Thanks helping make Ignite Denver not only a reality, but an awesome one This page (copied almost entirely from here, thanks Stephen!) is intended to help you in preparing for the the big night.

The Rules of Ignite

The Ignite format is really simple. You must have 20 slides, and each slide must change automatically after 15 seconds.

Before you get started building slides, take 5 minutes and watch this:

An excellent talk, with a clear message told simply, with minimal text.

Putting your slides together

Treat the slides like a set of index cards that you use to prompt yourself for the next point. That way, if you get slightly out of sync with the slides it won’t matter so much. (If you try to rattle through a list of bullet points you will inevitably mess up the timing).

Use a single idea per slide, and illustrate it with a nice clear image. You can download free (or cheap) legal photos from the URLs listed on thePresentation Zen site.

At all costs, avoid text-heavy “death by powerpoint” slides as these definitely don’t work for Ignite. Keep the number of words on each slide to a minimum – 5 words is plenty, since it’s just a headline.

Don’t use fancy animations like fading in text or images. You’ve only got 15 seconds, so don’t waste it with animations.

You don’t need to talk about yourself on the first slide – the MC will introduce you, and explain where you’re from and what you’ll be talking about. So just launch straight into an exciting and compelling opening, and grab the audience’s attention from the first slide.

Great use of cartoons to simplify things and keep them fun

Some suggestions

Do it without notes! If you structure your slides to be like index cards, the slide itself should act as your prompter and you won’t need to refer to notes. There will be a monitor facing the presenter so you won’t need to look back at the screen.

Make sure you practise your presentation a few times in front of a live audience (your partner, your colleagues, your cat) to get your timing right. You’ll be amazed how fast the 5 minutes actually goes.

There is an excellent article here written by an Ignite presenter, giving advice on how to put your talk together, and here is some great advice from previous Ignite Sydney presenter Mark Pollard.

Most of all, remember that Ignite is meant to be a bit of fun – it’s an antidote to all the boring conferences and lectures that people are used to. So make your presentation entertaining, grab a drink, and enjoy yourself.

What format?

If you’re using PowerPoint (Windows), save your slides in either PPT or PPTX. If you’re using Keynote (Mac), save your slides in Keynote 09 format. Please note that we don’t use Presenter’s View so be prepared for this.

Don’t worry about the 15 second timing on the slides if you don’t know how to do it – we can set that up for you.

The projector will be set to a low resolution of 1024 x 768 so don’t include any fine details – you should be able to read your slides clearly while standing a few feet away from your laptop. If you can’t see it, neither can the audience.

Stuck?

If you need any help, or you’re stuck for ideas, drop us an email at ignitedenver@gmail.com and we’ll do our best to help.

Thanks again, and see you on the night.