Ignite Phoenix

I, as I hope you are, have been mulling over just what talk I might want to give at Ignite next month.

I’ve given talks at countless events over the years, most planned , many ad hoc, more than a few somewhere in between. Truth is, I’m not a big fan of rehearsing or dwelling on the details of a talk; there’s a point at which it feels way too much like a job. The flip side, though, is that often the extra effort pays off.

Talks given at Ignite have an interesting twist: they need to be short, as in five minutes short. On the one hand that seems like it would make things easier; less time to fill, less content to mull over and rework. On the other hand, those minutes need to mean something. Things need to be concise, direct, valuable. There’s no time for meandering or empty rambling.

In a past life I was the singer/song-writer for a quirky, post-punk dance-noise band. I tried (with whatever success) to write 3 1/2 minute tunes that were both catchy and dense. One technique was omission. Don’t say, but suggest. Leave gaps and ambiguity, and let the audience fill things in and flesh things out.

This is true for short talks as well. Were I to give a 30 minute talk I might want to plan some sort of thesis and hope to persuade or at least educate the audience on some conclusion. The terse presentation, though, much like a short story or a poem, works best when giving the audience just enough to jar the imagination. Much is left out, much is ambiguous. If done right, it leads to good conversation and further inquiry.

And that’s really the point of Ignite.

So I’m stoked. I hope to be doing a talk next month. I’ll still be fretting some over how it should go, but this time I’ll be focused on what to leave out.

- James Britt