The Ignite format was an interesting experience to work with. The rule is that you turn in 20 slides, which will advance automatically every 15 seconds, giving you time for exactly a 5-minute talk with no opportunity to slow down, speed up, or start over. It seems to be a relatively new rule that "no notes" are allowed on stage. Maybe that's just to weed out people who weren't going to rehearse at all.
Unfortunately, I didn't hear about and apply for this Ignite until the last possible moment, so by the time I was notified that my talk was accepted, that left only a few days before the slides were due. My luck running true to form, that was the exact moment I started coming down with the stupid influenza. If Paula hadn't jumped in to help make the slides, I would have failed to deliver.
It was an interesting interative process, and probably my process was different that what many would use. First, I had to write a script that I could verifiably perform within 5 minutes. I was surprised to realize that 5 minutes of talking was little more than one sheet of paper. Then I had to recite the script and mark the slide boundaries. Then slides had to be made that at least roughly corresponded to what was being said at the time.
By that time, slides were due, so they were essentially set in stone even though I had not started serious rehearsing. Rehearsing showed problems. Too much material was crammed into 5 minutes, requiring a rapid pace that allowed no space for audience laughter and, worse, no recovery time if I made even the slightest stumble. Unable to change the slides at that point, I just had to mercilessly edit the script to create a reasonable amount of slack.
Only by yesterday did I get the final tuned script complete. Unfortunately, I'm prone to losing my voice and have entered the coughing phase of the influenza, so I had to stop rehearsing, except for a couple final run-throughs just before going to sleep (to give my brain the hint that that's what it should be moving to longer-term storage while I was asleep).
Today, I'll do a small amount of shuffle rehearsing: pick a random slide and start the talk at that point. The goal being that even if I have the complete disaster of a coughing fit or being unable to remember entire lines, I can hopefully get going again. Then I'll gird myself with dextromethorphan and plastic bag (rebreathing quickly opens the carotid, moving more oxygen to the brain) and head out to give it the old college try. What could possibly go wrong?
3 comments:
How'd the presentation go?
Ignite! Seattle had a better quality level of speakers than I expected. I watched in horror as nobody in the first round of speakers really imploded or even stumbled much. The talk on ancient maps particularly impressed me; it may not have been the most effective at conveying information, but the speaker just ticked off his tightly-written lines like smooth clockwork. I could appreciate how much work he must have invested.
Fortunately, I was able to find a urine-soaked hallway during the break to do a couple of run-throughs of my own talk. That gave me my confidence back. My presentation was actually as good as some of my best rehearsals, so I couldn't have asked for anything better than that. As I could have predicted, the section where I explained how Steve Balmer is literally inflicting brain damage on Microsoft employees got the biggest response.
Hopefully, they'll have YouTube versions of all the presentations up one of these days and I can point to it. Ignite! Seattle was a pretty good time for $0 admittance. I will definitely try to attend the next one.
I haven't heard of the concept of Ignite! until I read your post. I am toying with the idea of doing it for real in some business presentations.
A video would be great. Would be really interesting to see what you look like. I was a W/DDJ reader for years and it doesn't feel right in the internet age to not know what a (in)famous author/editor looks like. I still recall my wonderment at finally seeing what Paula Tomlinson looked like, or Karen Hazzah, or even Mark Nelson, after reading them for many years.
I guess I'm just nostalgic :-)
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