MAGAZINES 
‘Geeky Goodness’ Pulls In Crowds
Ignite Boulder is smokin’ hot with new ideas and a party atmosphere
Since it started in Boulder in 2008, the event has grown into something that mirrors the city’s breadth and diversity. Topics range from foster children and baking at high altitude to souped-up wheelchairs and surviving the zombie apocalypse.
It’s not that hard to sell out the Boulder Theater if you are They Might Be Giants or DeVotchKa or some other big-name band. But you’d think that an average person talking about math or public restrooms would have a distinctly lesser appeal.
You’d be wrong. On Sept. 1, more than 850 people packed the Boulder Theater for exactly this: 12 regular Boulderites making PowerPoint presentations about something that interests them. The crowd cheered and clapped and hollered like the presenters were rock stars. Welcome to Ignite Boulder 16.
Ignite Boulder is, in essence, a glorified public-speaking exercise. Presenters choose a topic, submit an application, practice, and then speak before a live audience. But there is a twist. They must use exactly 20 slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds, giving them each just five minutes to make their point, and no room for mistakes. The slides flash by, packed with powerful statements, pictures and pop-culture references, while presenters hustle to keep up. Add in alcoholic drinks for the crowd and an informal competition to yell out the funniest comment in the middle of the presentations, and you have a recipe for a boisterous evening that attracts sellout crowds every time.
The first-ever Ignite event was held in Seattle in 2006 as a sort of technology roundup. Seattle techies were invited to come share their new ideas over a beer, in an evening of “geekery and networking.” The timed format, borrowed from Japan’s Pecha Kucha Nights, was simply a way to spice things up. More than 200 people came to that first event, and word spread throughout the tech world. Soon, other communities began to clamor for their own Ignites.
While the early events were almost exclusively tech-focused, Ignite has broadened as it has spread, becoming something different in each new city. At Ignite Philly, for example, local organizations and businesses pitch new projects. Ignite New Mexico (Albuquerque/Santa Fe) has an art feel. Detroit hosts an Ignite Automotive.
Ignite Boulder 16, in September, featured Ceci Ervin (opposite, in sled at lower right) and 11 other speakers. In five carefully planned minutes, she revealed that having MS does not keep her from getting around in style. The audience cheered at her advice: “Never ask your inner Dr. Seuss for guidance if you do not intend to take it.”
BOULDER ‘IGNITES’
Ignite Boulder has developed the same way, according to Ef Rodriguez, its current lead organizer. At the first Ignite Boulder (October 2008 in a classroom at CU), the several dozen attendees mostly knew each other, and heard presentations about specialized tech topics familiar to them all. Now, he says, Ignite Boulder has grown into something that mirrors the breadth and diversity of this city. Topics range from foster children to baking at high altitude to living with multiple sclerosis to surviving the zombie apocalypse. Anything can work, as long as the presenter is passionate about it. “We want a big palette of random ideas thrown together at a single event without theme or purpose, other than learning stuff,” Rodriguez says.
Ignite Boulder 16, the second-most-recent manifestation, put out the call for topics in July, and received 28 submissions. Seven were selected by popular vote (held online, publicized through Twitter), and Rodriguez and the other volunteer organizers chose the remaining five.
Matt Pantoja, one of the lucky dozen, was inspired to apply after attending Ignite Boulder 11. “The audience was great, the topics engaging, and the beer just cold enough,” he says. “It was a perfect little snapshot of everything I loved about Boulder.” He agonized over possible topics, finally settling on “Asking Girls Out and Making Movies: Things I’ve Learned in Film School.”
“I knew I really needed to do something that I knew something about, and filmmaking came to mind,” Pantoja says. He began writing his speech weeks ahead of time, and with one week to go, was running through his slides every day. “Adding in the asking-girls-out part came very late in the development of the idea,” he says. “I realized I approached so many aspects of life with filmmaking technique, and the parallels just drew themselves.”
Ceci Ervin, another Ignite Boulder 16 presenter, had the benefit of experience. This event marked her fourth Ignite presentation. Last year, she was horrified to discover that her typed speech—on a promising treatment she received for multiple sclerosis—took 12 minutes to read. “You have no concept how fast five minutes goes,” she says. This year, it was easier to prepare something that was the right length. But once you’re up on stage, with a live audience cheering, yelling, and laughing at the wrong things, all bets are off.
THE BIG NIGHT ARRIVES
On Ignite night, the doors of the Boulder Theater opened an hour early, just like for any big show. Within 15 minutes, the floor had started to fill with 20-somethings, drinks in hand and faces glowing from their smartphone and tablet screens. As much as Ignite Boulder is a medium for public speaking and new ideas—and a bit of a party—it is also an online social networking event. Ignite Boulder organizers publicize a Twitter hashtag (#igniteboulder) for a digital conversation that parallels the actual event. Tweeters responded to the talks, shared favorite lines and generally celebrated. Those who couldn’t make it to the event could join in via live video feed.
Meanwhile, at the theater, audience members wore nametags inscribed with first name as well as Twitter @name in order to meet virtual followers in person for the first time. The result was that, even though the Ignite Boulder audience had grown in size from a few dozen to nearly 900, it still felt as if everyone knew each other.
The high energy continued when the presentations began (and indeed fueled the afterparty well into the night). Pantoja delivered a speech full of film references, asking the audience to “Let me be your Mr. Miyagi” on the path to successful dates. He drew the short straw—the first slot—and suffered a number of outbursts from the crowd. But the heckling, Pantoja later reflected, actually seemed to help his nerves.
After talks on the game of cricket, the domain name system (DNS), and why people do cruel and stupid things, Ervin took the stage for her talk, “How to Never Let a Hitch in Your Giddy-Up Stand Between You and a Good Time.” Before the show, she admitted she wasn’t sure how the topic would go over. “Because I am me, I don’t think it’s all that interesting that I’m doing alternative things to get out of my wheelchair,” she said. Nevertheless, her descriptions of her souped-up summer scooter and her winter sleigh (towed by fairy-costumed cross-country skiers) earned cheers and applause. And a flurry of retweets followed her line, “Never ask your inner Dr. Seuss for guidance if you do not intend to take it.”
No one “wins” Ignite Boulder, but a presenter can win over the crowd with an earnest effort to make them care about a new idea or concept. That exchange is what has kept audience members like Rebecca Hargate coming back to each event, and bringing their friends.
“The best presentations are the ones where the person is very nervous,” Hargate says. “Somewhere in the middle, they might lose their place. They have gone off on a tangent. And the next thing they know, the autoadvancing slides have gone on without them. They make a funny comment about how nervous they are, and suddenly the crowd is with them. They cheer. There is that connection.”
Tyera Eulberg is a freelance writer, and a tech librarian at the Loveland Public Library. her own brands of geekery include HTML, parody song lyrics and underwater hockey.
IGNITE BOULDER 17 sold out for Nov. 30, but keep an eye on igniteboulder.com to buy tickets for No. 18. The date—not final at press time—will probably be in early March. You can see all the Ignite Boulder presentations since Ignite Boulder 2 at http://www.youtube.com/igniteboulder.
PECHA KUCHA NIGHTS are hosted on an irregular basis at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (www.bmoca.org) and at Old Firehouse Art Center (www.firehouseart.org) in Longmont. www.pecha-kucha.org.
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