Ignite Seattle

Ontela is sponsoring Ignite again! Thanks guys!
Ontela is a venture-backed startup that makes it ridiculously easy to get pictures from your camera phone to your PC. We just raised a bunch of money so we could hire smart, creative people JUST LIKE YOU — see our web site for job openings!

Ignite is happening next Wednesday on 8/8. It’s a free geek event at the CHAC. I’ve announced the 12 of the 16 talks earlier this week. Here are the final four talks.

1. Scott Kennedy – Building Real Community Software
   Local activist Scott Kennedy shows off his homemade electronic bulletin board, and discusses how and why he built it. he also asks what he should do with his new software.
2. George Conard (Grameen Foundation) – Mifos: Open Source Software for Microfinance
   The Grameen Foundation (started the Nobel Peace Prize winning Grameen Bank and Mohammed Yunus) is building an open source software platform for the global microfinance industry with an aim to help people get out of poverty. Project head and local Seattlite will discuss the difficulties of building this platform and what they’ve learned so far.
3. Jesse Robbins – WikiProgress & Gross National Happiness (GNH)
   
4. HB Siegel (IMDB) – Werewolf Strategy
   The ins and outs of the myth-oriented social bluffing game.

Look at these topics. This is going to be a great Ignite!

Our friends at McLeods have an interesting show happening tomorrow night

Conversation with the Artists: Maggie Orth and Joel Kollin

Please join us for a conversation with Maggie Orth and Joel Kollin to learn more about their work in our current Interactivity exhibition.Maggie Orth is an artist, technologist, and entrepreneur who creates and invents interactive and electronic textiles. Orth is considered a pioneer in the emerging field of electronic textiles, interactive fashions, wearable computing, and interface design. Her groundbreaking work in electronic textiles has been published and exhibited in a range of venues worldwide.

Joel S. Kollin is a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media. Contextures is his series of work that engages the viewer’s visual system by challenging its ability to form a stable image. You have to see it in person!

Come join us tomorrow (8/1) from 6pm-8pm for a conversation with these two artists! Hors d’oeuvres will be served. Directions.

The next Ignite Seattle is August 8th at the CHAC. The evening will be a combination of Half-Baked Dotcom and Ignite talks. This time we are doing something special and we’re going to have a contest amongst the speakers. Four speakers will get a chance to do their Ignite talks at Gnomedex, Chris Pirillo’s Seattle-based event. RSVP at Upcoming.

Talks submissions are due by today. Selections will be made by Wednesday. Here are the talks so far.

1. Shawn Murphy – Hacking Chocolate
   Anybody can create interesting and new chocolates with some basic ingredients, imagination and a little technique.
2. Deepak Singh – Small medicine: Nanotechnology and biology
   The start of the art in the applications of nanotechnology to healthcare and medicine
3. Derek Gaw – uncluttring Amazon
   Amazon’s experience is often criticized for being too cluttered. I decided to see what I could do to clean it up.
4. Sarah Schacht – Run the Government: A Primer for Online Citizens
   Web 2.0 has been around for a few years. US democracy-over 200. On/offline best practices & tools for citizen’s activism
5. Elan Lee – My Clothes Tell Secrets
   Examples of storytelling and entertainment embedded in the fabric of the clothes we wear.
6. Brian Dorsey – An embarrassment of riches – the story of Noonhat
   We live in amazing times. Individuals and small groups can build small things with big effects. Even working part time.
7. Dave McClure – Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!
   A simple 5-step model for measuring startup success: 1) Acquisition 2) Activation 3) Retention 4) Referral 5) Revenue
8. Rob Gruhl – How to buy a new car
   Get your next new car for the best price.
9. Beth Goza – Is 2008 the year the “Third Screen” takes center stage?
   With the iPhone release and Google taking a look at mobile search, it’s clear that the 3rd screen is on everyone’s radar
10. Scotto Moore – Make Art Not Content
    A whirlwind examination of the impact that digital media has had on culture’s conception of art and artists.
11. Leo Dirac – Venture Capital Term Sheets
    An intro to how the money gets split up when a venture capital backed startup gets bought or goes public.
12. Maegan Ashworth – No, not skin: Epidemiology for the layman
    Some basic epidemiologic concepts that can help you evaluate biomedical reporting in the popular press.

The talks keep rolling in. We’ve added three more.

1. Shawn Murphy – Hacking Chocolate
   Anybody can create interesting and new chocolates with some basic ingredients, imagination and a little technique.
2. Deepak Singh – Small medicine: Nanotechnology and biology
   The start of the art in the applications of nanotechnology to healthcare and medicine
3. Derek Gaw – uncluttring Amazon
   Amazon’s experience is often criticized for being too cluttered. I decided to see what I could do to clean it up.
4. Elan Lee – My Clothes Tell Secrets
   Examples of storytelling and entertainment embedded in the fabric of the clothes we wear.
5. Brian Dorsey – An embarrassment of riches – the story of Noonhat
   We live in amazing times. Individuals and small groups can build small things with big effects. Even working part time.
6. Dave McClure – Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!
   A simple 5-step model for measuring startup success: 1) Acquisition 2) Activation 3) Retention 4) Referral 5) Revenue
7. Rob Gruhl – How to buy a new car
   Get your next new car for the best price.

We are trying something new this time around: Half-Baked Dotcom. HBD has become quite popular at various O’Reilly events. Itis going to be hosted by one of its creators, Dave McClure. He’s my Web 2.0 Expo co-chair and happens to be in town for Gnomedex. As he describes it:

Half-Baked Dot Com is a participatory exercise in entrepreneur improv conducted by five teams of startup addicts and judged by a crackpot panel of venture capitalists & D-list bloggers (or whomever shows up first). Faster than foreplay with jenna jameson, more creative than a VP explaining a quail hunt, and nearly as much suspense as a scheduled train wreck, Half-Baked is the latest Web 2.0 craze sweeping the unconference circuit. Show up early and bring your A-game if you want to participate, otherwise bring your camera to record the heinous crime to be perpetrated on an unsuspecting audience.

For those who want to participate the team selections will begin around 6:30. The presentations will begin around 7:30. The Ignite Talks will still begin at 8:30.

This is in place of the Make Contest that is normally hosted by Bre. He is unable to make it this time.

The next Ignite Seattle is August 8th at the CHAC. At the last one we had over 350 people throw hundreds of paper airplanes at a hula-hoop and watch 16 great talks. Watch the videos (from Bryan Zug) to see some excellent speakers talk about things like The Science And Art Of Naming and Tamasheq Technology Living La Vie Nomad.  RSVP at Upcoming.

The evening will be a combination of a contest and Ignite talks. This time we are doing something special and we’re going to have a contest amongst the speakers. We’re also going to use voting to select four of the Ignite talks on the Main Stage. These four talks will get a chance to do their Ignite talks at Gnomedex, Chris Pirillo’s Seattle-based event. Submit your talk here.

Specifically, we are going to have 16 Ask Later talks. These talks will each be 5 minutes long with 20 slides and only 15 seconds a slide. Anyone who did not speak at the last Ignite is welcome to speak. We are going to use Mozes to select the Gnomedex talks.

Topics should fall in the realm of web 2.0 technology, entrepreneurship, life hacks, or something else that you think a room full of internet junkies will appreciate. Stories and lessons work better than product demos.

Talks submissions are due by July 30th (though it is better to get in earlier than later as I select them on a rolling basis). All talks will be selected by August 3rd.

Here are some of the selected talks:

• Shawn Murphy – Hacking Chocolate
  Anybody can create interesting and new chocolates with some basic ingredients, imagination and a little technique.
• Deepak Singh – Small medicine: Nanotechnology and biology
  The start of the art in the applications of nanotechnology to healthcare and medicine
• Elan Lee – My Clothes Tell Secrets
  Examples of storytelling and entertainment embedded in the fabric of the clothes we wear.

Buster McLeod spoke at the first Ignite. In that talk he reference his then-about-to-open tech gallery, McLeods. As I am sure you know, it’s now open. This Friday they are going to have a sweet-sounding art opening. I’ll be there. I hope to see you. Info below.
Interactivity
Artists working with Technology
Technologists working with Art

Member Preview: Thursday, July 5, 6pm-12am
Opening Reception: Friday, July 6, 6pm-9pm

Interactivity explores the convergence of art and technology with an entire gallery full of electronic art that patrons are invited to play with. Featuring Magnetic Structure prints and Biomimetic Butterflies by The Barbarian Group, interactive textiles by Maggie Orth, a laser installation by Joel S. Kollin and mixed media work by Felix Livni, Interactivity opens with a reception on Friday, July 6, from 6-9pm. The exhibits will be on display until September 1. The Lounge features McLeod Residence’s ongoing installation of neon work by Jeremy Bert and Jen Elek and furniture by Gary Andolina and James Reinhardt.

Adobe is doing a 10-city bus tour to promote their new RIA platform AIR. Adobe evangelist and Seattle local Ryan Stewart is going to throw Ignite the Web! when the bus rolls into Seattle on July 10th. The day will be all about AIR and the evening will be for their Ignite.
Sadly, neither Bre or I will be there; we’ll both be out of town. Ryan is an Ignite speaker and our on-site twitterer; he’ll do a great job. Mail him if you want to speak.