Ignite: Five Great Minutes on Anything
Sep212009
Ignite is a project featuring people talking about something they know for five minutes, using twenty slides that automatically advance every fifteen seconds. Their tag line is “Enlighten us, but make it quick,” and their variety is amazing, including How to cheat at Scrabble and the Ten Principles of Economics. But it’s the format that fascinates me. It’s brilliant for disciplining a speaker, forcing him or her to distill an idea down to the essentials while focusing the visual presentation.
Here’s one on creative visualizations for analyzing data:
I’ve got some presentations to do in Ohio and New Jersey next month, and I’m thinking about doing four Ignite formats for each hour. Four parts to the workshop, five minutes followed by ten minutes of questions. Which is why I’m so glad they did this one on “How to Give an Ignite Talk.” If the presentations work out, I may try them as podcasts.
God, I love the internet.
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36 Comments to 'Ignite: Five Great Minutes on Anything'
On September 21, 2009 at 10:12 am Bethany, Cherry Clawed said...
That looks really cool. Please do podcasts? Maybe that’s how you and Bob could do your class? You don’t have to be in the same area–just do dueling podcasts for a subscription fee…
On September 22, 2009 at 8:36 am Danielle said...
I would pay for that!
On September 21, 2009 at 10:50 am TerriO said...
That is amazing. As a person who worked in radio for years having to say a lot in very short snippets of time, I’d say this is an awesome idea. And as someone who doesn’t always get what I want out of writing workshops, I say go for it!
On September 21, 2009 at 11:47 am robena grant said...
This is brilliant. Thanks for sharing. I actually learned something.
However, he was a little too breathless, too fast paced of a speaker for me. Maybe that amount of content explained in ten minutes would be better. Especially if you were wanting to take notes.
But podcasts from you, fabulous idea.
On September 21, 2009 at 12:42 pm Kay T said...
I got the general concepts – that there are different ways to visually present data to make it more understandable and useful – but did not really have enough time to understand why, how, when you would use the different formats or figure out which format to use. Perhaps, however, that info is percolating around in my brain and will be processed “offline”. Ha!
On September 21, 2009 at 10:07 pm Jim said...
If you want to learn more about visualization, the classic starting point is Edward Tufte’s celebrated “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information”.
On September 21, 2009 at 1:21 pm AgTigress said...
Hmmm. The only thing I perceive as ‘new’ is the breakneck speed and the rigidity of the format, with the slides autotimed, to be perfectly honest. The use of pictures, maps, plans, graphs and such has long been so normal in many disciplines that I don’t think that anyone could argue against its usefulness. That’s why they invented PowerPoint (and whatever the Mac equivalent is called), so we don’t have to draw the graphs by hand and photograph them on 35 mm slide film any more…
I am sure Jenny will be able to do great stuff with this — and unlike the gent in that clip, she won’t be boring.
On September 21, 2009 at 1:59 pm doris in munich said...
I’m with Kay T that I got the general concept about visualisation from this breathless guy but not the in-depth understanding. The ignite idea though is rather interesting and the rigidity of the kind of presentation is fascinating (reminds me of sonnets) and cool. Plus: the one presentation about working a crowd was great!
Thanks for pointing this series out!
On September 21, 2009 at 2:07 pm Lynn said...
Thanks! This is a cool idea that forces the presenter to make their point quickly, succinctly and with basic visual appeal. It’s kind of like a Twitter mash-up with PowerPoint. The second link is best, anyone can talk about what they like, what they hate,what they are good at …
On September 21, 2009 at 2:21 pm Jenny said...
I like the idea of presenting information in modules, and I think the fifteen second slide format–as doris said, it’s a sonnet form for presentations–really makes you look at what you have to present. I think the danger comes in presenting too much info. For example, I wouldn’t present the Core of the Idea lecture in five minutes, but I could present the Conflict Box in five minutes, Protagonists in five minutes, Antagonists in five minutes, Goals and Motivations in five minutes, and the Crusible/Central Idea in five minutes. I need to think about it a lot more, but I love this format, which is new to me. Not PowerPoint (Macs use that or Keynote which is better, I think), you’re right, that’s been around, but the idea of fifteen slides automated to fifteen seconds that you have to hit. If you’ve narrowed your topic and organized your information well and used simple to the point graphics, your information has to get across faster. Bob thinks that PowerPoint slides often harm a presentation because there are too many of them and they’re too detailed, but these slides have to be simple, simple, simple because they’re only up there for fifteen seconds. Although I like the cheat that the guy did in the How To.
On September 21, 2009 at 2:44 pm AgTigress said...
When PowerPoint first took over in the world of archaeology, it was a bit of a disaster. Before that, one used to reckon on 40 slides (single projection) for a one-hour lecture, and they would normally include some maps and plans and a lot of pictures of places and objects. The words all came from the speaker.
The ability to use words as well as pictures in PowerPoint was so exciting that it initially seduced many speakers into putting a lot of their text onto the screen in written form: Bad Idea. Words are terrific if one wants to help the audience remember the name of a site (and to see the spelling), but too many of them confuse, rather than clarify. Anyway, if you can read the lecture, why do you need the speaker up there droning on about it at all?
The greater danger now with archaeological PowerPoint talks is the temptation to put 8 images up there together on each screen, possibly fading in and out artistically. Another Bad Idea.
A combination of words and pictures is always going to work better than words alone, whether it is done in tradional or more trendy form, because it pulls in those of us who think and remember best in visual images. But getting it right is never easy. I am in favour of the discipline of trying to convey the salient points in a given time (after all, that is really what one does in any lecture/talk), but I remain quite sceptical about the value of having a fixed 15-second slot for each image. That is very likely to lead to some images being on screen for less time that they need in order to stick in the visual memory, and others possibly hanging on there too long. It is also likely to lead to an over-hasty delivery, something that was clearly demonstrated in the video clip. Speaking too fast (to keep up with the images) is a no-no. Most speakers are terrified of long pauses, whereas in fact, it is gabbling that is the greater danger.
On September 21, 2009 at 3:23 pm Someone said...
I have watched presentors do this format. I have heard presentors talk about this format. I think it’s insulting to the audience, especially if done poorly. I watched a speaker try it to do a presentation they had done many times in this format. His slides were mostly pictures and not words, but there were times he was off, so things didn’t flow. Of course, you don’t have to do the timed format, but then you’re not hitting the slides necessarily at the right pace, which is kind of the point.
I give many lectures, presentations, workshops and have been a teacher for nearly 30 years. I love new and innovative ideas. I love powerpoint, though I have to agree with whoever said it sometimes takes away from the speaker, because it does. The speaker becomes the background, while the slides the focal point. If the audience is reading the slides, or trying to grasp the visual meaning, how can they honestly be getting everything out of the speaker. Being the “have to try everything” kind of person, I tried this method of which you speak. I felt real sorry for my audience. I was not as energized as I could have been since I was more focused on hitting things with the slides. There was no room to be creative. No room to shoot from the hip. No room to tailer the workshop to the group dynamics, which a good speaker will assess in a few minutes.
The best speaker I saw recently was at orientation for my kid in her first year of college. This guy used visual aides, but not a slide show. He used the audience, made it interactive, entertaining and I can still remember all 7 points of his lecture. He asked basic questions up front, got the feel for the audience, then did his thing. I bought his CD and it was slightly different than the lecture I heard. Not the seven points, but how he tailored it to the audience he was speaking with. This was parents only lecture back in June. When the students arrived at school, the same speaker gave a similiar speech but tailered to students. Same 7 points, but the presentation was different. My daughter said she loved it because it wasn’t some guy standing up there lecturing to her, or using some slide show putting her to sleep, or worse, the other speaker they listened to who used a similar method you have shown here that drove her crazy everytime the speaker was a second off his slide. She also said it felt like the speaker only cared about hitting the right points, at the right time, and nothing else. You must remember the audience. Much like a book. I don’t think I’d want to see you do that method while teaching any kind of writing course.
On September 21, 2009 at 3:27 pm McB said...
It’s true that people can get a little click happy with PowerPoint. There’s so much you can do and, hey, animation too! It often results in an overload of minutae, and way too much stuff for people to read while listening to a speaker, too. Myself, I’m either listening or reading, so I’m going to miss something. And 15 seconds does seem a bit brief. Speakers need to be brief and concise, but if it’s too quick they just end up talking faster. Also, they’d just cram 20 slides into a 5 minute window, leaving the audience no time to absorb the material. 30 seconds seems more appropriate.
Still, I like the basic idea, and 5 minutes seems about right to either limit a presentation to general overview, or force the speaker to break the presentation down into 5 minute sections. Less babbling, more effective communication.
On September 21, 2009 at 3:35 pm Jenny said...
I agree, Ag, that PowerPoint/Keynote had made a lot of presentations much much worse, but I blame that on the speaker, not the software. (Worst example EVER: the professor who did a eulogy for one of his students using PowerPoint, as in “She was (A) [click] Bright, (B) [click] Beautiful . . .) But I think the right combination of words and pictures can be twice as effective as either one. If you figure, as I always did when I taught, that students would take one big idea away from a lecture and anything else they got was gravy, there was a lot of repetition already. If I can hone that to five minutes with images that reinforce the idea that I’m talking about, I think it could be really effective. Of course, I haven’t TRIED it yet.
On September 21, 2009 at 3:54 pm Lynn said...
I use PowerPoint to present as well, but if there are words I try to limit them on screen and elaborate when speaking. Text heavy is annoying, I really don’t need someone to read their presentation to me.
Don’t forget the fun video Life After Death By PowerPoint.
What you say, how you say it, and how the audience “sees” what you say is a challenging trifecta. I’d love to see what you do with the concept. It could be outstanding.
On September 21, 2009 at 4:25 pm Bethany, Cherry Clawed said...
On PowerPoint
I love the program and the potential–but I can agree that many many people overuse it. I found it helpful for lectures in college and even had one professor who used it nicely for discussions–she would put up a slide with some of the points we were discussing and that way we could look up to it instead of down at our notes.
Favorite PowerPoint memory was when we presented our theses senior year. Some kids had perfectly color-coordinated, timed, animated slides that they looked at and pointed to and really kept you from looking at the speaker at all. The exception was the girl who had coordinated her outfit with her PowerPoint.
I just got everyone’s attention by talking about sex appeal with no slides, just some notecards with key facts and numbers so I didn’t garble anything. The notecards stayed at my side except for during the question/answer portion where I was terrified of having a key Latin word wrong. All the professors and students seemed to love my presentation and our program adviser commented that I was one of the few who really seemed to enjoy talking about my material.
I also used PowerPoint to present a children’s picture story based on Dido and Aeneas…
On September 21, 2009 at 4:56 pm AgTigress said...
I was certainly not complaining about PowerPoint, which can be highly effective when well used. Also, it is great fun to compile PowerPoint talks. I had already retired by the time it started to be standard in my field, but I have used it in some recent lectures, and there are elements in it which are a real advance on using the trusty old 35 mm slides. (One can’t drop all one’s slides on the floor and have to re-order all the little suckers and make sure that they are the right way up and the right way round, for one thing…)
But really, a lot of the crucial points remain exactly the same — the judicious balancing of words with visual images to lock points in the audience’s memory, and, as has already been mentioned, the importance of tailoring a presentation to a specific audience.
I am not unduly bothered about the short 5-minute time-slot as such: as Jenny has already said, one just chooses a subject that can be explained in 5 minutes. Obviously I am all in favour of pictures as well as words; to me that is normal anyway. But I am really sceptical about the FIXED number of slides and the FIXED 15-second slide-changes. Some slides may need less than 15 seconds, others more (depends on the subject). Some 5-minute subjects may not need as many as 20 slides (actually, I would say that most 5-minute subjects would not need more than ten at the absolute max.). The rigidity of the format enforces both a precisely-timed script — no room for ad-libbing — and probably unduly rapid speech, which is one of the very worst things for losing the audience’s attention.
On September 21, 2009 at 5:59 pm Jenny said...
Sorry, Ag. Didn’t meant to put words in your mouth.
As for the fixed number of slides and second they can be shown, I’d go back to the sonnet comparison. It’s actually easier to write a sonnet than it is to write free verse. Structure gives you more freedom because you don’t have to waste time figuring that part out. But as with poetry ,”easier” doesn’t necessarily mean “better.”
On September 21, 2009 at 5:31 pm Cary said...
In the end, it is all about effective communication. As one who gets to edit PowerPoints regularly, I got to say, I like the idea of an Ignite. It’s all about forcing someone to distill their ideas to the simplest points. Yes, it is really cool that you can animate a chart – bob knows, they’re boring as is – and highlight statistics, but were they really necessary or just there to wake up the audience?
Seems to me that Ignite would force you to consider what is truly necessary to effectively communicate your subject, without allowing you to stray off target. (My biggest edit note, both on presentations and on papers.)
Ignite is, as noted by many above, not perfect for everything – it could never work in my world as anything but a base – but it could really force you to think about effective communication. And anything that does that gets my vote.
On September 21, 2009 at 6:54 pm Michele said...
I watched both videos, and the “How to create an Ignite talk” really clarified a lot for me. It’s all about looking at a presentation as the telling of a story- not a series of distinct points, but a cohesive story where everything hangs together to form the entire idea. The slides moving at the 15 second clip gets people away from the deadly part of Powerpoints- filling with too much information that distracts your audience from what you’re saying, and using the Powerpoints as your notes. The Powerpoint shouldn’t be the presentation- it should merely be the visual aid to assist the presentation.
I work with students who often have finite amounts of time to make presentations (their major presentation for awards is 5 minutes). You want your presentation in that time to be informative, but to leave the door open to questions. I can see a lot of possibilities for this, especially as a teaching/learning tool.
I also think that their tag line of “Enlighten us but make it quick” sums it up- you aren’t going to be an expert about the topic, but you’ll gather enough information to pursue further if you are interested.
On September 21, 2009 at 8:57 pm Micki said...
Hmmm. Interesting theory. (-: Reminds me a little of NaNoWriMo, in that you are given a specific structure, and then you just do it. And . . . like NaNoWriMo, you aren’t necessarily married to it. If a better idea comes up . . . if you really need 8 seconds to make this point, or 20 seconds to make that point, You Can Stray From the Concept (unless you are doing some sort of competition where you are judged on your fidelity to the concept — but let’s be serious; in real life you are seldom judged on your fidelity to the concept).
(-: The guy doing this sounds a little nervous and pressured by the time limits. But, he does present a remarkable amount of info in a short time. And, while there are disadvantages to the Live Studio Audience, for someone watching on YouTube, s/he can just rewind, watch again, open up a tab and explore related concepts.
I’m really interested in doing something like this for my classes, and I’m very happy to see so many intelligent comments on this post! I’ve got some concepts of my own to explore, now . . . . Pls. keep us updated on how this new technique works out for you?
On September 21, 2009 at 9:59 pm Melissa Blue said...
Being a full-time student for the past seven years I can speak of the evils and good things about Power Point, which it seems like this idea is trying to capitalize on. But, what it seems like is that they are trying to encourage presenters to be concise. Get to the meat of what they are trying to teach you and not linger. *Too many tangents is the fastest killer of any understanding. Also, not knowing your audience.*
But, it’s just my opinion that Power Point and anything like it is just a teaching aide. You learn by doing, seeing and hearing and, the biggest one, discussing what you’ve learned. Lessons presented to me and my peers were the lessons that stuck.
Anyway, your mileage may vary, and I’d totally download a podcast.
On September 22, 2009 at 5:21 am AgTigress said...
I do take the point about structure. I have always felt that one of the strengths of the really good novelists who started off writing category romance is that the need to write to a specific length and style honed their self-discipline in a way that shines through in their later work. They are not the novelists who, turned loose on single-book contracts, write huge, sagging, flabby books that are three times as long as they need be.
Yes, a tight structure, and a rigid one, can be an excellent way of ensuring that everything is pared down to essentials. But as I said, this is true of any lecture or talk if it is done well. Whether you have a 5-minute slot of a 50-minute one, you still need to work out what you are going to say and how to say it, what to include and what to leave out, and what images will help to drive home your points.
Likewise, all poems have a formal structure — it is merely that the sonnet (or the limerick, or the clerihew, or the haiku) has a more rigid and limiting structure than some others.
The faults I perceived in the video clip are exactly those I would expect from the insistence on too many slides, each showing for too short a time, and for exactly the same length of time. The sequence of images dominates the presentation rather than illustrating the presentation: the speaker is simply captioning the pictures, and doing it in a hurry.
On September 23, 2009 at 11:05 am colognegrrl said...
There once was a man from Japan
whose limericks never would scan.
He explained very nicely:
“Well, the problem precisely
is that I always try to put as many syllables into the last line as I possibly can.”
Sorry, I couldn’t help it but I remembered this at the limerick cue. And I guess it fits the topic. Somehow.
On September 22, 2009 at 7:17 am Julia said...
Edward Tufte’s ‘Envisioning Information’ was a godsend when I worked with chemists & edited presentations. Even just skimming it is useful, and it looks good on a coffee table — two things that would probably horrify him
On September 22, 2009 at 10:19 am Bob said...
I thought it was interesting. He did seem rushed. As Jenny noticed I think there are ups and downs to Powerpoint/Keynote. I get great reactions when I use film clips to emphasize points about writing. I also now give out a handout that has everything on it that is on the slides so people don’t spend the presentation copying slides down, but can make notes about what strikes them.
The biggest change I’ve made over the years, well, two biggest, well, wait, no three– Spamalot– anyway:
1. Less is better. I used to pack way too much in my presentations and overwhelm people. Less done well is always better. Still a big problem I have to watch out for in everything I do.
2. Emotion is important. I used to put down ‘motivational’ speakers and focus on content. But people also want to feel good. So it’s not so much a question of motivation as it is atmosphere.
Well, I guess that was two. I think being forced to work a slide every 15 seconds really locks you down. That’s both good and bad. I’ve been posting short video clips on my web site via YouTube– about three-five minutes, from longer presentations, and I have found that to be useful.
On September 22, 2009 at 4:36 pm Jenny said...
The handout with the slides on it is a smart idea. So I’ll be stealing it, of course.
On September 23, 2009 at 12:42 am Micki said...
It’s good, but maybe pass the handout at the end. I was at a teaching seminar where everyone was reading the handout instead of looking at the slides/listening to the lecture. The guy had “memo space” next to the slides so people could take notes, and that was a fine idea in theory, but didn’t work out so well because I think he didn’t mention anything important that wasn’t on the slides already.
Also, since I’m here, I want to make one comment about sticking faithful to this format — if you are funny, or plan to be funny, the automated slide thing is going to wreak havoc with the audience response. You can plan for laughter, but if they laugh longer than planned (or worse, the Dreaded Silence of the Crickets), your next slide might be off.
However . . . unless one is in a contest, I don’t see why one needs to stick to automation. The format is great for planning, and then flexible in the actual situation.
On September 23, 2009 at 1:01 am Micki said...
BTW, stopped by Bob’s blog just now. Fabulous!! I will be thinking about guy-emotion vs. gal-emotion for the rest of the day . . . right after I make up a huge COURAGE poster to paste on my laptop bag.
On September 22, 2009 at 4:01 pm Lyn said...
Three paragraphs? Does Bob know someone is using his name to run on this way?
On September 22, 2009 at 4:35 pm Jenny said...
He’s talking about teaching. He’s not monosyllabic when he talks about teaching.
Ask him to share his feelings and see what you get.
On September 23, 2009 at 9:01 am Laura Alexander said...
I have attended numerous Powerpoint presentations given both by educators and by students. This is what I have discovered:
1) The presentations given by educators and administration tend to be long drawn out affairs where audience members who love to hear themselves talk are given ample opportunity to respond either positively or negatively (or just loudly) during the lecture.
2) Those given by students have often been good, but also tend to incorporate as many of the special effects as the presentor can include.
In the first case, the main idea of the lecture can be delayed or not even covered because of the length of the presentation. In the second, the actual amount of data is missing because the presentation became the object of the lecture.
I have to say that I enjoy the fast-paced graphically driven style of the Ignite concept. I feel that it is an excellent teaching aid for how to get a point or many points across quickly. And in this Twittering, podcast download world, quicker seems to be more successful. Oh and by the way, not long ago I was blown away by a 10 year old’s Windows Movie Maker presentation. So I don’t think we have seen the end of software development and availability. If anything, I’m surprised more hasn’t already been done.
On September 23, 2009 at 11:12 am Bob said...
huh?
On September 23, 2009 at 12:57 pm Steph said...
I do find the 15 secs a bit rushed but I think I like that it puts the focus back on the visual. Granted I’ve been out of corporate America for a few years but there were WAY too many people just reading their slides to you, instead of using it as a visual medium. Like they said at the Emmy’s – I know what’s going to happen next, not because I’m a medium but because I can READ.
I think that using it to do pod-classes would be cool. My 2Cents, FWIW.
On September 24, 2009 at 7:30 am Naked Under My Clothes said...
What if the audience includes those with limited vision? I’ve done a presentation or two in my day. I am most comfortable presenting slides that have content but NOT reading them.
Anyone have pointers for presenting to a mixed audience? I don’t want to bore those who can read, but I want everyone to have the same access to the info.
And yes, if I knew for sure who was coming, I could send those people with limited vision the presentation in advance. Assuming it wasn’t changing up to the last minute, of course.
On September 24, 2009 at 9:38 am AgTigress said...
Just as one has to make some compromises in relation to the knowledge base of one’s audience — one will always be explaining the obvious to some listeners, while presenting others with unimagined new ideas — one has to compromise over visual acuity. Those audience members with poor eyesight will, if they have any sense, be sitting at the front.
Bold graphics like histograms work well even for the very short-sighted. The important thing, in my view, is that any important words on the slides should (1) be in a font that is large enough and clear enough for most people to read and (2) should not convey information which is otherwise not mentioned. The written words should merely reinforce the spoken text. I think we all agree here that putting loads of text up on the screen is a Bad Idea. But just because there are few, or no, words on the slide does not mean that the damn thing should flash past in 15 seconds.
I have done only archaeological lectures, so I have regularly used pictures, maps, plans and graphs for some 35 years: being able to add words in PowerPoint has been welcome to me, but I use the facility mainly for things like putting a title with the provenance on a slide showing a site or object. The association of written name and visual image is really helpful to those of us whose minds work in pictures, though presumably it makes little difference to verbal/aural thinkers.
I think circulating handouts before the event is really appropriate only in a restricted teaching situation, as opposed to a ‘general interest’ lecture. It is in the latter that the wildly mixed audiences occur, from international scholars to the museum visitors who want to rest their poor aching feet, and wander into the lecture-theatre to do so. The speaker running a teaching seminar is likely to have a more homogenous group before her.