Igniteboulder4: Larkin’s (…) reactions
Five minutes, twenty slides, a 440 person captive live audience, your big chance, ready? Sell it! Uh… Sell what? Your mom? Your brand for a non existent band? A dance routine? Sexiness?
I stand for a few minutes watching the audience and speakers blending in a happy mix of friends as they make their exit. The room becomes quiet as the film crew puts away gear… As sudden as the audience’s initial explosion of energy, the silence slams down, filling my lungs with the desire to whisper. I wander up and down the rows of seats picking up cups, cans, newspapers, trash… Lots of it! Were you too inspired by the presentations to take a second and make the world around you as nice as you found it? I’m confused by the duality of an incredibly eco-conscious community leaving a room completely full of garbage. I need to think.
A night bike ride home under a new moon leaves me time to ponder, and react. Phrases and messages from the speakers float around in my head looking for a place to attach.
“Your food travels an average of 1500 miles before it reaches your plate.”
“Use the 20 question test. If you ask someone twenty questions, and they don’t ask you one, move on!”
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
“I play Marilyn Manson for sorority chicks.”
“Never get in a fight at a bar.”
“When a white man shaves his head, it’s like Elmer Fudd.”
I spend all night dreaming of exploring new continents with complete strangers reincarnated as old friends. “What does it all mean!??” screams in my mind as I wake up. And so I write…
Ignite Boulder; you come together wanting to create greatness, and your presenters were fabulously entertaining, confident, witty, creative, personable, and inspiring. However, their subjects sucked! I watched the first and thought “Wow, what a nice intro, way to get the crowd up and full of energy.” But then it continued. I laughed at crude jokes, and part of me was entertained, but a deeper part of me was bored watching irrelevant presentations tie the beginning of the night to the end –filling the middle with boisterous laughter and lewd humor.
You are each inspired, and passionate, in your desire to change the world and have the genius to find the best way to do it. I know; I spoke with many of you before and after the presentations. Tell me about something YOU care about, not something that you think will make me laugh. If you want to tell jokes, drink beer, and heckle each other, let’s do it at the pre and post party. But please please please don’t waste 475 hours of our collective time with half assed improvised comedy routines.
I want to leave Ignite Boulder Five with my mind flying high, soaring on the intensity and passion of what I’ve just experienced. You all have the power to elevate my awareness, and you do it on a regular basis in everyday conversations. Use your five minutes to floor me with something that is both entertaining and relevant. Blow my mind! Don’t make it ooze out and leave it for me to collect off the floor with you trash.
This is a harsh post, and expresses the opinions only of the part of my mind that was completely bored. To be fair some things about Ignite were incredible.
1. I love free beer.
2. Andrew’s ability to organize an event and let it morph into whatever form it chooses to take is outstanding. You’re a rock star, and I’ve told you before, and will tell you again: we are SO lucky as a community to have you with us. You are a positively glowing human.
3. The Peak Oil Presentation woke my mind up for the duration, and was excellent.
4. The curiosity presentation had the best message of the night.
5. I have never witnessed such a friendly audience participate so well in a presentation and add so much positive energy to the speaker.
6. Getting everyone up to dance for a presentation is practically unheard of. Amazing!
As a (totally not offended) presenter, I would have to say that the responsibility for the quality of Ignite 5 will once again rely on the public vote for the majority of the presentations.
If you want more
serious“on-topic” presentations, vote for them. I knowingly submitted my topic (Road House) into the “no way this will possibly get in” category, and it made it in with about 70 votes.I don’t necessarily agree with all of your opinions about Ignite 4, but this was definitely thought provoking and insightful.
See you at Ignite 5!
and ps:
speaking in front of 500 people ain’t easy. Under the circumstances, I think that everyone did a fantastic job!
Cool! You remembered something I said!
I dunno about anyone else, but I’m really passionate about what I used to think would just be another lame college job. It turned out to be the kind of experience I want to tell everyone about, and the nature of the job is inherently funny.
Have you been to Ignite before? Because this was the biggest venue we’ve had; the dynamics were very different and the expectations quite high. Have you ever presented? Could you blow someone’s mind? 400+ minds are a lot to engage.
Regardless of your opinion, I’m glad that I was able to make my presentation. I have never presented in front of so many people before. And I’m proud of choosing a topic that was unique and something most people wouldn’t have had enough experience doing to be able to talk about it. It was fun!
[...] presentations were strong. Larkin has a great post challenging the presenters of future Ignites to do more with their [...]
I could tell that you were passionate about your presentation Jennyjenjen and it came through to the adience loud and clear. No one else could have presented your topic at Ignite, but you pulled it off handily.
Wookiehangover highlighted the relationship between the presenters and the audience, the voters, and the creators. It is definitely not the presenters that frustrated me, but Ignite 4 as a whole. The unfortunate combination of of topics, voters, and audience that set the bar too low.
The 500 people in that room are some of the most incredible and motivated I’ve met! I’d rather have most of you leading the world’s decisions than who does now, but somehow Ignite 4 happened exactly the way the presenters, the audience, and the voters wanted and that’s the beauty of it.
So I’m expressing my opinion, that it could have been better! and it should be better!
And yes jennyjenjen, you are right, this was my first Ignite. I’ve known Andrew for a long time, and been curious about them, but didn’t decide to go until Tuesday morning when more tickets opened up. I would have loved to see the evolution, because Ignite truly is an incredible idea with HUGE potential. But I wasn’t there, so I’m expressing my reactions to this one.
Could I have blown 500 minds? It is something I have thought about all day actually… I’ve had a lot of ideas but would any of them blow everyone’s mind? Who knows… Ignite 5 maybe.
Cool, I look forward to a presentation idea from you!
Andrew likes to avoid presenting twice in a row, but my next topic – Ignite 6 – is gonna be awesome.
Here’s unsolicited advice: please only pick something that you know in your heart (sounds cliché I know) can pull off. If you pretend to be something you aren’t, or have a goal that isn’t in the line of giving a presentation that truly has your ’stamp’ on it, it won’t go too well. So I guess I can say that I learned a lot about myself in this process.
There are some issues that need to be dealt with on how the presentations are pitched:
1) While I love the voting aspect, posting your idea first is an easy way to get a quick ride to the top. The first few ideas , if they’re at all well pitched, remain high on the vote count. Even poor ideas are guaranteed more votes if they’re posted early. That’s simply not fair.
2) In the rush to get an idea up, people are too hasty with their pitch. Making sure the idea is fleshed out and the pitch well written goes a long way to telling voters what they’re looking at, but that rarely seems to happen.
3) Prospective presenters need to be secure in their topic before offering up an idea. At Ignite 3, where I was one of the presenters, a couple allegedly dropped out seemingly last minute. I don’t know if it was because of time constraints, paranoia, or other issues, but it makes me wonder. Obviously, there are reasonable excuses, but I don’t think people should propose topics they don’t expect to present (and good on ya, wookiehangover, for ging through with it! It was sweet!).
—
My solution would be to collect presentation ideas first, help the presenters set up their pitch/flesh out their idea, and then have people vote once all are ready to go. I’d also love to have the presenters get together and help each other out. It’s certainly nice to be surprised by the other presentations, but if Ignite is really about building a community, working together to improve presentations and tighten up the entire night would be a great way to bring people together.
Larkin, your post was the final thing I read last night and still had it up in the morning and felt the need to say you are right on. I wish I had thought more about it after the fact.
I left a ignite4 little disillusioned having attended 1 – 3. Watching the increasing quality of presentations and the manner in which a topic was presented with redeeming value was awe inspiring. Maybe I was expecting too much for #4. Hopefully not though.
The comments by Ace & @jennyjenjen are right on regarding fleshing out preso topic in advance and having it be true to you in your heart. Thankfully my poorly submitted topic (2nd to be added to the list) was not chosen. I now have a chance to refine it and try to add some value in #5.
I also like Ace’s suggestions re: community elements. It is one thing to comment and not offer a solution. Constructively adding to the conversation is much better as improvements can be made.
I hope the dialogue continues.
I think this is a really valuable post (from an also not offended presenter) and it’s a great way to keep the dialogue going about the process. Good for you.
I love the post and the comments.
I would echo what Aimee said in her presentation: everyone has value. Funny presentations are just as valuable as something on peak oil, the beauty is in the details, passion and flow.
@Ace the first pitched this time didn’t get to the top at all. I think more participation is needed, will continue to refine how this goes. We had 4 drop out in the last week after being selected or chosen… a big crowd is intimidating.
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