Ignite Denver 14 Spark Submissions: Now with Extra Minty Flavor

Hopefully by now you’ve heard that spark submissions are open and you’ve already started thinking about the topic that you want to present to an audience of 400 (think of all the lives you’ll change). We encourage anyone and everyone to throw their name in the hat for presentation consideration but there are a few guidelines to consider before you commit mind, body and soul to Ignite Denver 14.

• Be available June 13^th. Yeah, it’s a no brainer, but please make sure that your schedule is open on the night of Ignite.
• Attend one of two (or both, because the more run throughs you have, the better your presentation will be) mandatory run throughs on 5/27 and 6/10. If you don’t attend one of these, you will be removed from the lineup. Seriously. </hardass>
• Be ready to rock some minds.

PLUS, this time around we’ve added Ignite Workshoppes (yes, they’re super artisan, hence the “e” at the end)! In order to help our community be better Igniteers, we’re developing a series of get togethers/round tables to help you or that “friend of yours” feel more comfortable with the Ignite process. None of it is mandatory, but our goal is to help you end up with a finished product that kicks more ass than an angry donkey in a pen with a lot of other donkeys or some other metaphor much better than that one.

Take a look at the schedule and see if any of them look interesting to you:

Creating the Perfect Pitch (April 29^th): Learn what to do and what not to do when developing an idea for a spark and turning it into a pitch. What types of topics do well? What’s old hat?

Organizing Your Thoughts into a Presentation (May 6^th): Tips for taking your idea and putting it into slide form. The best way to craft the “flow” of a presentation so that the information is actually accessible, meaningful and memorable.

Presenting to a Crowd (May 20^th): A workshop focused on honing public speaking skills. Talk about common roadblocks and mishaps that occur during public speaking and offer solutions on overcoming the challenges.

First Run Through (May 27^th): Go through first round of Ignite presentations. It’s mandatory that presenters attend this meeting or the following run through (June 10) in order to be able to present on the 14^th.

Second Run Through (June 10): Same as above, but there is an opportunity for an additional run through for those that attended the first run through.

Even if you aren’t presenting on June 14^th, we still welcome you to join in on any of these workshoppes. The topics we want to cover apply to a lot of other avenues besides just Ignite Denver (read: these are just plain good workplace skills to have), so anyone can come and learn. I mean, that’s what we’re all about, right? Learning.

All of the meetings will take place at Shift Workspaces, one of our awesome sponsors, at 6 pm on the dates listed above.

We hope to see you at one or all of them, or any interval in between one and all.