Still a little fuzzy after all the festivities last night, but wanted to post some thoughts and notes.
Presenters
The whole point of Ignite, we had another great set of speakers on topics from food to Capoeira to rocking women to exploding pacemakers. It was an incredibly diverse mix (again!) and I heard a lot of buzz and discussion about the topics after the event and at the after-party. There are already 300+ pictures posted on Flickr!
Videos of all the talks are being processed and will be on our Blip.TV station in a few days.
Follow-up
One of the high points for me was hearing afterwards from presenters who had already made connections with other people to give follow-up information on their talk. I even heard from some past presenters who said they had several speaking opportunities and connections come directly as a result of participating in Ignite Phoenix.
Also appreciated all the discussion and debates at the hopping after party at La Bocca. Many thanks to Gabi @ Yelp for helping us set that up!
Venue
Our biggest turnout yet, we estimate about 520 people showed up and everyone was able to get a seat in the theater, which was a gorgeous place to showcase the speakers. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we worked through the process and learned the joys of ticketing.
Future Events
Ignite Phoenix is committed to showcasing exciting things happening in the whole Phoenix Metropolitan Area, and we had several people ask us about future locations. We would love to have events again in Phoenix itself and on the west side. The problem is a good venue.
If you know of about a 500 seat venue that is good for presentations and socialization and willing to help us out on cost, let us know.
Format Changes
Instead of speaking, this time our Platinum sponsors created short videos to share their own passion, interests, or creativity. Got a lot of good feedback on it, and will probably use it for everyone in the future and eliminate speakers entirely. This will help us keep the focus on the presenters.
Slideshow Karaoke was a roll of the dice, and everyone seemed to love it. The goal was to bring the energy back up after intermission, and @msherr, @timgiron, and @krysvs did all that and more. Huge thanks to Bookmans for donating some prize schwag for all three!
Volunteers
We had a bunch of people turn up early, ready to rock and roll, and the night would not, absolutely not, have been a success without them! They ushed, ran messages, worked tickets, and jumped into the chaos wherever they could. Huge, mad, crazy thanks to all of them for their hard work. Another example of how the Phoenix community rocketh!
Unfortunately there are always a few things that go awry, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention them. I’ll keep these short and sweet…
Presentation Surprise
Presenters are selected based on the idea they submit. Having a presenter change their topic entirely once they get on the stage is disrespectful to the event, the people who came, and most importantly to the people who submitted other ideas that were not selected. I was off stage when this happened and didn’t find out about it until afterwards, or I would have shut it down. We’ve never had this happen before so weren’t watching for it, but it won’t happen again.
Thanks to everyone in attendance who made their feelings known via Twitter and didn’t create a harsh scene for the people who followed.
Towing
Several people had their cars towed while attending the after party, which sounds like it is part of an ongoing issue in Tempe. It was a sour capper on an otherwise great evening, and if you have thoughts on the issue let the Tempe City Government know.
Overall a great event, and we learned tons to keep making Ignite even better. If you’re interested in being part of the team to make that happen, please send an email to ignitephoenix@gmail.com
Share your own thoughts, picture links, and ideas in the comments!
Cheers!
More from Ignite Phoenix
- Ignite Phoenix 8 Date, Time, (Location?????) and more…
- Lineup for Ignite Phoenix #4 Announced
- Ignite Phoenix 6′s amazing submissions, and Global Ignite Week!
- Ignite Phoenix 5 – Recap, Updates, and Thank yous!
- Ignite 3 Recap – Wow. Just… wow.
Ignite Phoenix Recommends
- The Next Ignite: June 24th (Ignite Vancouver)
- Phoenix WordCamp will be broadcasted live! (Phoenix WordCamp)
- WordCamp Phoenix 2009 Details (Phoenix WordCamp)
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Jeff, et. al-You guys really outdid yourselves once again with Ignite Phoenix 4. TCA is a gorgeous place for this event. It really does kick ass. Thank you for your efforts, and congratulations on putting on a first class networking event.
I (as usual) watched the event from the streaming, which was really well done again too. It is a shame that the Mayor and Councilwoman were so adamant about promoting Tempe instead of promoting phx metro community building. Its even more of a shame that you are at the TCA again for Ignite #5, because it seems like you are going to need even more space next time! Great speeches (minus that one guy) and great efforts by all, really glad to have been able to e-attend. Great great work.
A few points:Jeff & team: You folks kick ass. I had great time, and I’m proud to have been a part of it.About the next location: The Tempe city sales pitch was sort of cute, but sort of annoying. We got it the first time, guys; time to get over the name “Ignite Phoenix”. I’d love to see a new location, not in Tempe, especially after the towing scam nonsense on Mill. But it’s hard to walk away from a good spot.La Bocca was fail. Hella noisy, too warm, but mainly crap service. Would never return; ultimate win was the company I kept while there.
+1 on y’all volunteers kicking ass. Note on the towing thing…I lived/worked/schooled in the downtown Tempe area for years, and around Mill is notoriously unforgiving when it comes to ticketing and towing. The city has some legitimate reasons relating to the congestion/popularity of the area and ASU campus, but regardless, be aware that the towing companies get a commission for each vehicle they nab. If you’re “bending” any parking laws–even off of Mill Avenue–it’s the perfect storm of incentives to get your vehicle hauled away.
As one who had his car towed, I can attest to the extreme suckage factor of that incident.But let’s not let it detract from the event. Ignite Phoenix rocked. I suspect those of us that volunteered or attended can’t begin to imagine the effort Jeff and team put into organizing Ignite. They are to be commended!I think you should consider doing additional “karaoke” sessions. It was fabulous.
I six-hand the emotion that Ignite rocked last night! I was amazed at the level of organization required to get everyone attended to and in their seats. The theater was amazing. I see the Tempe message botching as an opportunity for some good coaching about community and social media.Imagine how different it would have felt for us attendees to be welcomed from all parts of the *Phoenix Metro Area* to a beautiful venue in Tempe in the spirit of sharing and collaboration? To hear that even people like me who live so far out in East Mesa that we have to ride a horse once we get off the last stop of the light rail, are welcome as equals in the city of Tempe?Let’s see, does anyone know a really good social media consultant with a fantastic perspective on both? Say, one who, um, recently quit his job at Intel?
I’d just like to apologize for my presentation on Tuesday night. The reaction has definitely shown me that deviating from the slides I submitted was a bad idea. I definitely didn’t intend to undermine people’s hard work, but I take people’s sense of the situation very seriously. I felt like I was acting within the rules because I was talking about the same subject I submitted: how to work outside current educational institutions. Also, because I was suggesting an idea for a non-profit organization–an idea that anyone could use to start their own for-profit or non-profit organization–I thought I was within the rules prohibiting sales pitches. Obviously, a lot of hard-working people who have been part of Ignite from the beginning disagree. Regarding ad-libbing…that I wasn’t really prepared to give the presentation I ultimately gave should suggest to people that this was a spur of the moment decision, rather than a ploy. I really just wanted to talk about something I found exciting in a way that other people might find exciting, too. Many harsh things have been said about my motives in presenting the way I did, and I take those comments very seriously, so I’d just like to explain my thought process leading up to my presentation:I was prepared to give a much more academic talk on the historical connection between the social context of work and the social context of education. At the end of this talk, I was planning on hinting at the idea I ultimately presented. After seeing Katie’s excellent presentation on social media in the classroom, I felt like I wanted to share the idea I had for a non-profit organization: One that would harness advertising revenue to sponsor user-generated micro-publishing houses that would provide educational content to users for free. The idea is present in for-profit forms like YouTube, eHow.com, etc. but the incentive mechanism for producers is much stronger if the site is administered by a non-profit. Another presentation, which introduced the concept of meta-entrepreneurship, or facilitating other people’s power through entrepreneurship, encouraged me to talk about the non-profit organization in question. I see it as an example of meta-entrepreneurship because it uses market mechanisms to give producers of content entry into the publishing market and students free access to education.In any event, when I was watching the other presentations on education, I felt like I was witnessing people describe real innovations. I felt it was appropriate to share one of my ideas that was directly related to the topic I had submitted: The Beginning of the End of Institutional Education. I took a risk by sharing this idea, which is fine. But the way I shared it was offensive to a lot of people. For that, I am really sorry. I wouldn’t do it again, and I’m sure I’ll never be able to present at Ignite events in the future. I will, however, continue to develop this idea in a non-proprietary fashion.Jon Rodis
@Jon Rodis Jon,I’m perplexed by the characterization your presentation evidently has received. What I thought was lame was the “ignore the slides behind me” bit. But I didn’t see it as a sales ploy (for the same reasons you have laid out). It may be a pie in the sky idea, maybe naive in my estimation, but then again lots of brainstorming ideas are and at least get some discussion going. I agree you brought up stuff in the true spirit of the event.
Jeff, what was the name of the organization you’re founding to support Ignite/podcamp/etc.? Great work last night. Blown away. La Bocca was a bit of a bummer place for networking, love their food though!
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