Snappy enlightenment

Snappy enlightenment | Top | PressDemocrat.com

O'Reilly Media's Ignite presentations, which give speakers 20 slides and 5 minutes, go global this week in dozens of cities, including Sebastopol

By NATHAN HALVERSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 4:45 a.m.

Mark Aronoff/PD
Alexis Bauer, owner of My Friend Joe
coffee shop in Sebastopol, presented
"How to work a crowd and become the
social genius you've always wanted to be"
at an Ignite event in June.
Another Sebastopol Ignite event, planned
for Wednesday night, is part of what
O'Reilly Media is calling Global Ignite Week.
Alexis Bauer learned a thing or two about how to turn strangers into friends while traveling in Europe as an exchange student.

Occasionally, she shared her insights with a customer at her Sebastopol coffee stand, or with one of her employees.

But her knowledge was unavailable to anyone outside her small circle until Bauer mustered up the courage to try a new way of sharing information with people in her hometown and around the world. Now, more than 50,000 people in all corners of the globe have learned Bauer's secrets, thanks to something called Ignite.

The concept, developed by an employee at Sebastopol technology publisher O'Reilly Media, has blossomed into a global movement dedicated to tapping the wisdom of tech geeks, entrepreneurs, do-it-yourselfers and other creative folk willing to share their wisdom with others.

On Monday, O'Reilly Media will begin staging a five-day marathon of hundreds of Ignite presentations originating from more than 60 cities worldwide, including a sold-out event Wednesday night at Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol.
The notion behind Ignite is embodied in its motto: "Enlighten us, but make it quick."

Everyone uses the same format. Presenters create 20 PowerPoint slides, which are set to automatically advance every 15 seconds. Once the slides start, the presenter has no control of the pace. Their talk ends when the last slide disappears — exactly 5 minutes later.

The beauty of Ignite is it constrains everyone into this tight format — it is like the Haiku of presentations.

"It's a truism that constraints provoke creativity," said Sara Winge, an O'Reilly employee who helped organize Global Ignite Week. "It makes it almost a game."

Bauer shared her bit of wisdom at the first Sebastopol Ignite event in June. More than 200 people had packed into Hopmonk Tavern to listen to 11 presenters give their 5-minute speeches. Bauer went second.

Despite spending hours practicing her presentation in her garage with a microphone, Bauer practically trembled with fear when she took the stage.

"I was bugging out with stress," she said.

Her first slide appeared on a projection screen behind her and she read the name of her talk: "How to work a crowd and become the social genius you've always wanted to be." And it was on. The timer was already ticking. She had only 6 seconds left until the next slide.

Despite her visible trepidation, the crowd honed in on her message. They laughed at her jokes and ooohed with appreciation at her insights. In 5 minutes, she explained how to start a conversation, shred the label of "stranger," and establish oneself as a social hub.

When she concluded, the crowd roared. And so did the Internet. The knowledge she had developed as a 16-year-old exchange student in Madrid was now online — and people were watching.

Major blogs such as LifeHacker.com posted the video of her Ignite speech. As of last week, it had been viewed more than 50,000 times on YouTube. It is the second-most popular video on the official Ignite home page — Ignite | Ignite Show Video.

For O'Reilly Media, which owns the trademark to Ignite, providing Bauer a format to share her wisdom is at its core.
"It's very much aligned with our mission: Spread the knowledge of innovators," Winge said.

Bauer's wisdom was untethered, and made accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

The fact she had to condense it down to 5 minutes was incredibly difficult, she said. But, like Twitter, the format made her get straight to the point and not waste time.

"People can't get bored because it's moving, moving, and you can't get stuck. It's a great format," Bauer said. "It's like brain candy."

The idea for Ignite was created in December 2006 by Bre Pettis and Brady Forrest, who is now an O'Reilly employee. They wanted a format where people could share ideas while enjoying a beer. About 200 people crowded into a bar in Seattle for the first Ignite event.

Now it is worldwide. More than 200 Ignite events have been held, and half of those occurred in the last year.

"It started as a grassroots phenomenon. But about nine months ago, all of a sudden it went from two or three events a month to 15," Winge said. "It was apparent that something had caught."

So the company decided to organize Global Ignite Week and launch a centralized Web site where event organizers could post videos, announce dates and share information.

"We thought we should really help that global community connect," Winge said. "And how cool is it that this huge collection of 5 minute videos on interesting topics will be online."

Nine presenters are scheduled to talk at Wednesday's event in Sebastopol. Kernan Coleman, a graphic designer at Ranch7 Creative in Santa Rosa, is one of them. He has been practicing his speech about personal transformation all week, working on getting the talk trimmed down and synched with the slides he created.

"It's amazing how much effort goes into condensing ideas and making it clear," he said.

Coleman, who has a background in theatre, has agonized over the 5 minute talk. Practice runs have proved more challenging than he initially thought.

"Once the slides start going, you can't control them. You can't stop them," Coleman said. "All of a sudden I was starting to panic in my own home."

But he's not throwing in the towel. He's taking a carpe-diem attitude.

"I may go down in flames, but at least I tried," he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Nathan Halverson at 703-1577 or nathan.halverson@ pressdemocrat.com.
Alexis Bauer's presentation:

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