A couple of weeks ago I tried my hand at doing an Ignite talk at Ignite Waterloo 10. If you’re unfamiliar with the ignite format, presenters have five minutes to talk about something that they’re passionate about, but there is a catch: you get 20 PowerPoint slides and they auto-advance every 15 seconds. If you have a tendency to ramble your slides aren’t waiting around for you to catch up – it’s cutthroat PowerPoint – and it was the most fun I’ve had in front of an audience in a long time. The adrenaline kicks in, you hit the space bar, and give it everything you’ve got.
I practiced many (many, many) times so that those five minutes of my life would not be a complete disaster. Strangely enough, I even enjoyed rehearsing it. The real power of the event was listening to such a variety of speakers and topics (check out the list for Ignite Waterloo 10 here). The organizers put together a fantastic event and the venue was unreal (Centre for International Governance Innovation) – definitely the best stage I’ve ever spoken from. I’m definitely going to attend again… you should probably come along too.
If you want to see my 5 minutes, here’s the YouTube link (the people at IW10 covered all the bases!):
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