Archive for November, 2009

Here’s the way it went down

Posted by Mark Connolly in Ignite Waterloo 1 on November 28, 2009

Artifacts from the first Ignite Waterloo event are starting to appear around the web. This one is our official record of last Wednesday’s evening of fun.

Ignite Waterloo Event #1 (November 25, 2009)

6:00pm Doors open

6:45pm The cupcake decorating contest begins

8:00pm Ignite talks (round 1, 8 speakers)

  • Jesse Rodgers: How to run an ‘unconference’
  • Jayne Thompson: Flood Forecasting and Climate Change
  • Aden Seaman: How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube in 90 seconds
  • Brent Curry: Nudging people onto bikes in the age of the automobile
  • David Swart: What do you do with visible spheres?
  • Darin White: Meta-Making: A hacker space in 17 easy steps
  • Jaclyn Konzelmann: Teaching hasn’t changed. Is it still effective?
  • Kevin Thaler: Policing in 2009: Five minutes on twenty years of change

8:45pm Intermission (chat, get refreshed, etc.)

9:00pm Ignite talks (round 2, 8 speakers)

  • David Estil: Here Comes the Sun: Solar Energy as development home and abroad
  • Simon Clark: Hacking the Hood
  • Jason Shim: ‘Til Disconnection Do We Part: A Second Life Wedding
  • Levi McCulloch: A Real Fraternity Road Trip
  • Mark Connolly: Are you sure that’s an album? Metaphor in product design
  • Dr. Matt Renaud: High Altitude Medicine
  • Nick Oddson: How Theatre Helped My Career: Improvisational guidelines for work and life
  • John Fishbein: Meet the Real Africa

10:00pm Announce cupcake decorating contest winner (Kevin, for his superb trompe l’oile hamburger), and wrap up

11:00pm No, really! We’re done now! Time to go home!

Update (2009-11-29): I was quite remiss in not again thanking our sponsors for supporting this first event. Here’s a big thanks to Schlueter Cheverolet Hummer, who came on board first; Philip Bast; and Communitech.

, ,

3 Comments

Slides, pictures, tweets, and more

Posted by Mark Connolly in Ignite Waterloo 1, Watch Ignite Waterloo Videos on November 28, 2009

Artifacts are popping up around the web documenting our first event last Wednesday. Here are a few you can check out.

Update (2009-11-29): Renjie Butalid has created a spectacularly cool video summary of the event. It’s embedded here:

A complete slide deck is available. It’s embedded here:

Ignite! Waterloo

View more documents from Ignite Waterloo.

A set of photos is available here, and likely elsewhere on the web as well. There’s a Flickr photo group, though it’s empty as I write this. If you attended and have some pictures, be sure to add them.

There’s a twitter stream. It may drift off over time, but as I write this it provides fine coverage of the first event.

Here are a few nice write-ups. Again, there are likely others out there.

, , ,

3 Comments

That certainly worked out well

Posted by Mark Connolly in Ignite Waterloo 1 on November 26, 2009

Well, it feels safe to say that the first event was a great success by just about any measure. We had a full slate of 16 speakers (two of whom were last minute substitutions), we had a great crowd, and we had had plenty of cupcakes decorated. The Children’s Museum was pretty much the perfect venue. The crowd was generous and supportive, and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Ignite Waterloo hit this first event out of the metaphorical ballpark. On behalf of everyone behind Ignite Waterloo, thanks to all the folks who came out to watch, to participate, to facilitate, and to otherwise help build this new pocket of community in Waterloo Region.

We’ll get some documentation up soon. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of the evening’s activities.

This is just the beginning. Stay tuned!

1 Comment

More tickets for Ignite Waterloo

Posted by Mark Connolly in Ignite Waterloo 1 on November 23, 2009

We have good news on the ticket front as we approach our very first Ignite Waterloo event this Wednesday.

We’ve been able to configure seating at the Children’s Museum such that we can now handle 150 people at Wednesday’s event, rather than 120. That means that if you were on the waiting list, you should now have a ticket! If you weren’t on the list, you can still sign up and possibly get a ticket. Finally, there’s still the option of showing up on Wednesday and getting in line — we’ll let admit folks without tickets starting at 7:00pm if there’s room.

A related message for ticket holders is to make sure you arrive before 7:00pm if you want guaranteed entry.

It looks like we should have a great first event. The slides have all been delivered, and our speakers have been busy rehearsing and otherwise preparing for their talks.

And then there’s the cupcakes…

1 Comment