Tag Archives: ignite

ignite portland

Ignite Portland, A Documentary Short

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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.

ignite

What is Ignite (Corvallis Version)

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.

portland

Join Us on a Party Bus from Portland to Ignite Corvallis on November 5

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I have the honor of presenting the What is Ignite talk in my favorite Oregon city (outside of Portland, of course) at Ignite Corvallis 2 on this Thursday, November 5th. The have a great list of speakers, including a couple of other Portlanders, and they are making it very easy for all of us to attend by sponsoring a party bus for the trip!

What makes it a party bus? The free beer and wifi certainly qualify it as a party bus in my book, but we also have a bunch of fun people already scheduled for the trip! We still have room on the bus, and everyone on the bus gets a free ticket to Ignite Corvallis, which is currently sold out. You can register for the bus and get all of the details about pick up and drop off times, logistics, etc. on the bus page.

I hope to see you at Ignite Corvallis!

legion of tech

Ignite Portland 4 was Awesome

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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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community

Dr. Seuss and Online Communities

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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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legion of tech

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

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.

legion of tech

A great time at Ignite Portland 3

I had a fantastic evening at Ignite Portland 3 on Wednesday! The presentations were spectacular, as always, and we even had a great after party at Imbibe hosted by Strands and Polymer Studios. I thought that I would be too tired to enjoy the after party, but it was really nice to be able to kick back and enjoy talking to people where I didn’t have to worry about organizing anything.

There were so many great volunteers who helped make this event a success; Legion of Tech events, like Ignite Portland, are put together entirely by volunteers, and these events are not possible without a bunch of great people helping out. 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.

From an organizer perspective, this Ignite went very smoothly, especially compared to the chaos of Ignite Portland 2. The ticketing system helped us get people in quickly, and the Bagdad was better prepared for the onslaught of beer and pizza orders, so even the lines for food and drinks stayed fairly short. The best part was that we had a bunch of people (I’m guessing around 500), but everyone had a seat, and we didn’t have to turn anyone away.

Silicon Florist (as always) did a really great write-up on his site with links to other reviews of the event, so I encourage you to read his post for more information about the event. If you missed it, you can watch the videos and view the presentations.

If you attended Ignite Portland 3, we would love to hear your feedback about the event – what did you like or what can we do to improve for the next one?

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General

Ignite Portland Tickets Available Now

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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community

What Would Dr. Seuss Say about Online Communities

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

Ignite Portland 2 Rocked the Bagdad

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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