The second speakers’ workshop will take place at 7pm on Tuesday, May 17th in the boardroom at The Barley Works (upstairs at the Huether Hotel). The boardroom is at the top of the stairs (and there may be snacks…)

All are welcome — if you went to the first workshop but have new ideas or more questions; or you applied and want some tips, tricks, and polish; or you only recently became interested in speaking at Ignite. Come on out! And if you haven’t yet, check out our speaker info page, and apply if we haven’t heard from you.

We’ve just confirmed our venue, and will be holding the speaker selection meeting soon, and getting to know you first at a workshop is definitely a good way to get on our radar and let us get to know you and your chosen topic a bit better.

And, as always, if you have any questions, feel free to send us an email.

The first speakers’ workshop will take place at 7pm on April 6th in the boardroom at The Barley Works (upstairs at the Huether Hotel). The boardroom is at the top of the stairs (and there may be snacks…)

We will also be adding second speakers’ workshop that will take place in May, and we’ll publicize those details a little closer to the chosen date.

This workshop is a casual get together to meet and greet, discuss ideas, and for those who’ve been on the stage before to share tips and tricks and whatnot to help in presenting. Are you interested in giving an Ignite talk? Then come on out and get to know everyone. Your presentation will benefit from the tips, tricks and conversation. And, of course, don’t forget to submit your presentation application.

We’ve had some fantastic presentation submissions to date, and we can’t wait to see what you’re passionate about!

Speakers’ workshops are also an opportunity for those selecting the presenters to get a feel for the applicants and their talks in person. Sorry, but we can’t just wave a magic wand and approve everyone; there’s a bit of a process! Help us get to know you and your talk and we’ll be that much more likely to add you to the lineup. (And if we have concerns about your topic or style we can work on them right there in person.)

If you have any questions, please let us know in the comments, or send us an email. If you know others who’d be interested in giving an Ignite talk, do pass along the speaker info page and invite them to join you at the speakers’ workshop.

Additionally, we’re looking for a new and bigger venue, so if you have ideas about a new home for Ignite Waterloo, we’d love to hear them.

• Kevin Sutton – Slam Poetry
• Neal Moogk-Soulis – Choo Choo Choose to Reuse
• Ryan Consell – Making a Monster
• Kirk Zurell – Suffr
• Kyle Mackie – Cranially Endowed
• Warren Spires – The KW Humane Society: A Centre of Animal Welfare Excellence
• Sean Zister – Social Entrepreneurship: Creating Social Values
• Matt Scobel – Ideas, Action and the Evils of Planning
• Scott Chantler – The Genesis of Two Generals

Intermission

• Simone Panziera – The Beautiful UnBrandables
• Susan Koswan – In Defense of Dandelions
• David Yoon – Tequila
• Andrew Coppolino – A Waterloo Region Eats Smorgasbord
• Jason Dykstra – What the $#%@ is Mediation?
• Robb Farago – 5 Days for the Homeless
• Paul Carvalho – Congruent Software Testing
• Karen Cecile – Fun With Demographics

Planning and preparations are well underway for our fifth event. As with previous events, we’re having a speakers’ workshop at the Barley Works (upstairs in the Huether Hotel) in Waterloo on Thursday, January 6th, at 7pm. We have the board room at the very top of the stairs booked. There may be snacks…

This workshop is a casual get together to meet and greet, discuss ideas, and for those who’ve been on the stage before to share tips and tricks and whatnot to help in presenting. Do you want to give an Ignite Talk? Then come on out and get to know everyone. Your talk will benefit from the tips and tricks and conversation.

It’s also an opportunity for those selecting the presenters to get a feel for the applicants and their talks in person. Sorry, but we can’t just wave a magic wand and approve everyone; there’s a bit of a process! Help us get to know you and your talk and we’ll be that much more likely to add you to the lineup.

If you have any questions, please let us know. And if you know others who’d be interested in giving an Ignite talk, feel free to pass thing along.

However, without further ado, here is our speaker list…

• Chris Johnston: Movember and Fine Moustachery
• Gunmoll Mindy (Melinda Dalton) and Lippy Wrongstockings (Cyndi Zawada Baker): Roller Derby Saved Our Souls
• Steve Burrows: If it Ain’t Broke, Why Fix it?Christina Moulton: Why the iPad won’t fail
• Mike Shanks: Combining Passions
• Peter Davis: Making Capitalism Work
• Sean Puckett: The Smart Camera
• Cari Howard: Garbage In, Nothing Out: It Doesn’t Go Away!

Intermission

• Sean Stoughten: Forging a Pattern Welded Steel Knife
• Linda Carson: Art: WTF?
• Doug Moen: The 3-D Printer Revolution
• Michelle Benes: Water, Women and Wilson: My Experience School–Building in Kenya
• Brydon Gilliss: Change the World
• Alexander Millar: Born to Run
• Atinuke Bankole: How to Run for Political Office
• Jonathan Fritz: Intellectual Property and Bill C-32
• Melanie Baker: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

This workshop is a casual get together to meet and greet, discuss ideas, and for those who’ve been on the stage before to share tips and tricks and whatnot to help in presenting. Do you want to give an Ignite Talk? Then come on out and get to know everyone.

It’s also an opportunity for those selecting the presenters to get a feel for the applicants and their talks in person. Sorry, but we can’t just wave a magic wand and approve everyone; there’s a bit of a process!

If you have any questions, please let us know. And if you know others who’d be interested in giving an Ignite talk, feel free to pass thing along.

If you applied to give an Ignite Talk in the last few weeks, though, please take the time to apply again. We’re sorry for the inconvenience! If you haven’t previously applied and would like to give a talk, let us know by applying as well.

As we announced last week, Ignite Waterloo 4 is coming in November, and plans are well underway for what promises to be another fine evening of competition, talks, and good fun.

As some of you may already know, Ignite Waterloo 3 is set for July 7, 2010. Several people have already expressed interest in presenting an Ignite Talk, but we’d like to hear from anyone else who is interested in doing so as well.

Are you interested? Take some time to learn more about us and the Ignite format. Have a look at the videos of presentations from the first two Ignite Waterloo events. That should give you a good idea of what our events have been like. Also, take a look at an Ignite talk by Scott Berkun on how to do an Ignite Talk. Finally, we’re planning an Ignite Waterloo workshop to help prospective speakers prepare for their talk. It’s tentatively set for April 20, with details to come. If you hope to present an Ignite talk, keep the workshop in mind!

If all that sounds interesting to you, then please fill out an Ignite Waterloo speaker application. Do it soon though, as planning is already underway!

Update June 15, 2010: Speaker Applications for Ignite Waterloo 3.0 on July 7, 2010 are now closed. Please watch www.ignitewaterloo.ca for upcoming speaker requests for Ignite Waterloo 4.0, date TBA.

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: Myth-conceptions of Dubai & Abu Dhabi
  
• 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
• Brendan Lowther: 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.

• 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!