Ignite Waterloo

Ignite Waterloo 2 review roundup

Mark Connolly — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:08:22 +0000

As with our first event, there are many reviews, photos, and tweets out there that document last Wednesday’s Ignite Waterloo event. Here’s a small sampling of it. Please add links via a comment for this post!

The stream of tweets produced before, during, and after the event is worth a look.

Ignite Waterloo organizer @wendyhoomo has a nice collection of photos from the Lego building contest.

Ignite Waterloo organizer @ramynassar has posted a selection of his pictures from the evening.

@cutergecko has a thorough rundown over at the cutebecko blog. Thanks Amy!

@angrycelery, who presented a talk, tells us what the evening was like in words and pictures.

@ericarw gives us a peak into her own pre-talk jitters.

Here’s a nice summary from organizer @daejin_v2 over at his Daejin Media blog. It includes links to various other resources/reviews/photos.

Finally, here are my own blogged thoughts on the entertaining evening, with a lone photo for visual spice.

Videos are on their way, and we’ll be sure to announce them as soon as they’re available.

Ignite Waterloo 2 has come and gone with a bang

Mark Connolly — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:48:51 +0000

The second Ignite Waterloo event was last night and it was a blast. It was also a part of Global Ignite Week, which makes us all very proud. As with the first event last November, we had great speakers, great attendees, and a perfect venue. Thanks to everyone who attended, milled about, talked with people, and otherwise made the evening such a success.

We’ll follow up shortly with links to photos, tweets, and other digital remnants of the festivities. Meanwhile, here’s our official record of last night’s evening of fun.

Ignite Waterloo Event #2 (March 3, 2010)

6:30pm Doors open

7:15pm The Lego building contest begins

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

Angela Pause: The Evolution of Sex
Vince Jelenic: Community, Cliques and Scenes
Renjie Butalid: Welcome to UAE
Lisa Farlow: Staying Sincere Online
Alex Matan: How to Solve an Accordion in 45 Seconds
Erica Waugh: In a Roundabout Way
Jeff Henry: How to Change a Politician’s Mind
Kyle Mackie: Conferences Suck

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

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

Tom Skazinski: Zoom Out and Emerge
Hilary Abel: Something About Blogging(!)
Sunshine Chen: Stories on Storytelling
Peter Huang: Geek Music
Ramy Nassar: A Reverse History of Pranks
Schien Dong: Advertiser’s Dilemma
Brenan Lowler: Geocaching
Kareem Shehata: Lessons Learned from Flying

10:00pm Announce that the Lego decorating contest winning entry was the world’s smallest foosball table, and wrap up

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

Apparently the after-party was good fun as well.

Finally, here’s a big thanks to our sponsors Communitech, The Children’s Museum, The Event Firm, Modevation Media, Philip Bast, Schlueter Cheverolet Hummer, and Toy Building Zone. We couldn’t have done it without you! As well, thanks to those folks who actually paid to attend; your contributions made the event a better one than it would have been.

Here comes Ignite Waterloo 2!

Mark Connolly — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:09:37 +0000

The next Ignite Waterloo event is this coming Wednesday, and the details are falling into place nicely. Here’s a finalized list of speakers:

Hilary Abel – Blogging
Renjie Butalid – Myth-conceptions of Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Sunshine Chen – Fort Mac and The ‘Loo… A Tale of Two Cities
Lisa Farlow – Personal Blogging
Jeff Henry – How to Convince a Politician to Change His or Her Mind
Peter Huang – Geek Music
Vince Jelenic – Talk: Community, Cliques & Scenes
Brendan Lowther – Geocaching
Kyle Mackie – making conferences suck less
Alex Matan – The illiterate peasant’s guide to playing the accordion
Carey Miller – Project Management – Leadership vs Paperwork
Ramy Nassar – It’s Not About The Camera
Angela Pause – The Evolution of Sex
Tom Skazinski – Computing project that advocates a paradigm shift in social change.
Jenn Wagner – Adult fans of LEGO
Erica Waugh – In a Roundabout Way

And here’s the agenda for the evening. Note that the doors open a little later than they did for our first event.

6:30pm Doors open  7:15pm The Lego contest begins  8:00pm Ignite talks (round 1, 8 speakers)  8:45pm Intermission (chat, get refreshed, etc.)  9:00pm Ignite talks (round 2, 8 speakers)  10:00pm Announce Lego contest winner and wrap up  11:00pm No, really! We’re done now! Time to go home!

6:30pm — Doors open
7:15pm — The Lego contest begins
8:00pm — Ignite talks (round 1, 8 speakers)
8:45pm — Intermission (chat, get refreshed, etc.)
9:00pm — Ignite talks (round 2, 8 speakers)
10:00pm — Announce Lego contest winner and wrap up
11:00pm — No, really! We’re done now! Time to go home!

Should be fun!

Registration now open for Ignite Waterloo 2

Mark Connolly — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:48:04 +0000

Plans are progressing nicely for our first event of 2010. As previously announced, it’s on Wednesday March 3 at the Children’s Museum in Kitchener. We’re close to finalizing the list of speakers and topics for their talks. Just to whet your appetites, here’s an initial list of 8 out of 16 speakers. More details to come!

Renjie Butalid — Myth-conceptions of Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Sunshine Chen — Fort Mac and The ‘Loo… A Tale of Two Cities
Peter Huang — Geek Music
Vince Jelenic — Community, Cliques & Scenes
Angela Pause — The Evolution of Sex
Cahill Puil — Micro-Finance
Tom Skazinski — Computing project that advocates a paradigm shift in social change.
Erica Waugh — In a Roundabout Way

Registration is now open. Sign up and join the fun.

Update: While the exact times are still being determined, the schedule will be similar to our first event.

Second Ignite Waterloo event is on for March 3!

Mark Connolly — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:47:10 +0000

It’s been a little quite here in recent weeks, certainly in comparison to the activity around our first event. The cone of silence is now coming off, though, and we’re pleased to announce that Ignite Waterloo #2 is happening on March 3. Once again, it will be at The Children’s Museum in Kitchener. Details on speakers, registration, and other meaningful news will emerge soon, but for now mark that date in your calendar and let people know that we’ll be back soon!

Update: I should have mentioned that our local event is part of Global Ignite Week, which includes Ignite events around the world. How cool is that?

Videos from our first event now available

Mark Connolly — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:40:46 +0000

Thanks to Philip Bast, we now have a video record of the 16 talks given at our first IgniteWaterloo event. Have a look at our spiffy new Vimeo site and dig into the videos. The talks are every bit as engaging and edifying on video as they were that night at the Children’s museum. And get this — the videos are collected together into an album!

“Enlighten us … but do it quickly”

David Yoon — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:29:56 +0000

Videographer Philip Bast was on hand for Ignite Waterloo’s inaugural event. Graciously donating his time, Philip captured the evenings presentations and is working on compiling them for us. Here’s the first of his video snapshots, also featured on The Record.com Video Reports under Geek Culture.

Ignite Waterloo #2 is coming your way

Mark Connolly — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:00:07 +0000

Some of the Ignite organizers got together for a lunch meeting today to talk about the first event last week and to begin planning for the second event, tentatively set for March 2010. The general feeling is that, minor glitches aside, the first event worked quite well.

But others may have a different take.

Were you at our first event? If so, what did you think? What did you like? What might you want to see done differently? Please let us know by leaving a comment for this post.

Here’s the way it went down

Mark Connolly — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:50:03 +0000

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.

Slides, pictures, tweets, and more

Mark Connolly — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:48:44 +0000

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:

Ignite Waterloo from Renjie Butalid on Vimeo.

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.

Great coverage on the Red Canary site
Communitech sponsored the event, and Thom Ryan wrote a blog post about it
A summary on The Flying Squirrel (Darcy Casselman’s blog)
A write up in a sketchbook, from b.p.
Darin White’s report on his experience as a speaker and attendee
Wendy Hood-Morris gives us a peak into the thoughts of a cupcake decorating contest judge
A summary at Slideaway Media
Read about the event in general and the cupcakes in particular at the readqatalyst blog
A brief post on my own blog