I’ll be presenting at Ignite Tampa Bay next Thursday!

Ignite Tampa Bay takes place in Tampa next Thursday, August 27th from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Cuban Club…and Yours Truly will be one of the speakers!

Ignite is a quick presentation format with the following constraints:

• The presentation is exactly five minutes long
• The presenter is accompanied by 20 slides, which advance automatically every 15 seconds

Olivia Mitchell, who teaches how to make effective presentations, describes the Ignite format as “the presentation equivalent of a haiku or a sonnet”. If you’ve seen a lightning talk, an Ignite presentation’s a little longer, and if you’re familiar with the Pecha Kucha presentation format, it’s similar, but a little shorter and simpler.

If you need to see an example of an Ignite talk, why not take a look at one of mine? This is the one I did at Ignite Toronto 4, which took place waaay back in September 2010, which for me was practically a former life. It’s called Go Busk Yourself, and in it, I tell the audience to become street musicians, because it’s life-changing:

Here’s the first slide from my upcoming presentation:

That’s right, I’ll be talking about our local superheroes, Florida Man and Florida Woman. Here’s the abstract, which I had to keep short:

“Florida Man” and “Florida Woman”, those staples of slow news days and internet memes are this state’s most valuable resource. They’re the products of Truth™, Justice™, and the American Way™, and the surest signs of a better tomorrow. I’ll explain how this can be, complete with Florida Man logic and a closing accordion number.

Tickets are still available for Ignite Tampa Bay, but they’re selling out quickly! Make sure you don’t miss out on one of the city’s most thought-provoking and entertaining events put on by its most engaged citizenry.

Recommended reading

• Tampa Bay Times: Ignite Tampa gives speakers 5 minutes to spark a community movement.
• My notes from Ignite Tampa Bay 2014. I attended last year’s Ignite, took copious notes, and posted them here. This should give you a bit of the flavor of last year’s event.
• Videos from Ignite Tampa Bay 2014: a small collection of videos of presentations from last year’s event.
• The Ignite page. Want to see Ignite presentations from all over the world? You’ll want to check out this page.