – we’re brainstorming, yo.

3. We talk. Just a bunch of talking from a bunch of people who enjoy being word, structure and internet nerds. Laid back. Casual.

Sounds fun? It won’t be, UNLESS YOU’RE THERE. (RSVP via TWTVITE right now!)

Come down. Hang out with us. It’s three weeks away, so you have time to get a babysitter or a dog sitter or whatever. And yay content!

Let’s say one of these guys is Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, an organization that seeks through the e-book format to make accessible all of the world’s greatest works, including some that – with permission – are still in copyright. While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and say the other guy is Michael Dirda, a Fullbright Fellowship recipient and Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post book critic.

(Let’s also say Marilyn Johnson, author and library stalwart, is there, representing the middle ground but unable to get a word in edgewise.)

Now, let’s sit back and wait for an answer we’ll never get.

Because neither of these men is interested in bridging the gap between the promise and accessibility of ebooks and the tangible joy and art of physical binding. Neither of these men is interested in discussing how Project Gutenberg offers limitless preservation of what used to be the fragile and time-consuming practice of book collecting, and neither is interested in discussing how a mix of both physical and e-books helps people rediscover the joys of reading.

Instead, both men want a pissing match.

E-books are awful, a slap in the face of literature, and you water down the process of literary experience by missing out on the feel and texture of the book itself.

Physical books are pointless, archaic, space-hogging and inefficient, and everyone should read books electronically because you can fit 30,000 on one disc.

It’s one or the other. Love it or leave it. If you’re not with ‘em, you’re against ‘em.

Now, let’s vent. Because after seeing the previous example, live, in person, at the Sioux Falls Orpheum, in front of hundreds of interested people attending the South Dakota Festival of Books, I came away feeling disgusted and disappointed, frustrated that the promise of what could have been a great discussion turned out to be a symposium on Michael Hart’s inability to look behind his own project and Michael Dirda’s weak attempts at playing the same game.

The real issue is how we use e-books to further literature and adapt with the times, understanding that even ancient scrolls were pushed out by the more efficient book format, and that was thousands of years ago. Books will never go away – Dirda’s point on the art and tangible feeling that comes with reading a physical book is right on – but we can’t be naive in thinking it’s the only way to read.

Not when so many people are living without access to physical books. Not when you can provide a book in seconds to a willing audience. And especially not when there is already a drop in literacy rates and willingness to let books OF ALL TYPES fall by the wayside.

Traditional books and their texture? They mean nothing unless someone reads them.

30,000 books on a disc, for free? THEY ALSO MEAN NOTHING UNLESS SOMEONE READS THEM.

Let’s pretend that the two sides sat down and discussed the future of reading. The future of publishing. The future of literature and writing and everything that goes along with it, because, let’s face it, the future of reading is also the future of education and the future of our countries and the future of the world.

Let’s pretend the only agenda brought into this panel was one of collaboration and innovation.

Don’t I wish that was the case.

Then, other times, I get this.

Kerrie linked me to this, straight from the Sioux Falls “Falls Community Health” site.

OMG LOOKIT! HOW CUTE IS THAT LITTLE BUCKET? *SWOON*

I have news for you, City of Sioux Falls. That little bucket? PROBABLY not going to help.

I received your letter in the mail today. Congratulations on your apparent candidacy for state representative of District 13!

Though I have never heard of you in my life, your letter took me by surprise.

See, you refer to yourself as a Freedom Fighter. It’s right there in your signature! “Brian Liss, Your freedom fighter!” With exclamation points and everything!

Here’s the thing. Despite your letter’s insistence, governmental support for public services is not “socialism.” And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act isn’t “unprecedented intergenerational theft.” (Also, you should probably hyphenate that one. “Inter-generational.”)

Those things don’t mean the same thing. They never have. Buy a dictionary.

I’m struggling to determine which freedoms you’re fighting for, and why I’m in need of a freedom fighter in the first place. I get it, though. You’re using baited buzz words in order to scare those who aren’t paying attention into backing the standard Conservative Agenda. Ha! Conservative Agenda. Get it? I’M USING YOUR TERM AGAINST YOU! LOL!

Let’s get one thing straight. I supported Susy Blake last election. And I will again, especially if you are running against her, Mr. Brian Liss, Republican. See, I appreciate a candidate that doesn’t run screaming to the party line in order to make a case for election. I respect a candidate that positions the argument as “here’s why you should vote for me,” not “here’s why my opponent sucks and why you shouldn’t vote for her.” Most of all, I’ll support a candidate that backs away from hyperbole and weasel words, instead offering factual evidence, explanation and cautious realism.

Oh, and there’s the issue of class. This letter has no class, Brian Liss, Republican. It’s brash and intrusive. It doesn’t belong in my mailbox. It doesn’t belong in any mailbox.

You missed an opportunity, I think. When you’re connecting to those of us who aren’t officially affiliated with a party, you are representing your entire party’s platform. So next time, remind me why I should vote for you. Because all you’ve done with THIS mailing is remind me why I never will.

The question I keep asking, especially when it comes to businesses and the service industry, is “why?”

Is it really true that a product or brand will lose out because there’s no video available? Will a person pass up going to a gas station because, you know, THAT one isn’t showing Fox News?

An example: today we ate at Whisk and Chop, a local ready-for-big-time breakfast/lunch hybrid restaurant in the vein of Perkins or Bakers Square. (By “in the vein” we really mean “almost absolutely exactly like” because, for some strange reason, they’ve taken a Perkins-esque view of interior design and a Bakers Square-like dedication to mediocre food.)

Every wall had a television.

Every. One.

You go to Pizza Ranch, and every wall has a television. McDonalds. Gas stations. These aren’t sports bars – these places aren’t catering to drunks who want to watch football. They’re serving breakfast. Fast food. GASOLINE. What. The. Hell.

I know. People like television. I get it.

But take those televisions away from the inside of Whisk and Chop. All of them. Leave them out of the budget. Save money on the satellite feed. Take that savings and put it into, oh, I don’t know, a better attention to detail (like toasting the English muffin under your luke-warm Eggs Benedict).

Open the doors and see what happens. How many people are going to say, “I really want breakfast, and I’ve heard Whisk and Chop is good…”

“…oh, but they don’t have a television for me to watch.”

Can we all agree that, because this is such a negligible feature to a breakfast restaurant, that it’s unnecessary, much like an automatic napkin dispenser or valet parking or two sets of silverware for each dish?

Can we all agree that, when it comes down to it, it’s kind of tacky?

So, no television. Will they really lose customers?

Or, by going against the grain and offering a more peaceful environment with which to eat hashbrowns, will they actually gain customers?

I find it hard to believe anyone would notice in the first place.

In fact, when I told them, out of the coolness of my Cool Dad Heart, that we were headed to Ernie November to check out Record Store Day, Sierra sort of looked at me, blankly, unimpressed and clearly confused as to why her father, Cool Dad though he might be, was suddenly giddy. Confused as to why, within minutes, he had turned into a child.

“Record store?”

“Uh… Music store,” I said, hoping to clarify.

“Music store?”

I should be happy. At least she grasped we were GOING SOMEWHERE. Isaac just ignored me and banged metal measuring cups together.

The weight of the occasion was completely lost on them, but I suppose the occasion wasn’t for them. This was for me. This was a father showing his children a bit of history, a tradition quickly becoming obsolete even in my own life: a record store, with physical records and CDs and videos; music in a concrete form, the way we had always accepted them until the icy hand of technology forced convenience into our lives, sending the value of tangible media into a nosedive.

This was a lesson in locality, understanding the process through which music used to be acquired, much like a field trip to the farm teaches us how chickens were raised before the factory model became prevalent.

Sierra wandered the aisles, pointing out album covers, counting monsters – you’d be surprised: there are a surprising number of monsters on modern album covers – and carrying a VHS copy of the South Park movie. Isaac spit in my ear and grabbed for my hat.

Though it wasn’t in the same location, it was this store – Ernie November – where my musical education formally began. The same could be said for most of my group of friends; hell, it could be said for most of the 20- and 30-somethings who grew up in Sioux Falls

Our high school punk band sold demo tapes in this store. It’s where we bought tickets to our first punk rock shows – mine was Good Riddance – and where we discovered bands that still resonate today: Texas is the Reason, Cursive, Jawbreaker, Hot Water Music.

What we didn’t know then is that, there in that record store, shuffling through used CDs, the atmosphere stained with incense and our opinions influenced by the certainty of indie culture, we were also experiencing the benefit of small business. We were getting a view of music that many couldn’t experience – not because they didn’t want to, but because they weren’t lucky enough to have an independent voice in the music business. The culture of a big box retailer is all about serving the lowest common denominator, discovering new music isn’t as safe as developing taste through the hive mind.

The Internet changed all of that. Now, discovering music is easier. It’s safer. It’s fueled by television soundtracks and iPod commercials, delivered immediately through the tubes and into the warmth of your computer’s speakers.

The unfortunate side effect is that independent record stores are waning, their importance halved. It’s no wonder that vinyl has come back as both a method of acquiring music and as an art symbol of its own: independent labels and record stores and fans of both are desperate to develop a new niche.

And I for one hope it works. Nothing will replace the community of a local independent record store. More than anything, I think that’s what I was foolishly trying to convey to Sierra and Isaac. I was forgetting that these were two kids too young to even comprehend what music means, too naive to understand the significance of this dirty old building, these used CDs and albums, these weird covers with monsters and singers with dirty hair and stupid names and lo-fi music they’d probably never hear.

I probably overdid it. I spent more than I should have, purchased a few albums I didn’t need, even grabbed an exclusive Record Store Day release 7” that I can’t even listen to until I secure a turntable.

But then again, maybe I haven’t been doing enough. Because independent record stores – both here in Sioux Falls and in every town I’ve ever lived or visited – have helped paint a small part of who I’ve become. I owe them in part for my sense of independence, for my reluctance to blindly accept mainstream and for a couple of lasting friendships.

My kids might not understand that right now. But they will.

My only hope is that they’ll get the chance to experience the same thing for themselves.

And on the other end, there’s Greg Brown, modern folk legend, calling Iowa his birthplace despite sounding more Minnesotan than any other modern singer, his voice reaching down to the cellars, frosting the Mason jars and breathing life into the beets and the tomatoes and the peppers.

Somewhere in the middle lies Mason Jennings, Hawaiian by birth, Pittsburgh-raised and transplanted to Minnesota, where he’s taken the mantle of introspection and used it to his advantage, humbly taking stage – thought not without confidence – as this generation’s voice of heartland prayer.

Love and children and religion and life and death and two guys fighting in the headlights of their trucks; Mason tells stories. Stories of girls and stories of war and stories of slides and the sun and really his mind never stops – it keeps going, one world after another, each character like some kind of hidden personality. But not hidden at all, really. They’re all right there, a part of him. And, through his music, a part of us.

It was with this honesty he stood before us tonight, just he and a couple of guitars, serenading the hundreds in attendance at The Orpheum, reminding me that nostalgia can be beautiful, that the happy pain that comes from loving someone too much can be thrilling, that the fun in mixing words together can be addictive, that change is as natural as living and dying – and that all you can do with it is sing about it and remember how much it affected you.

So it’s really no surprise that, when chosen as the voice behind one of Dylan’s personas in I’m Not There, he was given free reign to recreate “The Times They Are a Changin’,” and in true form he not only did it with honesty but with an unknowing nod to Greg Brown, taking lyrics meant for world change and turning them into something that could be planted in the fields, sprouting anew once the rains of time had washed over them.

His song was truth, because it came from stories of those who came before him. And it’s those stories that make him a natural extension of their legend.

Instead, we have the weather.

Which explains the local news’ insistence on covering an upcoming winter storm with the same pomp and gusto as a team of ex-athletes hyping the Super Bowl or the Olympics.

Our most popular local celebrity is a weatherperson, after all.

Willard Scott would be so proud.

It was an oasis of local business amid a great sea of chains; a respite for the weary shopper, almost like a mirage. Even when a Caribou Coffee showed up, Great Plains Coffee continued strong.

But, it couldn’t last forever. Whether it was because rents reached a tipping point, or traffic slowed to a crawl, or the owners simply stopped feeling at home inside the expanses of The Empire Mall, Great Plains Coffee moved to a location further down the road. It’s since been replaced with a DirectTV retailer, the stall’s once warm interior swapped for the cold comfort of pegboard and molded plastic.

Frankly, I can’t think of anything else that better sums up the state of what malls have become.