Author: Scott Berkun

Our 28th Ignite event is Thursday, September 17th 7pm/8pm at Town Hall Seattle. Tickets $5 at the door or in advance (we frequently sell out – buy tickets early. Or NOW. Really).

Doors open at 7pm, with a cash bar and a fun social interactive game-like-thing (you don’t have to play, and since there is a bar you can stand and drink and make fun of the people who do, but we suspect you’re more likely to play than you think). Talks start at 8pm, with an nicely sized intermission for you to do various acts of biology and sociology, including getting more drinks.

We received more than 50 submissions. Since we are restricted by the laws of physics we can only have 16 speakers in one event (If you have supernatural powers please volunteer: we can use you).

Here is the resplendent list of wondrous presenters:

(Speaking order TBD. You should come for the whole thing and get far more than your $5 worth):

• The World Turned Upside Down: What Our Teachers Never Told Us About the Revolution – Don Glickstein
• Why You Probably Suck: Your Keyboard is Slowly Killing You – Chris Mosetick
• How To Kill Your Husband (and Other Disaster Preparedness tips) – Eric Holderman
• Hiring More Women Isn’t Rocket Science – Ruchika Tulshyan
• Seattle and The Future of Books – Paul Constant
• Bootstrapping Social Change: the case for Universal Basic Income – Victor Chudnovsky
• To Be A Great Leader, Perform Burlesque – Cat Cuevas
• Sensitive Badass – Amber Hargett
• Turing and Cancer: complexity matters – Ron Burk
• Sex My Flies – Dave Zucker
• Screenager – All Grown Up – Melinda Fox
• Update Your Default Settings – Christina Durbin
• Drawing From Cancer – Carrie DeBacker
• What You Don’t Know Will Hurt – Shannon Polson
• How My Mom’s Untreated Schizophrenia Made Me A Better Writer – Berrak Sarikaya
• My Life As a Nuclear Freakshow – Mark Reed

Looks good, yes? Get tickets here. 

Ignite Seattle 27, on May 20th 2015 will be the first time we’re going to have a theme for the evening. What’s a theme, you ask? Good question. What we want to do is an experiment. All previous Ignites have been a potpourri of topics, ideas, styles and attitudes. What would an evening of talks focused on a theme be like? Better? Worse? We want to learn.

And it’s only fitting for our first themed Ignite that we pick the theme of EXPERIMENTS! 

An experiment is when you do something with the goal of verifying, refuting, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. In other words, choosing to act fully aware you don’t know what’s going to happen.

Q: What kinds of talks do we want?

Good ones, of course. We’re looking for stories about an experiment you did in your life. It could be something you did at work, or the very idea of a career you tried to pursue. Maybe it’s about a place you moved to or a person you were trying to be with. It could be something deeply serious (an experiment of belief). Or perhaps it’s something very silly (an experiment in how many pierogis it takes to fill your car).

Q: Does the experiment have to have succeeded?

Absolutely not. The theme is not “amazing success stories!” We’re hoping to hear stories with a range of outcomes. Interesting failures, experiments that surprised you or your friends or changed how you look at something, including possibly yourself.

Q: Are the other restrictions on Ignite talks the same?

Mostly yes. Our default assumption as you might guess is that all talks will follow the Ignite format: 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide. But we are open to the possibility of one or two talks that experiment with the format itself (If you attended Ignite Seattle 15 you witnessed chainsaw tricks by Jason Quick, a talk given from up on a trapeze, and other format twisters). If your idea for a talk involves an experimental format: perhaps you want to juggle chainsaws blindfolded (that’s an experiment if you’ve never done it before), do a talk in total darkness, or who knows what. If you have a format experiment be sure to submit your talk early and talk to us about it.

All Good? Good. You can submit your talk idea here.

(Here from Ignite 15 is Jason Quick, one armed performance artist)

Our first Ignite of 2015 is ready to go on Wed Feb 18th 7pm/8pm at Town Hall Seattle. Tickets $5 at the door or in advance. Doors open at 7, with cash bar and a fun social game (you don’t have to play but you probably will despite what you think as you read this). Talks start at 8pm, with an intermission.

We received 50+ submissions, but alas, due to the laws of space and time we can only have so many speakers in an evening (If you know how to transcend space and time we’d love to have you speak about it).

Our usual fantastic MC Monica Guzman will be out of town doing super secret cool journalistic things. Filling in will be Scott Berkun, former-fill in host from Ignite 17 and multi Ignite Seattle veteran.

Here is our stellar roster of amazing speakers

The order of speakers for the evening is still TBD, but you really should come for the whole thing and get well more than your $5 worth:

• Think Like An Artist, Bryan Ohno
• How I Became a Kaleidescopist, Katarina Countiss
• Building Better Humans, Torri Brown
• Why Parasitic Wasps are AWESOME, Steven Chau
• How To Shake Hands, Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack
• Improv, Public Speaking, and You, Sol Villarreal
• The Best Hobby You’re Missing Out On, Katherine Hanson
• Hacking Gentrification, K. Wyking Garrett
• Nanosats Put Us All Into Space, Glenn Fleishman
• Being the Bigger Person,  Cassie Wallender
• Eating Goat Testicles and Other Feminist Activities, Morgan Beach
• Hacking Rembrandt, Bill Ritchie
• Photographing the Unseen, Adam Philipp
• The Adventures of Founding a Business with Your Best Friend, Martina Welke
• How to Write About Your #!@$#%# Family, Scott Berkun

Please spread the word. A great night awaits you and your friends.

We are coming up fast on Ignite Seattle 24. The event is Thursday May 22th 7:00pm and tickets are on sale now.

If you have an a story to tell, or a lesson you want to share, fill out the Submit a Talk form. Deadline is end of day Friday.

Town Hall is an amazing venue to speak in, and our crowd is likely to be the most fun and supportive audience you’ll ever get to present in front of. We’ll be choosing talks next week and announcing them soon after.

The next Ignite Seattle will be on Thursday May 22nd at Town Hall Seattle.  We’re accepting talk submissions right now, no waiting.

You can buy tickets now through Stranger Tickets. Or fill out the Submit a Talk form if you want to get on the most fun and exciting stage in all of Seattle.