On our last night in town, we were happy to find that there is actually a thriving community in Phoenix: designers, foodies, techies, geeks, cyclists and artists. And they all came together for one night at Ignite Phoenix 7. There were 18 talks, all focusing on ‘the art of’ something – very appropriate give the venue: the lovely Phoenix Art Museum. Although I love having our Ignite London events in dark little pubs – something that seems somehow appropriate for London – I really liked the marrying of an Ignite event with a museum. There was such a diverse crowd at the event and in-between talks, networking, beer and barbecue (I’ll get back to that), I think everyone fell a little bit in love with the museum and it’s friendly staff, quirky outdoor sculptures and stunning gallery spaces.

Right, barbecue. Anyone who has been to the southern states knows that there is barbecue to be had down there that is not easily replicated in other places. It’s a special culinary skill and not something that can be learned easily. Joe’s Real BBQ, the caterer for the night, obviously has some experts on staff because it was tasty and tender (the mark of really good barbecue). From the pork and chicken sliders to the homemade coleslaw and bakes beans, it was messy, messy perfection; the perfect accompaniment to the bright green margaritas they were serving behind the bar.

Ignite Phoenix 7 had a capacity of 600 people, which they sold out in under 20 minutes. An event of this size is not easy to pull off and this was reflected in the group of people organising it. The formal committee has about 15 people filling various roles from fundraising and volunteer coordination to speaker coach (yes, they actually have one of those) and on the night of the event, another twenty or so volunteers sign up to help as needed throughout the night. The flip side of having an event of this size is that, because of the cost, it isn’t free. Tickets were $10 each and, in my opinion, well worth the price. It is a conundrum though and one we’ve struggled with at Ignite London – do we keep the event small and free (and as a result be forced to turn some people away because they don’t have tickets), or do we grow the event and charge a fee to recoup some of the costs? Feel free to comment and let us know what you think.

There were so many things to love about Ignite Phoenix and it really speaks to the strength of the event concept (thanks O’Reilly!). There aren’t a lot of places where you can hear someone talk about The Art of Ghost Hunting, The Art of Creativity in a Prison Wasteland and The Art of Bastardizing Culinary Traditions all in the same night. Ignite is about people who are passionate enough to come together and share their excitement with a room of strangers; it’s amazing what you can take away from a five minute talk and where it can lead you.

After the talks were over, as we sat in the beautiful outdoor sculpture court of the Phoenix Art Museum listening to a live band play, with barbecue sauce dripping down our chins, our lips salty from margaritas, I felt that through Ignite we’d finally found a vital part of Phoenix. It took six weeks, but we left feeling like we’d learned more about that place and the people who live there in one night than in the 40 odd nights before.

A big, big thank you to the organisers of Ignite Phoenix for being such great hosts; especially Jeff Moriarty, Michael Barber, Matthew Petro and Jana Knapp.

All images by Amy Thibodeau. Please do not use them without proper attribution.

Amy Thibodeau is the co-founder of Ignite London, along with Dan Zambonini. She is a freelance writer, photographer and content strategist who is currently on a one-year around the world journey. You can find Amy online on her personal blog Making Strange, guest blogging for The Januarist, on Twitter, and via her online photography project Lost and Looking.

A lot of our Ignite London speakers and organisers have an active online presence. In case you want to hear more, we thought we’d give you a list of the blogs and websites we know about so you can check them out. We’ve also created a Google Reader Bundle so that if you’re inclined, you can subscribe to all of them in one neat little package, which you can find here. We’ve also included some blogs from the Ignite London #1 group in the bundle. If you’re more the Twitter type, you can follow all the Ignite London speakers by subscribing to our list.

As for Ignite London #2 speakers, here’s where you can find them online (in no particular order):

• Dr. Keith Kahn Harris (video): Metal Jew and http://www.kahn-harris.org
• Andy ‘Bob’ Brockburst (video): King Kludge
• Cory Doctorow (video): Crap Hound and Boing Boing
• Russell Davies (video): http://russelldavies.typepad.com and Eggs, Bacon, Chips and Beans
• Eliot Fineberg (video): http://www.eliotfineberg.com and http://www.whippetandpigeon.net
• Daniel Tenner (video): http://danieltenner.com
• James Ward (video): London Twirls Project and I Like Boring Things
• Jonathan Kahn (video): Lucid Plot
• NK Guy: Photo Notes
• Tom Scott (video): http://www.tomscott.com/
• Tristan Roddis (video): Cogapp Blog
• Tyler Tate (video): http://www.tylertate.com/
• Dan Roddy (video): Ignite Bristol and Learning Rocks
• Amy Thibodeau (event organiser): Making Strange
• Craig Smith (event organiser): O’Reilly GMT
• Richard Johnson (event organiser and videographer): Hurry on Home
• Dan Zambonini (event organiser): http://danzambonini.com and The Januarist
• From Ignite London #1, we’ve also got Ashley Benignio‘s (video) blog Notes from Somewhere Bizarre.

If you are an Ignite London speaker and you don’t see your website on this list, please let us know in the comments and we’ll add you.

Hope you enjoyed the event as much as we did! Watch this space for details on Ignite London #3.

Image Credit: Lego Laptop by gilest.

• Admission is free, whether you have a voucher or decide to take your chances at the door.
• If you secured one of the advance vouchers, please print it off and bring it with you to Ignite London. If you forget yours, we will also have a list of people who purchased vouchers, but to avoid a wait at the door, it would be best if you have the actual voucher with you.
• Vouchers only guarantee your admission until 7:30 pm. After 7:30 pm, we will begin to allow people into the venue on a first come/first serve basis.
• If you don’t have a voucher – unfortunately because of capacity issues, we are not able to issue any more. There is still a bit of room in the venue we’ve reserved for people who wish to show up at the door though we cannot guarantee you will get in. We will do our best to try to accommodate everyone. We toyed with the idea of creating a waiting list, but given the huge amount of interest, this didn’t feel like a manageable option though we will certainly consider it for future events.

If you have a voucher but are unable to use it, for whatever reason, please let us know so that we can make additional spots available to the many people who would like to attend. You can let us know by emailing info@ignitelondon.net.

Remember – Ignite London #2 is happening on Tuesday, 2 March at The Luminaire. Doors open at 7 pm and talks will start around 7:30 pm. The event is one of many events happening next week around the world, which are part of Global Ignite Week.

The fine folks at O’Reilly have just launched Ignite Show – a site committed to rebroadcasting videos from Ignite Talks.

Check it out here.

Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest of O’Reilly Radar and Bre Pettis of Make magazine. Since then hundreds of five minute talks have been given across the world. The idea is simple: presenters are required to stick to a rigid format of 20 slides, each of which changes automatically after 15 seconds, ensuring that presentations are exactly five minutes long. Topics range from tech and design to history and world events – the only rule is that talks cannot be about self-promotion, and that they adhere to the Ignite motto – ‘Enlighten us, but make it quick’

“We’ve been blown away by the response to Global Ignite Week,” said Ignite co-founder and O’Reilly Media Technical Evangelist Brady Forrest. “We were hoping for events in 40 cities, and now have commitments from volunteer organizers in 72 cities on every continent except Antarctica. And now that the space station has an Internet connection, we’re thinking about Ignite ISS.”

In the UK, a number of confirmed events are taking place during Global Ignite Week in London, Bristol, Manchester, and Cardiff, with a possible event being planned in Leeds. Some of the highlights include:

Monday  1 March 2010 – Ignite Manchester
MadLab, 36 – 40 Edge Street, Manchester, M4 1HN

Tuesday 2 March 2010 – Ignite London
The Luminaire, 311 Kilburn High Road, NW6 7JR

Thursday 4 March 2010 – Ignite Bristol
The Polish Club, 50 St Paul’s Road, BS8 1LP

Thursday 4 March 2010 – Ignite Cardiff
Wales Millennium Centre, Bute Place, Cardiff CF10 5AL

Although Ignite is best experienced in person, many events, including those being held in the UK, will be video taped to make the talks available to viewers online. O’Reilly anticipates that at least 500 talks will be available on their site, to be launched in conjunction with Global Ignite Week.

“This will be our second Ignite London event and the response has been wonderful,” said Amy Thibodeau, Ignite London committee member. “We released the final batch of advance tickets last week and they sold out in under ten minutes. We also have some amazing speakers lined up, starting with our headliners Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing and Russell Davies of the Interesting Conference and Newspaper Club.”

Bristol has received a similarly enthusiastic response. According to Peter Blackman, one of the organizers, “Bristol is such a creative, independent minded city that it’s not really a surprise that the response to the first Ignite has been so positive. We’ve sold out, and been deluged with submissions for talks on subjects as diverse as futurology, swing dancing, comic book culture, and microloans in the developing world. We can’t wait for March 4^th to come around!”

Cardiff is looking forward to its biggest Ignite yet. “This is going to be the fourth Ignite Cardiff and we’re so pleased that each one just gets bigger and better,” said Claire Scantlebury, Ignite Cardiff co-organiser. “We’re in a world class venue with some incredible speakers – we’re really pleased to be taking part in something very inspirational, truly global, and having lots of fun while we’re doing it!”

Ignite Manchester is the newest confirmed event to be taking place during Global Ignite Week. “It is great that we can contribute to the ideas generated through Ignite in Manchester – we hope that this is the start of many,” said Steven Flower, one of the organisers.

• Dr. Keith Kahn-Harris, My Dream Came True but I’m Still Not Satisfied: The Journey of a Metal Jew
• Andy “Bob” Brockhurst, How the Hacker/Maker Revolution Will Change the World
• Christian Heilmann, Building Blocks of Web Development: APIs, Data Mashing and Interfaces Made Simple
• Daniel Tenner, Exobrain Power
• Dave Joyner, From Giant Killer to TV Station: A Look at Daves in History
• Dr. Mariann Hardey, You Can’t Turn Me Off: On Social Etiquette and Social Media
• Felix Cohen and Eliot Fineberg, Humour, Banality and Social Networks /or/ “everything you say online is rubbish, but that’s ok.”
• James Ward, 2009: The Year in Twirls
• Jonathan Kahn, Stop Killing Your Best Work
• Matt Wood, A, T, C, G and You:Introducing the New Genomics
• Nene Harrison, Doing Good with Data
• NK Guy, Seven Illuminating Facts About Flash Photography
• Tom Scott, Mob (a near-future science fiction story)
• Tristan Roddis, British Sea Forts
• Tyler Tate, The History of Colour
• Dan Roddy, How Business and Education are Blind to Some Really Simple Ways to Improve Learner/Worker Performance*

There will be a little more on our speakers in a future post. In the meantime, if you want to know more about them please click on their names and follow them on Twitter. You can also subscribe to the Ignite London #2 list on Twitter here.

Quick reminder, Ignite London #2 is happening on 2nd of March, 2010 at The Luminaire. Doors open at 7 pm and talks will commence at approximately 7:30 pm. Advanced tickets are sold out, but some tickets will be available at the door.

* Dan Roddy is our guest speaker representing Ignite Bristol – another fantastic event happening during Global Ignite Week. They’ve got a great night planned and we’ll be there in the form of one of our committee members, Dan Zambonini, speaking. For more information on Ignite Bristol, visit their website or follow them on Twitter.

Make sure to check out the terms and conditions of the tickets here.

One last note – if you don’t manage to secure an advance ticket, don’t fret. We’ve reserved a few for those brave souls who want to try their chances at the door.

Thanks for your enthusiasm everyone – this is going to be a wonderful event!

Here are the details:

Although admission is free, we are using a voucher system so that people can ensure their admission at what we imagine will be a sold out event. Here’s how it works:

• Each ticket is good for the admission of one person and you can ‘buy’ a maximum of two tickets.
• As always, tickets to Ignite London are free.
• Your ticket only guarantees you admission if you arrive by 7:30 pm (doors open at 7 pm). At 7:30 pm, we will begin to let people in at the door and your ticket will no longer guarantee you anything.
• A handful of tickets will be available at the door for those of you who want to take your chances.
• Tickets are limited so please, only take one if you are able to attend. If something happens and your plans change, let us know so that we can free your ticket up for someone who can use it.

In case you’ve forgotten,  Ignite London #2, which will be held at The Luminaire in London on Tuesday, 2 March.

Any questions? Leave a comment below or email info@ignitelondon.net.

Now onto the real reason for this post – we have the great pleasure of announcing our second invited guest speaker, the very, very interesting Russell Davies.

Russell was born in Derby, enjoyed an uneventful childhood, did college, all that. After failing as a popstar and a joke writer he ended up in advertising and tried to do ‘interactive marketing’ way before anyone was interested. He ended up at Wieden + Kennedy working on clients like Microsoft, Nike and Honda. Then he went to work for Nike as Global Consumer Planning Director. He went freelance in 2006 and works with shadowy organisations like the Open Intelligence Agency and the Really Interesting Group. He also writes eggbaconchipsandbeans, occasionally organises ‘Interesting’ conferences, plays with things like speechification, dawdlr and slowpoke; and does columns for Campaign magazine and Wired UK. Russell’s latest project is Newspaper Club, a 4iP sponsored service created to help people make their own newspapers.

We are still looking for speakers for Ignite London. The deadline to apply is the 9th of February. Here are the details.

Although admission is free, we are using a voucher system so that people can ensure their admission at what we imagine will be a sold out event. Here’s how it works:

• Today (as in right now!) we are releasing the first 100 tickets on Eventbrite, which you can now click over to (see below for the link).
• Each ticket is good for the admission of one person and you can ‘buy’ a maximum of two tickets.
• As always, tickets to Ignite London are free.
• Your ticket only guarantees you admission if you arrive by 7:30 pm (doors open at 7 pm). At 7:30 pm, we will begin to let people in at the door and your ticket will no longer guarantee you anything.

The Luminaire has capacity for about 250 people. If you didn’t manage to snap up any of the first 100 tickets, don’t despair because we will be releasing more in the coming weeks. We will also have a few available at the door for those of you who want to take your chances. Tickets are limited so please, only take one if you are able to attend. If something happens and your plans change, let us know so that we can free your ticket up for someone who can use it.

Any questions? Leave a comment below or email info@ignitelondon.net.

Now go on and book your tickets!!