Just as you can put a lot of information into a 140-character Tweet, you can convey many thoughts in a five-minute Ignite talk. Micro-content is on the way.
If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.
Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis. Since then 100s of 5 minute talks have been given across the world. There are thriving Ignite communities in Seattle, Portland, Paris, and NYC.
On Friday, I gave my first Ignite presentation on stage to an audience of 300 at Gnomedex in Seattle. We’re thinking of using the format in the corporate learning track at Online Educa in Berlin later this year, and I needed to see how it felt.
The five-minute limitation makes you choose your words carefully. It turns out that less is more. People lose attention after listening to a speaker for nine to ten minutes. Might as well pack the message right up front rather than drone on.
My topic was the nature of time. Afterward, a fellow came who had judged presentations by a group of physicists on the same topic told me I presented more information in five minutes than the scientists covered in a hour.
This YouTube recording is slightly out of sync. (Sorry.)
Ten five-minute talks are better than one fifty-minute talk.
Viva Micro-content!
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I like the the forgetting curve. We need to continue to work on responding to this curve – it is just part of who we are. Thank you.