Ignite Corvalis 2, a.k.a my Thursday Night

I'm checking out my twitter feeds yesterday afternoon. I notice a number of tweets from a "Beer Bus" mentioning that many people from Portland are actually on a bus with beer and wifi that is Corvallis-bound. My first thought was "they have to offer Portlanders beer to entice them to come to Corvallis". But then, I became curious as to what exactly they were coming for. Answer: WIN09 and Ignite Corvallis 2. Click the link to find out exactly what was going on... but I was very interested.

I had seen twitter-fuss about Ignite Corvallis 2 about a month ago. From the website I got the impression that this was the MOTHER of all WIBC events (for the newbies, that is "Wouldn't It be Cool", WIBC). Basically, people from the community get 5 minutes to present a 20-slide powerpoint that is on a 15-second timer. The topic: anything that you feel like talking about. Presentations need to be compelling, entertaining, punchy, and not-necessarily-meaningful. I really wanted to give one (I'll hold my subject for the eventuality that I will get to present someday)! But, I had missed the call for applications. And at the time, I put it beyond the back of my mind and that was that.

Then I see the message about it being last night! A mind-check of the things I have to do suggests to me that there is nothing that can't be put off until tomorrow. I love it when this happens, makes me feel so important (not!). I peace out of work around 6:00 and head over to WIN09... conveniently located on OSUs campus for my walking pleasure. At WIN09, I munched on baked brie, chicken skewers, made a salad out of the dipping veggies, and perused the room for interesting people to talk to. I met a guy who works for Korvis Automation, a company that makes Affymetrix machines (very interesting to dorks like me). He was excited that I knew more about the technology than he did (in all fairness he was an engineer from a different arm of the company and was also great fun to chat up). I received some yummy treats (pumpkin chai cupcake) and unsure-of-the-yumminess-factor treats (bacon cupcake) from a woman that is trying to open Rocket Queen Cupcake shop in downtown Corvallis (still needs a little financing).

After the poster session/chattyhour, it was time to set Corvallis on fire... er, Ignite Corvallis 2. Most presenters did not disappoint. One guy offered a Masters in IT in 1,680 characters by boiling down the 12 classes of his Masters program into 12x140 character tweets (I now have a masters in IT :-). Another guy introduced us to "train porn"... the cult practice of trainspotting, no, taking good pictures of trains. His was especially entertaining because every slide could have been turned into a "that's what she said..." moment, by design. Even the mayor got up there for his 5 minutes... comparing our community to a garden (not a huge stretch of the imagination given the number of gardens in this community!). Other memorables included a woman talking about her mid-life crisis spent couchsurfing around Europe and a guy who compared social networking to sex with a funny yet clear message that the best social networking (sex) is achieved by giving, listening, learning, relinquishing some control, and ending everything you say with the words "in bed", as if you were a fortune cookie.

All-in-all. Funny, fantastic night... amazing to be surrounded by so many people who embrace the WIBC spirit! Sorry you missed it? Ignite Portland 7 is Nov. 18. And even better, there will be a Beer Bus w/wifi going up from Corvallis. I'll try to post info about this when I hear it. And I hear that Ignite Corvallis 3 is in the works. They probably need help making it bigger and better... so get your proposal ready!