Ignite Boulder 4: How Not to Suck

Well, I survived my first Ignite Boulder intact and without combusting too much (though it was dang hot it that chem lab). Last night, 430 techies and their better halves made the trek up from the pre-party in b.side lounge's back room where they had quickly emptied three kegs of Dechutes Brewing's frothy nectar.

Up at CU, the evenings' presentations began with a bang - starting with: My Mom Just Joined Facebook. Now What? by Ryan Wanger which got the crowd off to rollicking start. I learned 20 slides at 15 seconds each goes by quickly, perfect for our Gen X/Y attention span. Wagner's graph showing that the phrase "mom joining Facebook" just outpaced "is there a god" summed it all up nicely.

The two screens in CU's Chem 140 allowed us to see both the presenting PowerPoint and a britekite wall of cyber heckling (cyeckling? Tweckeling?) which reached its apex about midway through the night, with an earnest young lady's rather impassioned deck on Peak Oil.

Perhaps it was the lack of fermented bevies, but the brightkite wall of heckling was better then the audience shouts for the most part. All in all though, the event was full of wit and wonder, from the hula hoop/copywriter's treatise on how not to suck, the dance ninja's booty shaking lesson (though she shoulda jumped on the table to coach us through those fly moves), to an inspiring trip on bike through New Zealand and the finale: a re-imaging of The Fresh Prince's theme song in ye olde english (oh that we had some Old E ourselves...).

Sure, they need a better venue, one where the beer coincides with presentations and the sound system is intelligible, but for my first foray into techie/startup/meetup culture, I have to say, I was impressed. As the gang trickled back down the hill to take in Hapa's happy hour on the bricks, I was glad I lived in Boulder, where else could I find all this?

- Eli