or is it ignit?
am very, very fortunate to have smart, cool friends who take me to smart, cool events. this week i was lucky enough to attend ignite toronto, part of global ignite week which features presentations in 6 continents in 60 cities with 600 speakers and over 10,000 attendees.
i have to say, i’ve been to a lot of different conferences (idea city, flash in the can) and have seen a variety of really clever people speak about what they know best, but the format of the ignite presentations is really special and incredibly tough. i can’t even imagine doing one myself. each speaker is limited to 5 minutes – a max of 20 powerpoint slides at 15 seconds a slide. they have no control over their presentation, so speak too quickly, and they had to wait for their slide to change, or….cram their slides with too much info…and they were constantly racing to catch up (side note: presenters racing to catch up were the funniest. there was only one, otherwise it could have felt like they were wasting your time, but he was so sweet and so oblivious as to what was even happening that it was totes hilar). the best part about the five minute format, is that it’s just long enough for a speaker to completely peak your interest…and not enough to get bored (by speakers who’s topics may be less interesting to you). win-win.
i’m not going to summarize everything each speaker spoke about, but here are the people i found most fascinating and who really inspired me (or just really made me laugh, mark mckay, i’m looking at you and your uzi usb keys here), i’m posting their links so that you can do a little digging of your own:
steve mugin – afrigadget
idris mootee – innovation playground
mark mckay – markmckay.ca
john lax – teehan+lax