Ignite Boulder 7: Ponderings

Ignite Boulder 7 was our most successful and feverish outing yet. If you aren’t aware, I’m one of a small group of organizers of the event. We work absurdly hard to keep the whole thing in one piece so that everyone can have a nice night of listening, learning and laughing.

Here are a few thoughts. If you were there, I hope you had fun. If you were not there and live nearby, please explain why you would hurt me so in the comments.

Artful heckling is rad; Clumsy heckling is bad
Not everyone is cut out to be a heckler. If you are clever and witty in real-life, you stand a good chance of being a good heckler. Bruce Wyman springs to mind. If you are only clever and witty online, odds are you’re going to be a lame heckler. Drinking exacerbates your shortcomings. So keep that in mind.

People need stimuli
I work in public relations. As a consequence, I think about people all day long. Audiences, demographics, consumers. I am paid to unearth ways to reach humans with something that will trigger a positive reaction. So it’s pretty apt that I regularly open Ignite Boulder with a blast of jolly nonsense (known as “The Sacrificial Deck”) that sets the tone for the evening – expectation, curiosity and surprise.

Powerpoint is poison
Whenever I describe the event to people, I see them get apprehensive the moment I mention Powerpoint. Yes, the event is essentially comprised of 15 or so Powerpoint presentations (for the record, we convert them to Keynote because it’s oodles cooler), but I really must stop describing it that way. I fear that many people don’t give Ignite a chance because Powerpoint is innately boring and there’s no way they would pay $10 for something like that. Can anyone think of a better way to sell someone on Ignite?

(Photo credit: Jason Janelle)