Monthly Archive for January, 2008

Welcome, Oregonians!

Published on January 26, 2008 in Posts. Closed Tags: , .



photo by Scott Kveton

The Oregonian this morning has an article about Ignite Portland 2 on the cover of the Living (C) section. Laura Oppenheimer is the author. There is also an online version of the article, posted at OregonLive.com – “What’s on your mind? You’ve got five minutes …,” although you will see from the photo that Scott Kveton took above, the print version is worth the trip to the store to buy a copy for $0.50. There are a few people whose names were not mentioned in The Oregonian article who have been a big help with Ignite Portland planning – Scott Kveton, Adam Duvander, Aaron Hockley, Ann Marcus, the rest of the board of Legion of Tech, Renny Gleeson, and a whole host of volunteers who help from crowd control to cleanup and everything else that needs to be done to make Ignite Portland operate smoothly. Thank you!

If you’re just finding out about Ignite Portland 2 from the article in The Oregonian – WELCOME! The event is open to all. Here’s some quick information about the event – we hope to see you there!

* Ignite Portland 2 takes place Tuesday, February 5th, from 6-9pm at the Bagdad Theatrer on 3702 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. We have posted directions to the venue.

* Doors open at 5:15pm and admission is always FREE. We are recommending that you get there early as there is always a possibility that we hit the fire code limit again this time. For the first Ignite Portland event, we hit fire code at 297 people over at the beautiful Wieden+Kennedy space in NE Portland. We had to move the venue this time to accommodate more people. The Bagdad will hold 580 sitting, and I think we can get around 700 total people in there.

* We are hoping to get an attendance count prior to the night of the event for planning purposes. If you have a few minutes, it would help us if you’d visit our page on Upcoming, and add yourself to the RSVP list. You do not have to RSVP to attend, but this process helps us in terms of event planning and logistics.

* Make sure you take a look at the agenda for the event. For Ignite Portland 2, we’ll have 14 speakers and an intro on ‘What is Ignite?’ for the newcomers. You can also check out videos from the first event to get a sense for how this all works.

* Ignite Portland will continue on a regular basis. We’ve already begun work on Ignite Portland 3, and will share details on the third event the night of February 5th at Ignite Portland 2.

* If you’re inspired to submit a presentation idea for the next Ignite Portland, please be patient for a few more weeks until we get the submission form back online for the next event. We look forward to your submission!

* This event is supported by our wonderful sponsors – you can check out the list on the right sidebar of this site. Thank you, sponsors!

We look forward to seeing you at Ignite Portland 2!

Announcing the Ignite 2 Presentations

Published on January 21, 2008 in Posts. 2 Comments

Last Friday, the presentation selection committee had the tough job of choosing 14 presentations for Ignite Portland 2 out of a field of 54 submissions. We looked for a mixture of topics from presenters with a variety of backgrounds. We’ll kick things off with a quick “What is Ignite?” primer then dive into 14 of Portland’s hottest burning ideas. I’m excited to announce the following agenda and presentation lineup for Ignite Portland 2:

5:15 Doors Open
6:00 Registration & Networking
6:20 Welcome and Introductions
6:30 Presentations Wave 1

7:15 Break and Networking
7:40 Door Prizes
7:45 Presentations Wave 2

8:25 Networking
9:30 Go Home! (or adjourn to the bar for further networking)

* Minors are required to leave at 9:00 due to OLCC regulations

I’m really looking forward to seeing these presentations; it should be a fun and informative evening. Be sure to RSVP on Upcoming if you’ll be attending so we have a rough headcount. I hope to see a few hundred of you at the Bagdad on February 5th!

(Updated to include links to the presentation proposals.)

Idea submissions closed, we’ll announce the “winners” later this week

Published on January 16, 2008 in Posts. Closed

The idea submission form for Ignite Portland 2 has been closed. We received 54 terrific idea proposals for 20-slide presentations.

Now, the folks who are doing the selection have the daunting task of going through the submissions, and narrowing it down to the 14 that will be given at IP2. Talk about a tough job! I really wish we could do all of them, because they’re that good.

I want to say a big thank you to everyone who submitted an idea! Ignite Portland couldn’t happen without you, and it kills me that we’re going to have to tell 40 or so of you “not this time”.

We’re so spoiled here in Portland – an embarrassment of rich ideas! :-)

We’re deliberating and voting now, and we’re going to meet on Friday this week to make the final decisions. We’ll post the lineup shortly thereafter. Stay tuned!

Today is the last day to submit your Ignite Portland 2 presentation ideas

Published on January 15, 2008 in Posts. Closed

We’ll be closing the submission form at the end of today, so if you want to present something at Ignite Portland 2, you need to have your idea submitted before, say, midnight-ish. If it’s datestamped after today (Jan. 15), it won’t be included.

Note that this doesn’t mean you have to submit your whole presentation. Just the “idea”, in a few sentences. An abstract, if you will. And it doesn’t have to be “techy”, “geeky”, or anything else you may be thinking that’s preventing you from sharing your idea. If it’s interesting, and you think it would be fun at Ignite, then do it!

During the rest of this week, the selection group will pick the lucky 13-14 topics that will make up Ignite Portland 2, and announce them here. Stay tuned! :-)

Getting Warmer: Ignite Proposals Due in One Week!

Published on January 8, 2008 in Posts. Closed

Things are heating up for Ignite Portland 2. The deadline for presentation proposal submissions is just one week away. Do you have ideas? Then you’re a perfect candidate to present! There are a lot of burning ideas around Portland; we’d like to learn about yours.

The Ignite format is a 5-Minute presentation consisting of 20 slides which automatically advance every 15 seconds. For more details check out the Want to Present page.

The proposal deadline is next Tuesday, January 15th. Late next week, some of the Ignite Portland planners (Josh Bancroft, Adam Duvander, Audrey Eschright, Dawn Foster, Aaron Hockley, Todd Kenefsky, Scott Kveton, and Raven Zachary) will review the proposals and select fourteen for inclusion at Ignite Portland 2. We will contact the presenters (for each proposal that was submitted) as to the status of their proposal. You’ll hear from us no later than January 21st, and completed presentation slide decks will be due on January 28th.

Head over to the presentation proposal site to learn more: submit your ideas or just see what’s been submitted already. I look forward to seeing a few hundred of you at Ignite Portland 2!

Burn, Baby, Burn! Ignite Portland 2 in One Month

Published on January 4, 2008 in Posts. Closed

The next ignite Portland is a month away, and the buzz is starting to heat up. Get it? “Heat” up? Haw! ;-)

Seriously, though, I’m getting excited. Plans are being made, our venue is secured, we’re getting a great stream of submission ideas, and over 140 people have already RSVP’ed on Upcoming. All the Portland people on Twitter have exploded with conversation about it (thanks in no small part to Rick Turoczy’s Silicon Florist post on Portland Twitter People). You can follow the Ignite conversation on Twitter by following @IgnitePortland, and also by using Hashtags, under the tag #ip2. If you tweet about it, try to include that tag so your post will be included in the aggregation.

There’s even rumor of Moo.com having to charter a special delivery plane to Portland because so many people are stocking up on their awesome little photo calling cards for IP2. Hope my order doesn’t get delayed!

So, one month out, what do you need to do?

1. Spread the word (say, with a blog badge), and RSVP at Upcoming. February 5, 2008, 6 to 9 PM, at the Bagdad Theater in SE.

2. Submit your presentation ideas. They DON’T have to be techie! Only criteria is that they’re interesting, and I KNOW that you have at least one interesting idea in your head. ;-) Remember, the presentation format is 20 slides for 15 seconds each, auto-advanced. Check out the presentations from the first Ignite Portland to get an idea of the variety we had, and check out the talk submissions that are in the running for IP2.

3. We still need sponsors – the more sponsorship money we get, the more food, etc. we can provide at the event. If you’re interested in sponsoring Ignite Portland 2, for any amount, get in touch with Todd Kenefsky.

I can feel the excitement in the air. Can’t wait to see how hugely awesome Ignite Portland 2 is going to be! :-)

Ignite Portland 2 Blog Badge

Published on January 1, 2008 in Posts. Closed

Do you want to help spread the word about Ignite Portland? Do you have a blog? Those are rhetorical questions…of course you do! Here’s a hot blog badge to help fan the flames of esoteric knowledge and geeky fun to your friends and readers. Thanks to Silicon Florist for the graphic.