Full Circle Associates

I could not believe how packed the Capital Hill Arts Center was last night for the second Ignite Seattle. I arrived about 7:30 and had to do the sardine walk to get into the room. For the "Ask Later" talks, some folks had to watch in the overflow room with video. Yowza. A testament to Brady and Bre's hard work.

The Ask Later format was a great way to share ideas and knowledge, perform and be entertained. Some of us did that better than others, but overall, most everything I heard from the first two sets had value for me. I think it was a terrific event. So now it's debriefing time for me. If you were there I'd love your feedback as well. Sort of a slow after action review.

Doing one of these 5 minutes/20 slides-which-change-every-15-seconds was a great learning experience. It is very different from my usual style which is to use space to improvise off of my key points. I did not have enough confidence to do that with the constraints. So I went for structured. Very weird for me. I also cared very much about my topic and I did worry that it would be meaningless to others. So I over packed in the content. Sigh. I think I had some good visuals.

So how did I do? I survived with a smile on my face.

t is hard for me to evaluate, but there are a few bloggers who liked it, and some of who did not. I appreciate both of these perspectives!

I think there are a couple of elements to break down in our feedback to each other of the night.

1) Listening to a topic we care about. I enjoyed the talks about things I cared about more than the ones I did not. I cut a lot more slack on presentation style on topics and people I cared about. So our personal starting points are part of our perceptions and that is not something the speaker can do a lot about.

2) Style of presentation - there was a lot of style diversity and just being able to experience that was a lot of fun for me. I picked up ideas, like the great line of subtext in Barry Brumitt's (Google) slides, and Lee LeFever's "stretch" slide in the middle. 15 seconds of de-stressing in a firehose of information all night long. I loved people who had passion and just about every presentation I heard had passion. That was a hallmark.

3) Delivery - The thing most regret was that I did not have enough time to get my talk in my head, so I brought my script. I knew it was an error, but the pressures of work took priority. Better than totally flubbing the whole thing.

4) Content - there are some of us who really pack too much into our 5 minutes. I always do this. It is my curse and I need to practice more to clear out the clutter. In this form, you want to fill the space, but not over fill it. You want to be able to talk slowly enough to be understood. This was a geeky group, so most of the jargon had context. I was probably using jargon that was not part of the room's lexicon. (Community jargon!)

4) Humor. I'm not sure what people thought, but I had no place to put the wireless mic receiver and had to put it down my bra. Such a class act (not!)

I left a comment on Marcelo's blog (I have not seen it show up yet) with some recommendations that I'd offer those planning to play in round 3. I've added a few more since the comment.

Watch the format in action via video or live and notice what you like/don't like (I found some of December's videos a bit rambly. I'd rather have overstuffed than rambly)

Have a clear, focused point - small is beautiful (I sure violated that one)

Don't feel constrained that you need to change points as the slides change. Consider building and layering so it is not 20 separate blurts of information. Beth Kanter suggested this to me in advance and I really didn't deliver on it.

Tell a story. That usually requires building over multiple slides

Leave a little space and silence to build and emphasize ideas.

Don't put your text on the screen (just as bad a crutch as my piece of paper)

Don't pitch your company, pitch your ideas

Have fun with it

Marcelo recommends not over rehearsing. That's not a blanket concept for me. I think that is a personal call based on people's comfort and familiarity, style and the content. The point is that it IS a performance, and a wooden performance - which can come from over rehearsal - is not fun for the audience. Be engaging and engaged, and do that in what ever way works for you.

My favorites (no order, and I missed the final round):

1. Avi Geiger - “Power Consumption of Home Computers and Incandescent Lightbulbs”
2. Lars Liden (Teachtown) - Utilizing Web Technology to Help Children with Autism
3. Lee Lefever (The World Is Not Flat) - Adventures from a Year of Multimedia Travel Blogging: A few inspiring stories from a year of travel blogging across 29 countries that produced 500+ blog posts, 24 original videos and 14,000 photos.
4. Barry Brumitt (Google) - MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters

Tags: igniteseattle,, technologystewardship