Note: Word to Your Sponsor posts are offered to higher-level sponsors of Ignite Denver 12. They are written by an Ignite Denver organizer with approval from (and possibly in collaboration with) the sponsor. The purpose is to convey information about the sponsor, but is not to be taken as an endorsement (or criticism) of the sponsor. It is merely to convey information and appreciation.

AlchemyAPI

Computer nerds know of APIs as a means for one application to speak to another. As with people, different applications hold different information. Enabling communication between them serves to multiply that knowledge and the utility thereof. An API is an inherently good thing. Now, also like people, some systems are smarter than others, some are better communicators than others, and some are better looking than others.

AlchemyAPI aims to be all these things, and in the most eloquent way possible. Plus, it has a very special trick up its sleeve: It can understand people. Instead of only being able to understand very specifically structured systems of data, AlchemyAPI can read your blog, surf Wikipedia, or cruise through stacks of documents that you have scanned. It reads, contextualizes, and interprets the information you want to extract from all that text and presents it in a way that rigidly-structured systems around the digital globe can understand.

Basically, AlchemyAPI is Johnny5 without the crazy military background or Hollywood backstory. You can learn more about their product at their site, linked below. For those of you too young to remember Short Circuit, thank your stars you didn’t have to grow up without IMDB. Or Wikipedia. Or computers that can so intelligently read and contextualize unstructured text.

In love yet? Get to The Oriental Theater early enough to grab some of their swag! (OMG T-shirts!) Doors open at 6pm on October 24.

Web: www.AlchemyAPI.com
Twitter: @AlchemyAPI

So you wanted to go to Ignite Denver, but didn’t get your ticket in time. It’s understandable! We expected a solid turnout, but no one expected it to sell out in less than 3 days! While we’re delighted by the community’s response, we’re also going to do whatever we can to make sure everyone who wants to attend is able.

So here’s the lowdown. (Numbers are fun!) We released 300 tickets to the public and reserved 100 for speakers, sponsors, and volunteers. Every ticket NOT claimed in that pool of 100 will be released to the public, but we don’t expect many. What can you do?

Wait! List?

Get on the wait list! It’s easy to do from the Eventbrite page. Once you’re on the wait list, you’ll be contacted by Eventbrite robots when a ticket becomes available. Don’t delay! You’ll have a limited amount of time to claim it before it’s offered to the next person in line.

It’s also possible that our sponsors will be giving away a couple tickets to sit with them. Check out those fabulous companies on the right sidebar, and feel free to show them some love. It may pay off with a prime seat at the show.

One other option is to be tight with one of our fabulous speakers. They all get a +1 to the show, and you might be the cheer-squad-of-one that they want to have, there. Or you could bribe them with offers to make all their pizza & beer runs for them? Segue to Fat Sully’s Slice Truck, who will be serving up deliciousness hot from the ovens before the show and through intermission.

We can’t possibly express the fullest depth of our gratitude for everything you’re all doing to make this event so awesome. Ignite Denver is of the people, by the people, and for the people. And we couldn’t be happier to call Denver our community.

We just can’t leave well enough alone today, so you get a BONUS blog post. This time, we’re announcing that tickets are available on ignitedenver12.eventbrite.com. The best part? They’re free!

The tickets went live at noon, and we’ve already given out ONE THIRD of the available seats. We want to see you all there, so keep an eye on the twitter account if you’re putting off getting tickets until you’re sure you can go.

A few fun details:

• Tickets are FREE, thanks to our awesome sponsorship from Denver Startup Week
• All ages, so baby mamas and baby daddies won’t be turned away if they can’t get a babysitter and need to bring the tots with the (just PLEASE remember hearing protection for the kids!)
• Only 21+ can drink, and don’t think the Oriental Theater jokes around about this
• Speaking of drinking, make sure you have a designated driver. The 44 bus goes RIGHT past the theater
• Food will be on-site – Fat Sully’s Slice Truck will be right outside the theater, Parisi and Swing Thai are just across the street, and there’s a great empanada place down the block. Yum!
• Remember to wear shades and sunblock, because your future is so bright

We’re looking forward to seeing you all on the 24th!

After a lengthy and difficult selection process, we have narrowed down 26 awesome entries to 14 presentations and 1 back-up. In the interest of equality, we’re calling it 15 presentations. On the evening of Wednesday, October 24, prepare yourself to be entertained by and educated on the following topics:

Mollie Rusher – Where Them Girls At?!
Audrey Klammer – The dark underbelly of event planning
Eric Fickes – Rules of the skatepark
Ben Deda – Screw the “A”, take the “C”
Bart Windrum – Dying In Peace to Die At Peace: New Terms of Engagement
Ryan Estes – Novelty: A Beginners Tale
Kelly Tidd – The 7 Deadly Startup Sins
Joseph Labrecque – Absinthe: Artistic Rituals, Intestinal Parasites, and Psychoactive Madness!
Tim Davids – the truth about sleep deprivation
Tim Nicklas – The tortoise and the hare – can big healthcare organizations utilize startups in Open Innovation?
Art Pennington – Satellites and Tupperware: An Introduction to Geocaching
Eli Fehler – How your Friends are Shaping your Brain
Eric Rosenberg – Stop Working For Your Money, Make It Work For You
Erik Wolf – Is My Web Guy F#cking Me?
Arif Gangji – Teach your kids how to manage money or they’ll move back home when they are 30.

Please note that the order above is the order in which the sparks were submitted. Speaking order will not be announced this week.

All names link to Twitter profiles (where provided). Take a moment to congratulate your favorites and wish them will!

We received a stupendous number of stupendously awesome sparks this time around, and the selection process is difficult. Here’s how it generally works: The community votes on all the sparks, and the top 7 are accepted. The pros are obvious, right? It’s a community event, so the community’s involvement is inherently valued. To ensure that the event isn’t powered by a popularity contest and people not yet well-established in this brilliant circle of Denver also get a chance to speak, the other 7 sparks are chosen by the organizers.

There are SO many great talks that were submitted, however, that we’re giving the community one more chance to be heard. If your favorite speaker or spark wasn’t selected, you can let us know why that speaker needs to be on stage presenting that spark. You can share an anecdote about the speaker’s charm (if you know them) or talk about the importance of the subject itself (if you read the spark). The recommendation that most strongly sways our hearts and/or minds gets a prize. Spark submitters can even pitch their own spark!

How to Play

Make your voice heard in the comments below, on Twitter (with hashtag #IgniteDenver), or on our Facebook wall with your recommendation and why. Winners will be chosen subjectively and are totally not allow to argue with the organizers about the final decision. 😉 Contest closes around noon on Sunday, October 7.

Prizes

The winner’s suggested talk will be chosen to present at Ignite Denver 12. Furthermore, the winner will receive some kind of bonus prize. This bonus prize, which is far less important than the main prize of positively swaying hearts and minds and contributing to the community’s collective gain, will be of some monetary value and will appeal to the winner of said bonus prize.

May the best spark win!

This Wednesday, on DU campus, spark presenters will be debating one another, live on national television, in an attempt to garner your vote. The debate will begin promptly at 7pm and run until 8:30. During that time, I-25 will be shut down in the vicinity of DU, so plan accordingly if you intend to be traveling.

We recommend cozying up in your favorite pub to catch the debate on television (PBS is a sure bet), and enjoying a delicious Colorado beer. After you’ve heard the facts and see the spittle on the teleprompter, hop over to our UserVoice page to vote on your favorite talks.

And please remember, if you’re fortunate enough to be gainfully employed in this economy, to kick a few bucks to your favorite candidate’s campaign. Or at least share the talks you prefer on your social media channels to solicit a few additional votes from your own friends.

Correction: It has been brought to our attention that this debate is for some other (less significant) vote. The editor regrets any confusion and urges you to satisfy your frustration by voting for your favorite sparks on the UserVoice page. Thank you.

Headings should always have exclamation points. I mean, if you’re not excited enough to exclaim your heading, why bother mentioning it at all? Well, we are extremely excited to announce that voting for Ignite Denver 12 begins NOW.

The concept is simple: You get ten votes to dole out, and you can give each talk a maximum of three votes. To use all ten of your votes, you can drop the maximum on THREE separate talks and have one left over! You could also drop one vote on your favorite ten talks. Well, we won’t cover all possible examples, but you get the idea. The top seven (7) talks, ranked by votes, are guaranteed a spot on stage at Ignite Denver 12 on October 24th at the Oriental Theater.

Spark Submitters: Let your friends, relatives, coworkers, frenemies, acquaintances, and estranged high school peers know about your spark and solicit votes now!

Spark Aficionados: You know what you like, so feel free to campaign on behalf of the sparks you want to see!

Another post is coming soon with more details about the schedule.

And another post after that is coming soon with details about the event itself.

For now, all you need to know is that voting ends Friday, October 5th, at HIGH NOON. (That’s GMT-7 for all you long-distance spark aficionados!) Get to voting!