Category: IgnitePDX

Ignite Portland, the Portland-flavored version of the O’Reilly concept designed to encourage the sharing of burning ideas in 5 minutes or less, just wrapped up.

Held at the Wieden+Kennedy office in the Pearl, the rumored-to-be-oversold attendance numbers—somewhat miraculously—proved to be exactly the number of people allowed by the fire code. Go figure.

Topics of the 18 presentations ranged from knitting to unicycling to chickens to turning Japanese.

Rest assured, there was some geeky stuff, as well.

Exit polls are looking very positive. Every presenter should be very proud. (I’m not going to call any favorites. But if you want to do so in the comments, I won’t stop you.)

A heartfelt thanks to the organizers: Josh Bancroft, Dawn Foster, Todd Kenefsky, Raven Zachary, and the bevy of other geeks and non-geeks who helped make this a reality. And an equally heartfelt thanks to all of the presenters who made this whole thing incredibly interesting.

If you missed the event, you can read the Twitter stream, check the photos by tag or in the Flickr group, wait patiently for the video to be uploaded, or you can read some of these recaps:

• Official Ignite Portland recap (to be posted October 26)
• Thank you thank you thank you for making Ignite Portland a success
• Ignite Portland kicked ass
• Ignite Portland event at W+K
• Cooling down after Ignite Portland
• Ignite and my bike
• Adam DuVander: Slides and links from Ignite Portland
• I know more about Russell Davies than I do about my boss sitting across from me
• For online Scrabble addicts
• Ignite: Stories and comments
• Ignite Portland Wrap-up
• All fired-up in Portland
• Ignite Portland debrief
• Burning down Portland (kind of)
• Ignite Portland: The Event

Got a recap? Post it to the comments and I’ll make sure to add it to the list.

(Personally, I got the chance to meet a bunch of the real-life versions of the avatars I see on a daily basis. To all of those folks, thank you so much. Great to see you. I know there were a bunch of people I missed, as well. And I’m truly sorry that we didn’t get the chance to meet.)

The next event is planned for January. Hope to see you—and meet you—there.

Ignite Portland is filling up. So much so, that they’re about to overrun the space so kindly donated by the folks at Wieden+Kennedy.

It’s a fire code issue.

Ignite. Fire code. Get it? (Tap, tap, tap) Is this thing on?

Anyway, don’t let that stop you. Head on over to the Ignite Portland Upcoming page and RSVP. If need be, I’ll give up my seat so that you can get in to see the presentations.

Who’s presenting? I’m glad you asked, the presenters are:

• Raven Zachary (What is Ignite?)
• Urban Scout
• Steve Morris
• Audrey Eschright
• Sarah Gilbert
• Kevin Tate
• Scott Huber
• Scott Kveton
• Crystal Beasley
• Douglas Wolk
• Hideshi Hamaguchi
• Adam Duvander
• Justin Kistner
• Keith Gerr
• Bill DeRouchey
• MarcoPolo
• Selena Deckelmann
• MJ

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of the Ignite Portland concept. And I’m hoping that a bunch of you are planning to attend.

I also hope that some of you are going to present. And if you’re in that group, then you should know that the deadline for Ignite Portland presentation proposals is October 16.

We’ve had a great response to our call for presenters. So much so that we have more ideas than presentation slots; however, keep them coming! We’ll just have to pick the best ones. Keep in mind that we expect these to be regular events, so if you do not get to present at this one, you will have other opportunities.

If you are thinking about jumping into the fray, I’d highly encourage you to visit the Ignite Portland presentation page.

Looking forward to Ignite Portland? I hear you, brother and/or sister. Same here.

And I’d like to see as many folks getting involved in this thing as possible. So I created (and I use that term very loosely so as not to imply any actual “creativity”) a little badge to help promote the event.

And now, I’d like to share.

If you’re interested in promoting Ignite Portland, you can use the badge, too. Have at it.

What’s that? You’d like to use my bandwidth to host the image so that I can track your Web metrics?

That’s cool.

Feel free to use the following code, allowing you to slap this bad boy into whatever Web page you like without any of those annoying graphic uploads:

<!-- Ignite Portland care of Silicon Florist -->
<a href="http://www.igniteportland.com" title="Ignite Portland">
<img src="http://siliconflorist.com/images/promoIgnitePortland.gif" title="Ignite Portland promo" alt="Ignite Portland promo" border="0" height="135" width="135" />
</a>

Presenter or sponsor? We’ve got you covered.

Got a better one? I should hope so. What took you so long? Link it up and share the love.

It’s official! Ignite Portland has set its date and location: October 25 at Wieden+Kennedy.

We have a confirmed date and venue! Ignite Portland will happen on Thursday, October 25, 2007, at Wieden & Kennedy (224 NW 13th Ave, Portland, OR). Exact time TBD, but it will be in the evening, around 6PM to 9PM. The WK space is AMAZING – many thanks to Renny Gleeson and everyone at Wieden & Kennedy for being willing to host us.

That means you (yes, you) have got stuff to do, like:

• RSVP
• Sponsor Ignite Portland
• Sign-up to present at Ignite Portland

For more information, see the Ignite Portland site. To stay up-to-date on the latest news, subscribe to the Ignite Portland feed.

I am happy to report that Ignite Portland is starting to become a roaring blaze. Good activity this week.

Today, Josh Bancroft, the founding force behind the event, released the Ignite Portland constitution, advising:

These are meant to be the criteria, values, and guidelines that Ignite Portland will follow. Without them, the “core things we care about”, it could and will likely become just another tech conference/event. Let’s make it something unique, or we may as well not do it. Of course, these are subject to debate and change – what you’re about to read right now is my take on this, as of today.

In other news, Raven Zachary, one of the organizers of BarCamp Portland and a founding member of Ignite Portland, announced that Ignite Portland will subsume DemoCamp Portland, the BarCamp Portland sister event.

For a number of reasons, we’re going to retire DemoCamp Portland and fold it into the Ignite Portland effort. There are similarities between the two events, and the no slides approach for DemoCamp limited some presentation ideas. Ignite Portland appeals to a larger audience. BarCamp is going to be an annual event in Portland – stay tuned for more details in early 2008. We may do a series of demos at the 2008 BarCamp, but not likely as ‘DemoCamp.’ Ignite Portland will probably be a quarterly event, but this may change, based on popularity.

For more details, visit the Ignite Portland site.