According the Ignite Seattle website, “Ignite Seattle is a geek event that combines on-site geekery, sharing, innovation (and drinking).” Oh and admission is free!

What more could you want? <smile>

This week (Hoochy Coochy? No. It’s Pecha Kucha!) in The Public Speaker, I talk what Ignite (and Pecha Kucha) are and also about the pros and cons of these presentation formats. If you haven’t listened to the show, go ahead, it’s only about 7 minutes. In a nutshell, the talks that use this format are quick (5-6 minutes) and concise and usually use great images.

I highly recommend giving this technique a try–even if only to strengthen and build your presentation skills.

In this blog, instead of describing the Ignite format in detail, I wanted to give you an opportunity to see it for yourself. Keep in mind each one is only five minutes long. I hope you’ll invest the time and take a look. I think it’s worth the time.

The first one is called…How the Hell Did Matt Get People to Dance with Him?

It’s a great example of a successful Ignite talk. Notice the simplistic graphics. (Oh, and if you haven’t seen Matt’s videos you need to check them out too.)

The next one I picked because it’s a good example of Ignite, but it’s also content I think you would be interested in. It’s called Hacking the Technical Interview. I liked it because he outlines three main ideas, but he does struggle to keep synchronized (one of the flaws I mentioned in The Public Speaker podcast). I also like it because it’s talking about effective communication <smile>.

This very short clip above gives you an idea of the room set-up and the interactivity. You don’t see any presentations, but it’s still worth looking at.

As you may know I live in the Philadelphia area and wanted to give the nod to someone local. In the next Ignite presentation the content is good. You can see the problem I mentioned about the presenter having difficulty keeping the words coordinated with the images. (Also, notice right at the beginning the networking aspect.)

OK, so I hope you enjoyed watching these and I hope that you might have picked up an idea or two about making your presentations better.

Maybe I’ve even motivated you to give it a try? I hope so.