Tag Archives: ignitedurham

I attended Ignite Durham last night. If you haven’t been to an Ignite event, you really owe it to yourself to get to one. This is the second that I’ve attended and they just keep getting better.

The idea is really simple. People propose interesting ideas to share with the community. The catch is that you only get 5 minutes to present and you have 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds.

Ignite Durham featured 14 speakers – and all of them were great. Here’s what I learned.

1. There are lots of ways to volunteer around here. Get involved in your community through Durham Cares or Change the Triangle.
2. The first rule of bar fighting is don’t throw the first punch. You want to avoid legal liability for damages if possible.
3. Don’t spend money on virtual carrots.
4. Both Bees and Kids need nutritional food – and they can both make their own.
5. There’s lots of great beer in the Triangle (I already knew this one, by the way).
6. Don’t take movies so seriously, especially ones from the 80s. (except those John Hughes ones, those are cool.)
7. Even though I try not to be a dorky parent, I probably am since I was a dork before kids anyway.
8. Anyone can write a book (or a blog) and it will probably suck (like this blog).
9. Laser pointers may or may not pop helium balloons. I don’t know the answer to this, and I’m fine with that.
10. What’s a camaheuto?
11. Be skeptical without being cynical.

But probably the best part of Ignite Durham, or any Ignite event for that matter, is meeting new people and catching up with others you haven’t seen in a while. I’m sure you know that social media gets blamed for decreasing the amount of actual human interaction. If that’s the case you are doing it wrong.

Last night, I met two people in person who I had only previously talked with on Twitter. It was nice to finally meet both of you. I also found many new people to follow in Twitter. Maybe at the next Ignite event, I’ll get to meet some of you in person.

And I can’t finish without thanking both the organizers and sponsors of the event. It was a lot of fun.