Last night I attended Ignite Portland with a few friends. I missed the first one last year, but I attended Portland Barcamp, which is organized by many of the same folks. Ignite is a fun event: there are a bunch of speakers that can talk on any topic. They have 20 slides for 15 seconds (a total of 5 minutes for each talk). It is a fun format and the Bagdhad Theater was full to capacity (they had to turn away at least 150 people).
(photo credit, Josh Bancroft)
The speakers ranged both in topics and quality. Although there were lots of geeks in the audience, not all the talks were geeky. But if amateur rocket building and robot building are both on the agenda, you know that it’s got to be a pretty nerdy crowd.
The crowd favorites seemed to be some of the more cheeky talks, such as “How to be an Undercover Hooker” and “Why David Hasselhoff is so popular in Germany“. There was one talk that was deeply personal “” and I think it caught people off guard.
Overall the event was a ton of fun, and it was FREE! They even had free food for the early birds and lots of give-aways. Of course, nothing it truly free, and the one downside to the event was that you had to listen to the long list of sponsors at the start of the event. It’s kinda like Google search: it’s free, but there are some ads in your results.
The crowd was very lively and didn’t mind speaking their opinions. I will definitely be attending future events. I will make a point of attending future events!