Ignite London 2

Craig Smith writes:

Ignite London 2 is set to illuminate the Capital on Tuesday 2nd March 2010. It will take place from 7pm at the Luminaire in Kilburn during Global Ignite Week. The Luminaire is a fantastic venue which normally plays host to up-and-coming bands - for one night only, it will be taken over by Ignite, that most Rock and Roll of Geek Get-Togethers. Cory Doctorow and Russell Davies have been announced as Invited Guest Speakers.

There are two other UK Ignites happening that week - the West Country sees its first Ignite with the inaugural Ignite Bristol on the 4th March 2010, while not 50 miles away across the Severn Estuary the now firmly-established Ignite Cardiff will entertain the Geekerati of South Wales on the same night. Both are going to be fantastic events: if you’re in the area, it will be well worth being there!

After speaking at the first Ignite London (of which more later), and having helped Imran Ali assemble Ignite UK North, I wanted to be more involved this time around. Fortunately, Amy Thibodeau and Dan Zambonini, the powerhouse team behind the first Ignite London, were open to contributors stepping in to help, so over the last few weeks I've been working with Amy and Dan to put together Ignite London 2. Besides myself, Andy Kervell, who MCed last time around, and Richard Johnson, who shot the great video footage of the speakers, have also stepped up into a full Organiser capacity. It's been a very happy partnership, and great fun to be involved.

My major job is assembling the speaker line-up. If you fancy stepping up to the mic, follow the links on http://ignitelondon.net/speak - deadline Tuesday 9th February. We're open to proposals on any vaguely geeky topic, so there's plenty of scope: we're after a mix of funny and serious, social and personal, high and low tech, crafty, webby, environmental, quirky and mainstream. Making us laugh is a good thing, making us think is even better. We're looking to have 15 speakers this time around, with two or three places offered to Invited Guest Speakers, so there are lots of spots to go for. The only thing we say is No Sales Pitches.

The original Ignite London was a superb night. Amy and Dan did a great job of assembling one presentation after another which were thought-provoking and funny. Unfortunately, they also had me! Ben Hammersley, O'Reilly author and deputy editor of Wired UK, opened proceedings with the Sex Lives of the Great Renaissance Artists, a presentation which sent me reeling with shockwaves of panic - if the rest of the presentations were going to be this good, I was in trouble. After that, I barely saw another speaker as I was ensconced in the bar away from the stage desperately polishing up my own meager efforts.

At the very first UK Ignite, in Cardiff, I was a happy attendee. I had driven down from London so I could say I was there, and looking back it was a treat to be able to sit back and watch the show unfurl without feeling I had to contribute. At the Second UK Ignite, in Leeds, I was the compère for the evening - however Imran Ali had done such a fine job putting the line-up together that it needed a minimum of MCing to keep the tempo of the evening flowing.

Speaking was a different matter. When I saw the schedule, I was pleased to note that I was kicking off the last act, that the evening would be well under way before I had to do my bit. However, when it came to the actual event, I'd have loved to have got it over with just so I could have watched my fellow speakers without the dread that I still had to step up on stage. It's not that I'm not used to performing - I've done plenty of gigs and readings and speaking engagements to know what it's all about - but somehow Ignite is different. The audience knows their stuff, I'm representing my company, it's about knowledge, fun, geeky knowledge. Maybe I wasn't fun enough. Maybe I wasn't geeky enough. And then there's the same worry I had before speaking at Interesting back in September - what do I know that other people don't? And the fear is, very little.

At Interesting I fell back on a topic I know pretty well, namely my dad. For the latter half of his working life, he renovated waterwheels, (which he still does in retirement). So I call him up, snaffled a few interesting facts from him and built a turn around it.

At Ignite, I resorted to pop/rock music, which is the one area where I have put in my 10,000 Gladwellian hours. Over the years, I have accrued an idiosyncratic hotch-potch of insights from schlepping from rehearsal to gig to studio in umpteen different bands and hour upon hour of listening to recorded music. It wasn't going to be much, but it would have to do.

O'Reilly had offered Amy and Dan a few books to give away as prizes, so before my spot I got to acclimatise to being on the stage as I doled out an assortment of tech books to the worthy winners. And then Andy announced my talk, my presentation started, and it was over in a flash. I haven't dared go back to the video to see what I looked and sounded like, but the audience were kind enough to clap politely, and I didn't get booed, so in that sense I got away with it, and I can sit typing right now knowing I'm an Ignite alumni, that I looked into the void of 5 empty minutes, stood my ground and came back to tell the tale. Nerve-wracking as it was, I'm glad I've done it, and I wouldn't think twice about doing it again if the opportunity ever presented itself.

The Thin Line Between Competence & Greatness by Craig Smith - Ignite London 18 November 2009 from hurryonhome on Vimeo.

Of the speakers I saw, the ones which stick in my head are Nicky Smyth, Toni Basi, Matt Edgar and Chris Thorpe. If I haven't included yours, it's not that I saw it and dismissed it, the chances are I was hiding out of the way learning my lines.