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I’m a long time Improv fan, being a former member of the most excellent Oxymoron’Z Troupe, and a founding member of the Jester’Z Troupe here in the Valley. I haven’t performed in ages, but the topic still nibbles at me, which is what led to my interest in Improv + Social Media.  So I was flattered when I was invited to be a Guest Monologuist for the wonderful Galapagos Improv Troupe’s this coming Saturday.

Galapagos does long form/Harold type improv, so I’ll be riffing on some things from my past and right in front of your eyes they’ll be bringing it to scary, scary life. My improv skills are rusty as hell, but not having any idea what I’m doing rarely slows me down. So if you want to catch some great local comedy, support an awesome local theater, or just want to see me get made fun of for an evening, come check it out!

Where: The Trunk Space – 1506 NW Grand Ave. Phoenix, AZ (map)
When: Saturday, March 6th, 8:00pm
Cost: $5
Evening of Laughter: Priceless
Reusing Old MasterCard Joke: Cliche
Final Item In This List: Thank God

Hope to see you Saturday!

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Jenn B and Jenn M at the kickoff show

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of being the first guest on the first episode of a new live, local, interactive web show called Locals Only: Phoenix. Jennifer Maggiore and Jenn Burgess (“The Jenns”) host the show every Sunday at 5:00pm at a different location around town. They stream it out and take questions and input from the audience.  The did a fantastic job of keeping things rolling along, interacting with everyone, and popping out valuable info and tidbits.

I was talking about the stuff I’m usually rambling about: Ignite Phoenix, ImprovAZ, communities, passion, and the many uses for a really thick dictionary.  They had a bottle of wine ready to go, and any show where you can imbibe while pontificating is a plus on my scorecard. It was also my first trip down to the Phoenix Public Market, which I really enjoyed and plan to visit again soon. Sadly, the first episode suffered a technical issue and wasn’t recorded.  It is now lost to the ages like some of the early Beatles TV appearances, which makes one more trait I share with John Lennon, I guess. But The Jenns have promised to have me on again so I’d stop crying.

I love the fact that they’re building this whole show using just online tools, and showcasing the great people and events going on in the Valley of the Sun. So follow them on Twitter, tune in to their UStream channel on a Sunday evening, and help spread the word.

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1. Some Ignite Phoenix whyfors and wherebys

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I’m headed to South By Southwest this March, and one thing I learned last year was to be prepared for mass amounts of personal device power consumption. Not that AT&T is likely to have their towers actually serving up a usable signal when the hordes descend upon Austin, but it is conceivable I may find some wifi.  Thus I wanted to do some research on a device to take with to keep my electrons topped off.

My main use is a charger for my iPhone, but USB charging has some appeal. I was very impressed with the Tekken myPower that Steve Paine used last year. It is bulkier than the other options, but can charge a much wider range of devices. It’s also interesting to try and quickly compare these things, as some measure in terms of extra talk time, while others talk in terms of number of full recharges to a typical device.  I am sure I could dig into the tech specs around mAh to sort it out, but that’s more than the consumer-level review I wanted to make.

The chargers I looked at seemed to fall into three general categories: iPhone only, USB devices, and Full Batteries.  The USB device chargers work for a wider range of devices like Pre’s and Kindles, while the Full Batteries (like Tekkeon) charge laptops, netbooks, cameras, etc.  One sad discovery is that apparently Apple is not licensing its MagSafe technology connector for newer Macbooks, so I didn’t see any options at all for battery charging there. They should still work well for my camera, netbook, etc.

I’m not trying to build a comprehensive guide, but here is the list of device suggestions I received on Twitter. If I got anything wrong below, you can fill in any blanks, or there is a different option not listed here please let me know.

I haven’t made a decision yet, but will post again when I sort it out. And by way of disclaimer, I work at Sitewire, which does work for iGo, but I’m after the best bang for the buck so am looking at them all levelly.

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I am not a person who has regrets, but one of the few things I wish I had done differently was learn to play a musical intrument as a child.  I could still do it, I know, but my life is so slammed with stuff going on I don’t know where I’d work it in. Which is sort of my point here.

As a result of not learning to play and instrument, I have very little understanding of music at any deep level. Yet I’m curious about nearly every damned thing on the planet, so on my morning commute several years ago I was listening intently to a radio show talking about the way we perceive music and the structure of songs. At one point the speaker, whose name I’ve long forgotten, made the statement that it wasn’t the notes that made the shape of a song, but the silence between them.

The silence makes the song.

It is a simple thing, and probably self-evident to any student of music, but was such an epiphany for me that I almost rear-ended the car in front of me. For all the power and beauty of the notes, without the space between them – without the moments of quiet – the song itself had no shape. Silence takes a wild crash of cacophonous sound and creates the structure. It makes the order out of chaos.

We fill out lives with tasks, duties, deliverables, projects, people, and goals. Yet without the moments of silence there is no shape to it. It becomes a rush, a blur. An endless motion without form. The moments of silence in our life where we reflect, breathe, and do something quiet and personal are often the first things we sacrifice when things become hectic, but they should not be compromised. Without them, you’re simply making noise.

Rest.

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Tomorrow Apple may (or may not) announce the information (or not) of their newest (or imagined) tablet that may possibly not be called the iTablet.  The buzz around this is approached ridiculous, passed through it, and actually came out the other side in what’s known as a “Fanboy Wormhole”.

I am not immune. I have no idea why I would want or need this object I have yet to even see, but my expectations are high. So are those of my online compatriots, so I asked for a list of what features this iTablet would need to have to meet their expectations. Here are the device specifications, according to the Wisdom of Crowds:

Appearance

• Breathtakingly beautiful (only viewable through sunglasses)
• Upholstered in rich corinthian leather
• Light as a feather (Hummingbird’s)
• Wafer thin
• Cupholder

Specifications

• Supports Linux
• 3D visual display
• 3D audio speakers
• 3D smellorama
• Infinite storage capacity
• Anti-gravity stabilizers (for use as hoverboard)
• Time travel through TARDIS interface (only available in blue)
• Invisibility cloak
• Bulletproof, laserproof, waterproof, deathproof

Features

• Comedy detector
• Bullshit detector
• Built in lightsaber
• Projectable Cone of Silence (double strength in coffee shops)
• Folds clothes
• Prevents dry skin (possibly through lotion dispenser/web cam combo)
• Makes breakfast burritos
• Roasts and brews coffee (possibly through the iStarbucks app)
• Tissue dispenser
• Walks your dog (using hoverboard feature to return if dog gets tired)
• Detects Dark Matter
• Slow or stop time (see: TARDIS feature)
• Understand user’s intention independent of actual actions
• Generates (then detects) Higgs Bosons

Many thanks to Troy, Martha, Jodi, Robin, Tim, Tammy, Paulette, Carlos, Ron, Shari, Dave, Dustin, Roger, Alan, Mark, Jess, Evelyn, and  Byron for helping me craft this crystal clear picture.  Here’s hoping that tomorrow all of our dreams come true!

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I started 2009 curious about community, by September I was being quoted about it in articles, but I left 2009 almost entirely convinced that “community” is a waste of time.

Not the people but the term itself. It has become a phantom banner that people wave to try and rally a cause – don’t we all care about the community?  Don’t we want to make it better?

Being in a community doesn’t inherently include a common goal or strong bond.  It most cases it is simply “a group of people with a common interest”, like a a hobby, a belief, or an idea. People who live in Phoenix may be in a community, but it’s their personal interactions that really connect them, not their geography. With everyone having a different perspective about the people and places around them, you get different forms of participation and the inevitable grumbling that there isn’t just enough community spirit/involvement/awareness. Some people want more parks, some people want more childrens’ programs, and some people just want to be left alone.

Community also doesn’t include motivation. In an artistic community, for example, some people may want to pursue technical perfection while others seek abstract expressions. It’s an amiable community until you try to set a direction for that whole group. Then people will start pushing the agenda towards their own views, and be shocked to find others pushing in a different direction. The connecting theme of the community has been exceeded.

Human nature complicates things further by assuming people who think like us in a few areas think like us in all areas. I ran into this with Ignite Phoenix when it got some wide local press. I was accused by some of betraying the community, when I was only looking to bring in new people and ideas. Attending Ignite Phoenix was the community theme, and I exceeded that limit and discovered there were a lot of wildly different opinions about what Ignite was and should be.

I’ve decided in my own local work to focus less on the “community” and more on simply doing things I’m excited about with people I respect. That will draw in people who want to participate, and save a whole lot of hopping about regarding what any group does or doesn’t want.

Community is an abstraction, and you really can’t grow, direct, or build an abstraction. “Community” is still great shorthand for a group of people, like “family”, but it isn’t an end into itself. Chase it too closely and you’ll lose the very people that make it up.  You need to focus on the people and their actions. Connect with them as individuals, not as abstractions, and realize no matter how hard you try there are some things they are just never going to do or be.

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Hoping that under all the holiday turbo-commerce and mandatory-cheer that you find a little more peace in your life.

Maybe it is a little more peace of mind, or peace in your family. Maybe it is a sense of peace in the future, or a few extra moments of peace in the morning before the world wakes up.

Maybe it is just an extra piece of cake, which is some of my favorite peace.

Just something to make your breathing and days come just a little bit easier.

Peace out.

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Another part of my Year End Clear Out related to Ignite Phoenix, a few of the reasons things work as they do related to the event. My normal approach is not to air a lot of the internal stuff and just let people enjoy the show, but many people have been generally curious or offered other approaches so thought I would share how things are viewed.

Most of these are decisions by the Ignite Phoenix team, who I’ll encourage to chime in here, as not every one of us agrees with every approach. Most of these topics at least come up once each cycle to see if we need to modify it. None are set in stone, though a few of them I feel much more strongly about than others.

I’m going to try and be concise – a challenge for me as I’m getting my blog-legs back – and I can expound if anyone has questions.

Size of the event

500-600 people is as large as we want Ignite to get. We could fill larger venues, but then it becomes more attractive to sales-pitches and scarier to average people who want to give it a try. It also becomes harder to really interact with presenters during breaks with this many people. If it ever got so big that there was no benefit to going in person to meet the speakers, we would have lost something important.

Multimedia presentations

We keep a hard line on static slides without music or video. We’ve made an exception for music a few times (Ignites #1 and #4 come to mind)  but Ignite should be about a person sharing their idea personally, not taking time to show something prebuilt. As a bonus, this simplifies the tech issues enormously, but the core reason is to force the presenter to be the center of the talk.

Props & teams during presentations

We discourage this heavily for the same reasons as above, but have made some exceptions like with music. It has to be integral to the talk. Done right the slides are prop enough, but many people don’t use them as effectively as they could.

Exceptions

We try to do 90% of the work by general rules we’ve set, but are always willing to consider exceptions. Nearly every Ignite has had at least one talk that has been non-standard in some way. We’d be stupid to leave out a great talk just because it was a little different.

Private voting

Ignite should never be a popularity contest. Some people already get very upset when their idea isn’t selected, and we don’t want to make that worse. We keep the process public but the votes private. Perhaps one of the few absolute rules we have is that judges cannot disclose anything about the voting results.

Why Wasn’t My Presentation Chosen?

I hate this question, but get it every time. Since I don’t pick the presentations, I really can’t answer it. Sometimes it is just the way the voting falls, sometimes we just get a lot of submissions on one topic and it splits the votes. Often times the difference between the 18th (Made It) and 19th (Missed) presentation votes are a fraction of a percent. One time we had about 6 all clumped together, so often times it just becomes a lack of space. We encourage people to resubmit, but very few do.

Three Times In Tempe?

We hadn’t planned to stay in Tempe for a full year (Ignites 3-5) but we made an agreement with sponsors back during Ignite Phoenix 3 and wanted to honor them. Overall Tempe was very hospitable to use – the vast majority of the problems we had were related to the venue itself.  Our plan now is to move around the Valley quite a bit more, but may still revisit venues if it makes sense.  We don’t want to be in one location for a full year again.

Involvement & Input

Holy crap, SO many people work to make Ignite happen, from the core team that meets for a few weeks leading up to it, to the volunteers who help the night of the event. We welcome anyone to jump in and grab a role and put their stamp on it, but we give preference to people who are really involved. We watch a lot of the general community feedback and take it to heart, but sometimes topics are a lot more complex (and sometimes stupid) than people realize so we don’t always react to public comments. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve invited someone to devote hours to make a change they proposed and they are never heard from again.

Wifi

Having wifi is a priority for us in all future venue selections, or at least not having a venue that blocks 3G and cell connections. Many people use their phones and other devices to tweet and connect during the events, so wifi may not be a deal breaker. We want people to be able to share and talk about the presenters on the back channel, and believe me – our frustration on this topic may exceed that of any attendee to date.

Charging for Tickets

As Ignite grew, managing the tickets against reservations became a real challenge for our volunteers. Ignite #4 used Eventbrite and the reservations came through to us very spotty. Plus, no-shows on the free reservations were nearly 40%. It turned that out since the tickets were free, people just reserved a bunch even if they weren’t sure they could come. (I’ve learned since then this is a common issue that events face.

If we have a venue box office do it, they charge a handling fee we can’t get around. Our solution for #5 was to set a price ($5) that ate the fee, gave us some revenue, and set the bar just high enough that people wouldn’t grab tickets unless they were fairly sure they would come.  It worked much better, but shifted the problem to the 100 free tickets we held back to give away that night – people heard we were “sold out” so didn’t drive down to claim them.

To be crystal clear on a related point, nobody makes a profit on Ignite. Nobody draws a salary or is in any way directly compensated for their time. All money – from sponsors and tickets – goes to pay the expenses tied to the event.  Money coming in from tickets just helps reduce our need for getting sponsors. Ignite still costs money to put on.

Our plan for Ignite #6 is to put all tickets on sale, except for the free ones that sponsors and presenters receive. We think this is the best balance between reducing load on our volunteers, and ensuring that anyone who wants to attend that evening can plan accordingly without having to show up way in advance to wait in line.

Mini-Ignites

There have been several topic specific, mini-Ignites over the past year, with the most notable being the Intel sponsored Developer Ignite, and the Ignite High School hosted by Carl Hayden High School.  We love these, and our hope is to have a few more of them each year, but not a flood so it overwhelms people.

We ask that some basic rules be followed, mostly around transparency, and that we cross-promote, but then let the mini-Ignite find its own style and voice. I think this is a great way to leverage the brand of Ignite Phoenix, and have new ideas and methods feed back into the overall event.  I love having the mini-Ignites have a different look and feel, and I hope to see a few more of these in 2010.

Blah blah blah…

Well, I still seriously suck on the brevity angle.  I held this back to try and edit it, but these are really all questions I get. It seemed dumb to make a series about it, so I’ll just put them all out there and discuss any that people find interesting.  I still have a post in mind about how to improve Ignite, which hopefully I’ll still get out this week.

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1. What I love about Ignite Phoenix

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In 2009 Ignite Phoenix grew from about 140 people at Ignite #2 to the nearly 600 we had at Ignites #4 and #5.  It’s become something very different from what I ever imagined in more ways than just size. This year it generated a lot of discussion, especially after the most recent one, and I learned a lot about how people view Ignite.

I am amazed at how passionate people are about many parts of Ignite, and especially how their views so fundamentally differ from my own. It was an interesting milestone for me as I saw how many people had invested enough in Ignite to feel a sense of ownership in its direction, and motivated enough to add in their thoughts.

As part of my Year End Clear Out I wanted to share my thoughts on what I love about Ignite Phoenix. I also want to talk about the reasoning behind some parts of Ignite (like charging admission), and where I think Ignite can improve, but one topic at a time.  I’m still getting my blogging legs back and Ignite tends to make me even wordier than usual.

I’m posting it here rather than at ignitephoenix.com because this is really just my opinion. This isn’t any “official” Ignite stuff, and people who want to just attend and participate in the events may not find it interesting.  If something really good comes of it I’ll cross-post, but really consider this one person’s view who has just spent a lot of time with the event.

There are a lot of things I love about Ignite, but here are my Big Three. Almost everything rolls into one of these areas:

A Chaos Bringer

We all make patterns in our lives, our thoughts, our groups, and our habits. We build our communities, view them as the whole of the world, and sometimes lose sight of how much out there we really don’t know. We may be very open to exploring new ideas, but sometime our habits just don’t bring them across our path.

Ignite brings things together in unexpected ways, putting something new in our field of view. I have a number of personal benchmarks for a successful Ignite, and one of them is whether people tell me they were originally looking forward to presentation X, but the one they liked the best at the end was presentation Y.  Something new caught their eye.

I work hard to keep the chaos in the system, which means fighting against my own patterns. I’m as much a creature of habit as everyone else, so try to shake it up with a rather odd voting process, and multiple judges that change between events. My benchmark here is if at the end of voting every judge only had some of their favorites make the cut. Also I expect there to be at least a few presentations that I personally am disappointed didn’t make it, and a few I am worried that DID make it.  If I’m not somewhat nervous about the final lineup, then I’ve messed up.

I believe there is inherent value in this chaos, and I work hard to try to keep it that way.

A Connector

Ignite brings different groups and views together, and it grows stronger as it reaches more groups. Some people have been frustrated by mentions of Ignite in mainstream media – like the Arizona Republic and Phoenix New Times. One concern was that the community will be diluted and lose some of its value with this wider exposure. I contend that hungry-minded individuals are welcome at Ignite no matter how they hear about it.

I love seeing the growth of Ignite via word of mouth, but I believe that mainstream mentions is simply someone finding the event interesting enough to pass on via their own channels.  I’ve never sought paid ads for Ignite and don’t seek mainstream coverage, but I support people who find Ignite and want to share it through other mediums.

I believe this is self regulating. Ignite is just not for everyone, and that’s all kinds of okay. People who come to Ignite are hungry for ideas and are intellectually curious. Many people who read about Ignite in the Republic could probably not imagine a more boring way to spend an evening, or they may come once and never again. I only care about the people who come and love it just as much as the people who heard about Ignite #1 via Twitter and have been coming ever since.  If I tried to limit where people passed on info about Ignite, and which new groups and perspectives it brought in, I’d be doing it a great disservice.

Ignite appeals to a huge range of people, and keeping it inclusive and evolving is a huge piece of its value.

Source of Personal Innovation

Ignite Phoenix provides opportunities for people to share and learn something new, but where it goes from there is up to each person. There is no grand plan.  On the simplest level it is an opportunity to hear new ideas and have a good time. Better is to explore the ideas you hear and connect with new people and activities.  Best is to take action that changes something in your own life.  It doesn’t have an agenda, but relies on everyone to make their own effort to engage – or not – however they see fit.

This often throws people who desperately seek to classify Ignite as a “networking event” or a “startup pitch”, but keeping Ignite open prevents it from being constrained and limiting connections to just one channel. We don’t invite venture capitalists, think-tank planners, publishers, or agents, but people still make connections.  Ignite has resulted in people getting new jobs, joining new groups, gaining business, meeting great friends, and starting new careers… but it was always by the personal action someone took to take another step after seeing someone on stage.

Ignite provides an opportunity for individuals to change themselves, then go out and foster greater change. To grow from the inside out.

So…

That took longer than I thought to write, was is probably too long for most people to read, and I clearly need more practice to get back into the blogging groove. Still, I think I captured the core of what I value in Ignite: bringing groups of curious people together, exposing them to new ideas, and keeping an open format to allow anything to happen.

Next up some of the common “Why does Ignite…” questions I get, and then where I think Ignite can improve.

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1. Some Ignite Phoenix whyfors and wherebys

I’ve never been a big celebrator of the New Year – a reset of our planetary lap timer – as having any particular meaning.  I reset my life, goals, directions, and attitude whenever it seems time. But 2009 was a completely crazy year for me in nearly every possible sense.

I rode the Light Rail with no pants on, leading to the formation of ImprovAZ.  I posed as a coroner, welcomed back strangers at the airport, and dressed in spandex and a skull mask in broad daylight.  I left my job at Intel at the height of a recession, started to launch my own venture, then left-turned into joining a digital marketing firm. Ignite Phoenix went from 140 people to nearly 600, with the last one including a band, a radio station, and a t-shirt firing robot. I started chairing the Phoenix Social Media Club. I helped found the non-profit Phoenix Innovation Foundation to support local events. I attended a mountain of great local events, and a most excellent SXSW for the first time. I was featured on the cover of the Phoenix New Times. I met so many great and interesting people that I think I could have a full time job just trying to have coffee with them all.

I also received quite an education about social media, the Phoenix community, and most importantly about myself.

During much of all this there were interesting conversations that flew about on blogs and Twitter, but I became less involved as the year wore on. Partly was for lack of time, and partly was due to the nature of some of the conversations. Hindsight being what it is, in some cases I think I made the right call, but others I’m not so sure.  Sitting here now, there are some things I want to say. Nothing profound, nothing earth shattering, just things I want to clear out of my noggin’ for my own year end restart.

I’ll likely start here, then kick some topics over to Improv Media as I get going.  Hopefully it won’t be too much navel-gazing, and hopefully it will help me get back into a regular writing cadence.  We shall see.

As always, comments and thoughts are welcome.

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