I know, I know. I promised you an update on our week without social media, and we will post about that next week (we’ll even continue to abstain in the meantime). But this week was Ignite Seattle 13, and how could we miss out on that?
For those of you unfamiliar with Ignite (and uninterested in the Wikipedia link I tossed out up there), a brief description: Ignite is an evening of 5 minute long presentations. Speakers prepare a 20 slide deck, with each slide set to automatically advance after 15 seconds. It’s very similar to Pecha Kucha, and tends to cover a pretty wide variety of topics.
Some of our favorite topics included:
- Advanced Co-Housing Techniques (by Leo Dirac, which reminded me of this article on Boston Marriages)
- branding happiness or how I sold your mom bondage rope (by twisted monk)
- My secret life as a celebrity twitter imposter (by Erfon Elijah)
- Your Moral Panic Over Triceratops is Wrong (by Jeremy Bingham)
Although we liked each of these for a different reason, they were all well done presentations that made us think about something. Sure, telling a story about impersonating Neil Patrick Harris on Twitter may be a little less intellectually stimulating than Twisted Monk’s business talk (which, while delving slightly into the NSFW, gave excellent advice). Maybe being reassured that we can still call a Triceratops a Triceratops wasn’t quite as provocative as the idea of adults, even with families, co-housing (or vise-versa depending on your point of view). Nonetheless, the talks at Ignite all had a point, from improving karaoke technique to having fun traveling Disneyland alone.
More importantly, the talks were exciting and energizing. They led perfectly into enthusiastic (and sometimes heated) conversations over various points brought up in the talks, which perfectly blended an evening of casual entertainment with serious thought. If you’ve never been to Ignite, you should definitely look up events near you!