Ignite Cardiff on Radio Cardiff

We were kindly invited onto Radio Cardiff a few days before Ignite Cardiff #7 to discuss the event and why we do it.

If we sound a little frazzled it’s because it was very early on a Saturday morning, and we were all nervous before the Wales v France semi-final!

Thanks to the host Jeremy Rees.

Free drinks at Ignite Cardiff 7!

A quick post to say a massive thanks to Sequence who have very kindly agreed to sponsor Ignite Cardiff #7 which is being held at O’Neills on St Marys Street in the evening of Wednesday 19 October 2011.

This means that we’re going to be able to offer a few free drinks to those planning on coming along.  Attendance is free as always and although you don’t need a ticket to attend, to help us keep track of numbers (and therefore how many drinks we need to buy!) we’ve set up an Eventbrite page.  If you’re planning on coming along we’d be really grateful if you could sign up and that way we can make sure the bar is well stocked!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Ignite Cardiff #7

To celebrate our third anniversary of bringing the Ignite phenomenon to Cardiff (and being the first ever UK event!), we’re having a big Ignite event.

There may even be booze!

If you’re a Facebook user, make sure you let us know you’re coming via our event page.

Confirmed to speak already are:

Hannah James
Noreen Blanluet
Warren Seymour
Sean Price
Alison Fielding
Ed Barnett

With more yet to be added. If you’d like to speak please add your name here: http://bit.ly/ignitecardiffspeakerform

Hope you all can make it. Check back for more info soon!

Want to see your name up in lights…?

Well OK, maybe not quite lights!  But by sponsoring an Ignite Cardiff event we’ll do our best to make sure everyone knows who you are.

Ignite Cardiff is a not-for-profit event run by volunteers but we still need some money to help us with print, promotion and equipment hire… not to mention those all important free drinks that we try to offer at each of our events.

We’re not asking for very much and we’re currently looking for sponsors for the next event, which is being held in early July or for the whole of the next year, which will cover 4 events.

If you’re interested and would like to have a chat with us, please send an email to claire.scantlebury@gmail.com – we’d really love to hear from you!

Ignite Cardiff #6!!!

We’re very pleased to announce that we’re taking part in Global Ignite Week again this year with Ignite Cardiff #6.

Join us at Sodabar (Mill Lane, Cardiff) on Wednesday 9th February from 6pm for a night of lively and interesting talks and a few free drinks thanks to our sponsors, The Wales Millennium Centre and ECCE.  Why not check out our speakers!

You can also follow event updates on Facebook. Or follow us on Twitter.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Ignite Cardiff needs YOU!

As Ignite Cardiff seems to have now become fairly well established Neil and I want to make sure that it continues to grow and just keep getting better and better.

As such we’d like to add some fresh blood to the team so we thought we’d look to the Cardiff community to help.

We’re looking for two people to help us run the events. You’d be involved in every aspect of planning and organising from finding speakers, sponsors and venues, assisting with marketing and promoting to helping us to ensure things run smoothly on the night.  We need someone who is going to be able to commit time to help us during the entire event cycle.

The rewards, although not financial, are great. We have a brilliant time organising Ignite. It’s fun and you get to meet loads of amazing people as well as being a key part of, what we think, is a very cool, local community.

We’ve worked with the Wales Millennium Centre, Lonely Planet, the organisers of the Cardiff Design Festival and organisers of the Swn Festival and we genuinely love every second of it!

If you’d like to volunteer simply fill in the ‘new team members’ form and we’ll be in touch!

We have an event planned for February so the sooner we can get people on board the better!

We can’t wait to hear from you!

Claire x

Bollywood, Hip hop, Festivals and pop culture

We’ve been putting the final touches to our Ignite Cardiff #5 speakers list and we’re very nearly there.

IC#5′s music themed talks cover a huge range of subjects so we hope that there’s going to be a little something in there for everyone.  Take a look at our speakers biographies – We hope to see you there!

Our top tips for those all important 5 minutes

So, you’re thinking about or have agreed to do an Ignite presentation (or maybe even a Pecha Kucha talk)? Fantastic news! You’ll be joining the thousands of people all over the world (myself and Neil included) that have inspired, stimulated, entertained and educated through these dynamic talks.

Now that Ignite Cardiff is preparing for its fifth event, we thought we’d draw on the experience of some of our fantastic previous Ignite Cardiff speakers to see what gems of advise they could offer to Ignite-newbies… (click on peoples names to see videos of their talks)…

Preparation…

• The real trick was to do some practice runs and make sure the timings were right. Geoff Rogers

• Talk about something that you’re passionate about and that you know.  You’re enthusiasm will come across in your talk and you won’t have to worry about remembering your words! Claire Scantlebury

• When you’re practising your talk against the slideshow while it’s running, allow 3 spare seconds in each slide for the audience reaction – it ALWAYS takes longer live than in the privacy of your own home of office. Dave Bull

• If I was going to do it again, I’d make sure there were as few words as possible and plenty of pictures on my slides. More stimulating for the audience and less pressure on the presenter. Dan Allsobrook

• Don’t surreptitiously try and “sell” your business. No one is here to listen to a pitch. It’s also against the ethos of Ignite. Giles Davies

• Don’t talk about zombies, people look at you oddly afterwards and edge towards the door… Rob May

• You want impact! Keep your slides simple, sharp, clear, visible and uncluttered. Avoid overloading with detail as to many words and pictures confuse and are unnecessary. Great images can often speak a thousand words….. Far more words than you’ll have time to say! Angela Gidden

• Make it funny / amusing /witty.  Everyone wants to laugh and it will make you feel the crowd is on your side. It’s not a sermon, it’s Ignite! Giles Davies

• Follow the instructions.  Don’t put builds in your presentation. Or videos. Giles Davies

• Write a 5 minute talk and then just use slides to back up what you’re saying – that way you won’t be waiting for the slides to change or panicking if they move on when you’re not ready. Claire Scantlebury

On the Night…

• Don’t let the slides rule you. You will find yourself waiting for the slide to change. Talk over the slides. Giles Davies

• I think the secret to is not to panic and fluster if your timings come unstuck – the next slide is never that far away, so just stay calm and wait a few seconds, or plan in some content you can easily drop if you need to catch up. Geoff Rogers

• Always remember the audience wants to like you, they are on your side. Consider them friends not combatants’ Rob May

• Try to say less. You will be nervous and get a bit lost and your 4min 59sec presentation will overrun Giles Davies

• Smile and try not to swear or fall over! Claire Scantlebury

• Bring livestock along with you!  Or get everyone singing. It doesn’t have to be a ppt. Giles Davies

• Move! The best speakers are passionate and passion means movement. Move around the stage / floor. Move your arms, your face, your eyebrows. Communicate with your body not just your words / slides. DK

And overall…

• Volunteer.  Have a go. Or do Ignite Karaoke. Go on, what’s the worst that can happen? Giles Davies

• I think that we’re going to see a lot more Ignite format talks in future at conferences and events. It’s certainly worth doing a talk to get familiar with this useful format. There’s a lot of power in this kind of brevity and in the diversity of presentations you get to see at Ignite-focused events. Dafydd Rees.

We also highly recommend that you check out Dafydd Rees’ Blog on ‘What I learned giving an Ignite Talk and DK’s Top Ten Speaking Tips. You can also see some videos from Ignite Cardiff Talks on MeFeedia and YouTube or by clicking on peoples names above!

So what are you waiting for?  We’re still looking for music related speakers for IC5 so let us know if you’re interested!

Claire x

Why we’re excited about Swn!

We’re really excited to be holding Ignite Cardiff 5 as part of the Swn Festival this year.

Neil and I have  both attended Swn for a couple of years, Neil sponsors them through DizzyJam (you can purchase official Swn t-shirts through the website) and I’ve just gone along as a visitor as the festival fulfils both my passion for live music and also I think it’s a fantastic local event.

Returning  for its fourth year as Wales’ premier new music festival. SWN Festival 2010 will take place across the evening of Thursday 21st October and then the days and nights of Friday 22nd October and Saturday 23rd October.  Ignite Cardiff #5 will be taking place on Friday 22 October in the New Media Bar at Chapter Arts Centre from 5-7pm (timings may change – we’ll keep you posted).  IC5 will have a music theme and we already have some amazing speakers lined up.

Ignite Cardiff are really pleased and honoured to be taking part.  Cardiff is such an amazing city and it’s great to see the profile being raised by the likes of Swn and the Cardiff Design Festival (being held in early October which we were involved with last year).  If you’ve not been to Swn before take a look at the website and see what’s going on.  If you’re not that interested in the gigs there are also a number of lectures and  workshops taking place over the weekend.

If you’d like to speak at IC5 about something music related OR if you’d like to speak at IC6 (taking place early next  year) about absolutely anything drop us an email to ignitecardiff@gmail.com.

You can keep up to date with Swn through Twitter and if you’re planning on coming along to Ignite, don’t forget to use one of our hashtags #IgniteCardiff or #IgniteCDF (We’ll also keep you up to date with all our goings on through Twitter), or if you’re on FaceBook, let us know that you’re planning on attending.  Entry as always will be free. – we look forward to seeing you there!

Claire x

Update on the next Ignite Cardiff

As some of you will know, Neil and I have been pretty busy over the last month or so with TEDxCardiff which was a huge success, thank you to everyone who came along.

We had planned to hold another Ignite at the end of June but due to many reasons, we have decided to take a bit of a break, have a holiday and come back to Ignite later in the year.

So, keep in touch for more information, we’ll still be around and we’d love to hear any feedback or thoughts about Ignite Cardiff so that we can make sure that the next one is awesome.

We’ve pencilled in a couple of dates in October and have been putting together ideas – IC#5 will be a little different and we’re very excited.  As soon as we conirm details we’ll let you know!

Claire x