How to give a great ignite talk
There’s this popular format for public speaking called Ignite – It’s an evening of short talks with some special rules. Similar to, but simpler than, Pecha Kucha, and more involved than lightening talks, in ignite each speakers gets 5 minutes – but must have 20 slides and each slide must automatically progress in 15 seconds.
Most ignites are held as social events with drinking and other activities, and dozens of these events have been held around the world.
I’ve spoken at 5 different ignite events (Ignite Seattle x3, Gnomedex, Ignite Boston) and make much of my living from public speaking – here’s my advice on this special format:
- 300 seconds kicks ass. This is super short, which means it’s easy to practice . There is no excuse for not practicing until it feels good. It also means you have to be tight in your points. 300 seconds equals 10 television commercials. You can make great points in a short time if you refine your thoughts. The entire sermon on the mount can be read in about 5 minutes and The Gettysburg address takes about 2 and a half minutes.
- Figure out your points before you make slides. Talking about something for five minutes is easy – really, give it a shot once or twice before you make a slide – it will help you sort out what you want to say. You only need Four or five solid points to go 5 minutes. And practice with a timer before you make a slide. You’ll quickly discover how unlikely it is to run out of things to say during an ignite talk.
- It is ok to breathe. There is no law that says you must fill every second with talking. When you practice, practice breathing. Take a moment between points. Like whitespace in visual design it’s the pauses that make what you do say stand out clearly. Give yourself a slide or two that’s for just for catching up and taking a breath.
- Pick strong stories and big themes. What do you love? What do you hate? What is the best advice anyone ever gave you? Pick stories with big themes, since they require less introduction. What are the 5 most important things to know about X that no one talks about? The stronger the topic & title the easier the work is. Top 10 lists can work, but making 10 points is extremely hard – aim for 5 or 6.
- Don’t get hung up on slides. Good slides support what you’re saying, not the other way around. The last thing you want is to end up chasing your slides, a common problem at ignite as you’ll never catch up. Pick simple images and if you must use text be sparse. No bullet lists, just one or two points. Make the slides flexible enough that if you fall behind it’s easy to skip something to catch up.
- Watch some ignite talks! Some of the best ignite talks get posted to the ignite show regularly and you can see the many different ways people use the format. You can watch 6 different ones in a half hour. Do this. You’ll get ideas and confidence.
You can hack the format. The idea of a ‘slide’ is vestigial – they’re not slides anymore. I’ve hacked the format a few times, including using a special time counter deck to give me more flexibility (see photo at right). You can see this in action in my ignite talk on Attention and Sex or grab the deck here if you want to use or hack it further.- Plan to lose your first and last slide. Time will get eaten by the audience laughing, by any ad-libs you do, etc. so plan for about 4:30 instead of the full 5:00.
- You can find royalty free images to use. Search flickr using the advanced options to show you creative commons images. Or try sxc.hu or istockphoto.
And for extra fun, the rest of my advice is in the form of an ignite talk from Ignite Seattle #6. How meta.
Photo credits for photos used in the above talk (they’re on the last slide but hard to see):
- Campfire, Love, Heart / Love, Sneak Attack,This day, Death, G. Reaper, Speed limit
Also see:
- Jason Grigsby’s advice on how to speak at ignite.
- Cory Forsyths advice from Ignite NYC.
- Learning from Pecha Kucha night
If you’ve spoken at ingite and have more advice, leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how preparing helped… or didn’t :)
29 Responses to “How to give a great ignite talk”
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Chris Yeung Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:29 amCompfight is a simple way of searching for Creative Commons images on flickr.
www.compfight.com/
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scottberkun.com » Wednesday linkfest + Confessions Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm[...] How to give a great Ignite talk. What I’ve learned from doing 4 different ignite talks, including an actual ignite talk on how to give an ignite talk! [...]
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Scott Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 pmThanks Chris. Big list of other sources here:
randomknowledge.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/how-to-find-images-on-the-internet/
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Adam Goucher Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:14 pmI did an Ignite last week and blogged about my lessons (and slides) at adam.goucher.ca/?p=985.
-adam
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Scott Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 1:31 pmAlso see this excellent guide to pecha kucha, a similar format:
avoision.com/pechakucha/
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Lynn Cherny Says:
June 20th, 2009 at 2:36 pmMaybe the other Ignites are better forums (fora?) but the Boston ones have been so crowded, loud, and hard to hear at – I’ve never been very interested in talking there and rarely in trying to hear anyone, either. I always end up at the back chatting over a beer, making it even more obnoxious for everyone trying to talk. I was surprised to see no tips on how to deal with a distracted audience that’s drinking and socializing, kind of like at a comedy club…
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Scott Says:
June 21st, 2009 at 9:19 amLynn: actually when I spoke at the first Ignite in Boston, the one in Cambridge, it was an awful venue for speaking. I forget which bar it was, but it most of the people there were not listening, and they were also quite hostile by the time I got on stage as the opening speaker.
But all the other ignite events I’ve seen or been to were much more favorable. I haven’t heard many folks complain – anyone else find ignite events hostile?
I think it’s on the shoulders of the organizers to make the environment reasonable for speakers. At some point, say speaking in the middle of subway train station, there’s not much a speaker can do.
I’ll post something soon about speaking in unpleasant environments.
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Scott Berkun on Why You Should Speak (at Ignite) | Design Website Says:
June 27th, 2009 at 3:52 am[...] addition to his talk Scott wrote about how to do a great talk on his Speaker Confessions blog. Here are some of his [...]
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Kare anderson Says:
June 29th, 2009 at 10:00 amAfter speaking at both Pecha Kucha and Ignite events – and loving the swiftness,
excitement and audience involvement possibilities in both – the biggest factors
between a good and great events seem to be the quality of speakers (no surprise here),
a strong overarching theme, the venue that enables people to hear, see and feel
comfortable in the audience – and the seamless support of tech needs.Like Scott, I make my living giving speeches and consulting, ironically on communicating to collaborate.
As a long-time advocate of storyboarding conferences and meetings
and varying the formats in which people “speak” at them (ignite, in conversation with….,
meet the pros, speed coaching, fast panels, etc.) I just wish more meeting planners would
mix it up more. Scott – bet you’ll stir things up
Here I’ve written more.
www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/01/17/fast-way-to-learn-from-each-other/www.movingfrommetowe.com/2008/08/17/you’ve-got-five-loooong-minutes-to-grab-their-attention/
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Scott Berkun on Why You Should Speak (at Ignite) | Design Website Says:
June 30th, 2009 at 5:52 am[...] that talk and made it this week’s Ignite Show. In addition to his talk Scott wrote about how to do a great talk on his Speaker Confessions blog. Here are some of his [...]
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How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk – Scott Berkun Says:
July 9th, 2009 at 10:08 am[...] summarized the talk in this excellent blog post on Speaker Confessions (where he’s chronicling his new [...]
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Ignite Denver – awesome ‘how to give an ignite preso’ Says:
July 16th, 2009 at 7:13 am[...] Scott has an awesome write up on ‘how to do an Ignite Preso‘. it’s good [...]
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What do these events have in common? – Northwest Connects Says:
August 1st, 2009 at 5:18 am[...] per slide., on a topic that matters. The Ignite talks come out of O’Reilly media. Tips for giving good Ignite talks. The video on that page is v good as it talks about the importance of ’storytelling’, [...]
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Storytelling is Everything | Real Grad School Says:
August 10th, 2009 at 12:13 pm[...] is Everything I love the remarks on storytelling in this talk by Scott Berkun. To paraphrase/quote from the talk: Storytelling is everything. It is the most important thing [...]
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Scott Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 1:12 pmAnother good pile of advice:
blogs.msdn.com/betsya/archive/2009/08/24/giving-an-ignite-presentation-what-i-learned-at-gnomedex-2009.aspx
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Thinking of Speaking? « IgniteCincinnati Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 9:36 pm[...] How to give a great Ignite talk www.speakerconfessions.com/2009/06/how-to-give-a-great-ignite-talk/ [...]
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April 4th, 2010 at 10:13 am[...] position paper Twitter in Politics: Lessons learned during the German Superwahljahr 2009 in a short Ignite Talk. Although I have a narrative in mind which could fill the presentation I want to give the old [...]
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FXPAL Blog » Blog Archive » Microblogging workshop talk Says:
April 12th, 2010 at 5:25 am[...] was fun to give the ignite talk, and a bit challenging without really rehearsing. It was also fun to put together a largely [...]
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Segundo Destilando Web en Tlaxcala | robertocapi Says:
June 3rd, 2010 at 1:27 am[...] www.speakerconfessions.com/2009/06/how-to-give-a-great-ignite-talk/ [...]
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2° Tequila Valley Tlaxcala « Twittlax Says:
June 14th, 2010 at 10:49 am[...] www.speakerconfessions.com/2009/06/how-to-give-a-great-ignite-talk/ [...]
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June 15th, 2010 at 11:29 am[...] Más acerca de Ingine Talk y sobre Como dar un gran Ignite Talk [...]
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Ignite Spatial NoCo 2.0 – Details! « Ignite Spatial NoCo Says:
July 19th, 2010 at 12:03 pm[...] How you use that product to do amazing, mind blowing things would. Here is a good site to review: Ignite Talks Post Card from ISNoCo [...]
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So You Want to Present at Ignite Spatial NoCo… « Ignite Spatial NoCo Says:
August 2nd, 2010 at 3:50 pm[...] How to Give a Great Ignite Talk by Scott at Speaker [...]
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Interested in Talking at Ignite Cheyenne? | Ignite Cheyenne Says:
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:29 pm[...] How to Give a Great Ignite Talk by Scott at Speaker Confessions [...]
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Tales of Virality—Automattic | The Woodwork Says:
September 12th, 2010 at 3:24 pm[...] the e-mail requesting submissions, Matt mentioned that Scott Berkun “did a very cool post and video on giving ignite talks, so I modelled this talk after [...]
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links for 2010-12-08 « Where is my towel? Says:
December 9th, 2010 at 12:02 am[...] How to give a great ignite talk « Speaker Confessions (tags: ignite rules tipps how2 *****) [...]
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Therapy Ideas Live: “Enlighten us, but make it quick!” — Therapy Ideas blog Says:
June 5th, 2011 at 2:27 pm[...] this form. You don’t need experience of public speaking: anyone can give a lightning talk (read this post for some handy tips), and we’ll give you plenty of [...]
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How I survived 2 Ignite talks (and what you can learn from it) | Adventures in Global Strategery Says:
August 10th, 2011 at 10:55 am[...] piece of advice twice and watched Scott Berkun’s talk about 20 times. I also borrowed his PowerPoint template and spiced it up with some color because I whole-heartedly agree with him: storytelling is, in [...]
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Speak at Ignite Asheville | Ignite Asheville Says:
December 14th, 2011 at 8:50 pm[...] How to give a great Ignite talk [...]
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