The DIY theme seems to have stuck with me today as I’m starting to notice a trend in my panel selections this morning: building buzz for your web project. I seem to be catching a bit of the DIY bug, and it’s hard not to when you’re surrounded by so many smart folks doing such smart things. But what inspires me most (and probably a lot of the attendees here) is that after listening to people like 37signals, Shaun Inman, and SkinnyCorp talk about their humble beginnings and how they struggled for months or years before their idea really took off, it makes the possibility of succeeding seem a little more tangible.

After Craig Newmark’s keynote interview, I attended a session on “Zero Advertising” Brands which was essentially a Q&A with the two founders and creative director of SkinnyCorp – the firm responsible for Threadless, Naked & Angry, 15 Megs of Fame and Extra Tasty. In developing this run of successful online communities it seemed their approach was much the same as Craig Newmark, who maintains that the smartest thing he did was just “get out of the way” and let the community run the site, because that’s who the site exists for.

The last session of the day was “Design Eye for the List Guy”, a panel that took over the controversial task of realigning (not redesigning) the venerable craigslist. It was an impressive exercise in the art of the “realign”. And in the end, Craig (who happened to be in attendance), seemed content with their efforts.