Ignite Boulder 7

The long-awaited Ignite Boulder 7 was this Thursday night. For those of you who weren't already spammed by me or my facebook, Ignite is a worldwide speaker series (started in Seattle) in which a community gets together, selects a dozen or so speakers, and gives each presenter 5 minutes to talk about 20 slides that self advance after 15 seconds on each slide. My friend Ben is one of the organizers for Ignite Boulder, and the man behind running the presentations on the screen. Topics vary from serious to outrageous, and are half-selected by community votes, and half-selected by organizer picks. Ben chose me this last time around, and I had a lot of fun presenting. I attended Ignite Boulder 6 in September as a spectator, and had an absolute blast. Some of my favorites from that round:







Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I will be reposting pictures borrowed from some of the other lovely speakers from the evening. These pictures are all courtesy of Alek Kormarnitsky, fellow speaker (talked about his trip to Antarctica), and man who you may know as the guy who's Christmas lights you can control via the internet (http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam). More photos from the event can be found on his website: http://www.komar.org/faq/travel/vacation/antarctica/ignite/. Thanks a ton to Alek for the photos--his presentation was full of gorgeous pictures, and he did a great job of narrating his trip in a short 5 minutes.

The event was held at the Boulder Theatre to a sell-out crowd!
Ben, manning the slides happily.
I've never spoken in front of that many people before...I believe the final count was around 750! The topics ranged from "Cast Iron Cookware: Why your Great-Grandma Schools Your Ass in Sustainability" (done by Derek Olson, and downright hilarious and informative) to "When to Call in Sick for a Powder Day" (Meteorologist and skier, Joel Gratz, who has a great website to help you predict those awesome powder days) to worldclass rock climber (who has been sponsored by Patagonia, PrAna, Clif Bar, and Five Ten), Steph Davis, on her adventures in BASE jumping. Overall, I couldn't believe how much fun I had for the low price of $10. :)

At intermission, they did an iPod give away...and Ellery was one of the winners!
Nervously at the podium. My presentation was entitled, 'Save the Engineers! A Cause for an Endangered Species'...
I was so antsy, and was hoping that people would laugh at my jokes and at least give me some pity applause. Turns out, there were plenty of engineers in the crowd, and everybody was so warm and supportive! I don't have a Twitter account, but Ben recapped my responses for me via his iPhone. I was really excited, because "jake" turns out to be the founder of Threadless Tees, an insanely successful company that provides artists means of producing their designs on shirts and making these available to purchase. I own half a dozen Threadless shirts myself, and had no idea that the company was based in Boulder.


Here's another favorite...the marriage proposal from a complete stranger!
The event was filmed by Craig Kendall, and I will re-post as soon as the videos are up. Ignite Boulder 8 will be sometime in late Winter, probably in the February time frame. I can't wait to see what the line up brings, and I can guarantee you that I will be there!