Tag Archive for 'ignite portland'

Ignite Portland, A Documentary Short

Published on December 28, 2009 in ignite portland. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Most of you probably know that I am one of the organizers for Ignite Portland, an event happening about every 4 months where we select people to present their burning ideas in 5 minutes using 20 slides that auto advance every 15 seconds. It’s an interesting format, and it’s a fun event to attend.

At this last Ignite Portland, Liz Grover started work on a short documentary that covers the history, the format and the phenomenon that is Ignite Portland. I was honored to participate in an interview where I talked about our experiences with Ignite Portland, and most of the interview appears in the documentary.

I encourage you to watch the Ignite Portland documentary. Liz did a great job of capturing the spirit of the event in just 8 minutes of video.

I also know that Liz is available for hire to work on other video projects if you need some video content for your latest project.

What is Ignite (Corvallis Version)

Published on December 7, 2009 in ignite. Closed Tags: , , .

I had the honor of being selected to do the What is Ignite presentation for Ignite Corvallis on November 5, 2009. They just released the video, and I thought some of you might be interested in seeing it. During the What is Ignite presentation, I talked about the Ignite format and background, gave some of the history behind Ignite Portland and covered a few Corvallis specific topics. It was a great time, and thanks again to all of the volunteers, sponsors, and speakers that made Ignite Corvallis possible!

Here is a copy of my What is Ignite presentation if you want to see a higher quality version of the slides.

My 15 Seconds of Flame Videos from Ignite Portland 5

Published on February 24, 2009 in ignite portland. Closed Tags: , , , .

I managed to squeeze in two videos for the 15 seconds of flame segment in Ignite Portland, and I thought it would be fun to share them here as well.

Why @geekygirldawn <3′s The Portland Tech Community

and

Shizzow: Did You Forget to Shout?

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Blogging Elsewhere

Published on February 22, 2009 in elsewhere. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Here is this week’s summary of links to my posts appearing on other blogs:

GigaOM’s WebWorkerDaily

Portland Data Plumbing User Group (pdpug)

Legion of Tech

Ignite Portland

Business Leader NW

If you want a feed of all of my blog posts across multiple sites, you can also subscribe to my über feed.

Ignite Portland 4 was Awesome

Published on November 14, 2008 in legion of tech. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Wow! We’re never quite sure what to expect with Ignite Portland after the chaos at Ignite Portland 2, but the last two events, including Ignite Portland 4, have been smooth sailing.

The presentations were amazing. We had:

  • a little nudity
  • a sing-along for take me out to the ball game
  • a Kenny Rogers quote used by 2 different speakers
  • cyborgs
  • dating advice
  • garanimals
  • and much, much more

A huge thank you to all of our sponsors. Without sponsors, Legion of Tech could not afford to do free events. The sponsors paid for the venue, event insurance, some food, and more. We also had some really cool, 30 second sponsor videos, which I thought worked much better than having each sponsor talk on stage for 30 seconds.

The only down moment during the event for me was having people boo our sponsors. Not cool, people. The sponsors are the people who make the event possible. Be nice to them if you want to have future events.

A huge thank you to all of the people who volunteered and helped out at the event. Without the support of a huge volunteer staff, we could never make these events happen. Keep in mind that everyone in Legion of Tech and all of the people staffing our events are volunteers. We do this because we love it.

Now, what did you think of Ignite Portland 4? What worked well, and what didn’t? Please post any feedback about the event on the Ignite Portland Open Thread: What Could We Have Done to Make Ignite Portland 4 Better?

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Dr. Seuss and Online Communities

Published on October 27, 2008 in community. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

I recently gave my “What Would Dr. Seuss Say about Online Communities” Ignite-style presentation at the Love@First Website event here in Portland. I think this was a better presentation than the one that I gave back in February at Ignite Portland. It’s always easier to give a presentation the second time after you see what does and does not work.

The kind people over at iSite embedded the recorded audio from my talk into a SlideShare presentation, so turn up the volume and click play in the embedded presentation below to hear me give my Ignite talk while the 20 slides fly by every 15 seconds.

L@Fw2008 Dawn Foster
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: foster dawn)

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Brady Bunch, Twitter, Lonely Techies, iPhones, and Events that Do Not Suck

Published on October 7, 2008 in legion of tech. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

Have you ever wondered how the Brady Bunch, Twitter, lonely techies, iPhones, and events that do not suck are related?

We decided that at the next Ignite Portland that rather than giving our sponsors the microphone for 30 seconds, we would rather have them submit a 30 second video. Needless to say, we wanted to have an example to help encourage people to get creative with their videos. Todd came up with the concept and the lyrics for the Legion of Tech Brady Bunch video. The video is hilarious and you need to watch it.

A huge thank you to Jed Herzog of Outlier Solutions for filming and editing this for us and to our wonderful chorus of singers; Mia Burcham, Owen Burcham, Liam Burcham, Aodan Collins, Xander Collins, Soren Collins and Rainer Collins. A big thank you to Todd for coming up with the lyrics and herding the rest of us to get everything recorded.

If you want to put together a cool video and have it shown at Ignite Portland in front of ~500 people, you can visit the Ignite Portland site to learn more about sponsoring.

Ignite Portland Tickets Available Now

Published on June 4, 2008 in General. Closed Tags: , , , .

Wow! We opened up the ticketing system for Ignite Portland just a couple of hours ago, and we’ve already sent 172 tickets with only 295 remaining. If you want to attend Ignite Portland on June 18th 20th, I highly recommend getting a ticket. And you do want to attend. It’s a great time!

Ignite Portland (as always) is a free event with costs covered by our lovely sponsors (including my employer, Jive Software). The ticketing system merely gives you earlier admission, shorter lines and the ability to reserve a spot in advance. Doors open at 5:30pm and your ticket is good until the general admission starts (6:15pm), then all remaining seats will be given on a first-come-first-serve basis to those in line.

If you don’t get a ticket, we’ll also have general admission for people who just want to show up at the event.

What is Ignite Portland? A bunch of fast-paced, interesting presentations – 20 slides for 15 seconds each. Our mantra is “share burning ideas” – just about any topic will do, as long as it’s interesting. From tech to crafts to business to just plain fun! There will be time to chat with other attendees after each series of presentations. Ignite Portland is brought to you by Legion of Tech.

Updated at 4:21. Oops, I was so excited about the number of tickets that I mangled the date :-) Thanks Josh!

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What Would Dr. Seuss Say about Online Communities

Published on February 6, 2008 in community. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I had the opportunity to do an Ignite Portland presentation last night about online communities in the context of Dr. Seuss quotes. It was a lot of fun to prepare; I got to sit in the children’s section of the library reading Dr. Seuss books for a few hours, which is always a good time! I also had a great time giving the talk – complete with a Cat in the Hat, hat!

You can view the video on YouTube and the presentation on SlideShare.

UPDATE: I removed the earlier embeds, since they were really slowing down the load time of this page.

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Ignite Portland 2 Rocked the Bagdad

Published on February 6, 2008 in ignite portland. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Wow! We had 750 people show up for Ignite Portland 2 at the Bagdad Theater last night. This is about 150 people more than the 600 or so who RSVP’ed on Upcoming. We were amazed and thrilled with the response.

We had some incredible presentations. We’re posting them as they get uploaded on the Ignite Portland site. I also had really interesting conversations with people, and I personally had a great time.

We also had some interesting challenges mostly associated with having way more people than anticipated. We even gave up on having people register in order to just get people in the door. Despite the challenges, people seemed to enjoy themselves.

There were so many great volunteers who helped make Ignite Portland 2 a success; we could never have pulled it off without their help. The sponsors also made this possible by providing the funds required to buy food, the use of the Bagdad Theater, insurance, etc. A huge thank you to everyone who helped, sponsored, took pictures / video, and more to make this event so much fun to attend.

Rick has (as usual) done an amazing job of summarizing the blog coverage of the event on Silicon Florist, so please visit his page to hear what other people are saying about the event.

If you attended Ignite Portland 2, please visit the Ignite Portland blog post “What did *you* think of Ignite Portland“. Drop your thoughts in the comments to let us know what you like and areas where we could make Ignite Portland 3 even better.

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