Last week, I attended Wayfair's HeartHome conference, a unique event that merged home design, entrepreneurship, and technology.  I had heard of the conference a few weeks before, but didn't know if it worked with my calendar.   Then I won my tickets through the Boston Bloggers group and rearranged some things so I could go, because I knew I didn't want to miss such a great opportunity!  Although the central theme throughout the conference was based around home design and topics associated with it, some of the things I heard really stuck with me and I think are applicable to everyone regardless of your career or interests.




The keynote speakers, Maxwell Ryan, CEO of Apartment Therapy, and Carley Knobloch, a lifestyle and technology expert, were my favorite speakers from the event.  They blended all the topics to be covered at the conference so well.  It was a real joy to hear them speak!  In between the sessions, we were encouraged to mingle, visit the booths (they had puppies!), and take our turn styling a sofa for Joss&Main's white sofa challenge.  I'm not going to lie, I wish I could take all of the styling stuff home, it was so fabulous!  

All the pretty stuff aside, here are the main points that I took away: 
  • All good paths have missions. 
  • You should always want to be of service to others. 
  • Blogs changed everything.  Social Media changed it again.  Mobile and video are changing it now.
  • Millennials are driving the current mediums, and therefore are driving the content on them.
  • As long as you keep your energy flowing, it's okay to make mistakes.
  • Whatever you're doing, you need a structure and process.
  • In order to start a business, or stay in business, you must be solving someone's problem. 
  • What technology you use should be based off the problems you have, and if you don't take to it, then it's not your technology.  
  • Smart is great, but thoughtful is better. 
  • People want to know you, so be yourself and be authentic.   
It was really hard to limit my list to just ten things, because I really did learn so much more than what I'm sharing in this post.  If you have the opportunity to attend conferences for your career or hobbies, I highly encourage you to!  It's a great way to meet people that are pursuing the same things you are, and learn more about the things that interest you the most.

xoxo,
Kitty