Still vibrating from last week’s 99% Conference at the Times Center in New York. The experience was built to answer one question: how do you execute on your ideas?

My overall impression was that the conference was even better than last year. The details, size, information, approachability of the attendees and speakers, and general vibe is unmatched. 99%’s director, Jocelyn Glei and the folks from Behance do a great job of curating everything. The care and joy and message are seen and felt and experienced. (The pizza from day one wasn’t very good. That’s it. The only criticism. And I really tried to think of some.)

As Scott Belsky the CEO of Behance reminded us in his introduction, “The benefits are in the seams,” those chance encounters and conversations that aren’t part of the official program. I’m grateful for the conversations. Like chatting with Genevieve Hume about her husband/wife team and the division of responsibilities; the truly busted airplane that I designed for Sarah McCormick to prototype at Ideo; reconnecting with my Alabama pal, Buddy Overstreet; Thursday night’s dinner/strategy session with my friend, nation-builder, confidante, Sarah Bray; connecting dots and ideas and plans and the past and the future with 99% Fellow, Jessica Speer; meeting conference speaker and all-around instigator, James Victore, and wrapping things up by skipping the after-party to actually go make something with people that I love (a loud racket, songs, recordings).

I scribbled lots of notes and boiled them down into a batch of quotes:

“Our brain is designed to be ungrateful.” – Jonah Lehrer, author

“Companies get in the way. Cities don’t try to maximize creativity. When in doubt imitate the city.” – Jonah Lehrer, author

“Great teams don’t come about by chance. They work hard at it. They cultivate positive habits that make them great.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Great teams see the forces at play and capitalize on them. That’s an essential capability.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Duos are the smallest atomic unit of trust.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Extend an act of trust before it benefits you.” – Keith Yamashita, SY Partners

“Ignore Jackie Rice.” – Jonathan Adler, designer (Speaking about a teacher who discouraged him from doing his thing.)

“Fuck it.” – Jonathan Adler, designer

“Be consistent to your vision and spirit while being a responsible person.” – Jonathan Adler, designer

“Be polite and ignore them.” – Jonathan Adler, designer

“Better to have a hole than an a-hole.” – Neil Blumenthal, Warby Parker (Talking about hiring.)

“What will you deliver without fail every time?” – Neil Blumenthal, Warby Parker

“If you can’t figure it out in a year, scrap it.” – Jason Goldberg, Fab.com

“Change can only be recognized after the fact.” – Jad Abumrad, Radiolab

“Recognize pointing arrows.” – Jad Abumrad, Radiolab

“Design has a purpose and art doesn’t.” – Paula Scher, artist & designer

“If you don’t have contraints, set up constraints.” – Tony Fadell, Nest

“I wanted to write a poem that was barbed.” – James Victore quoting Robert Frost

“Just ask.” – James Victore, artist & designer