Sometimes you walk out of an event and just think to yourself, “wow.”  Last night I walked out of the King Cat Theater unable to find any more descriptive adjectives to summarize what continues to be THE event of the Seattle geek scene.  Ignite Seattle 11 was a success in every sense of the word.

What worked?  First of all, the speaker lineups continue to be super high-quality.  Second, the organization of the event, led by Brady Forrest of O’Reilly but capably supported by an awesome volunteer team (including friends Randy Stewart and Justin Martenstein), is excellent and you can tell that the team has really gelled.  Third, the crowd brings an infectious, encouraging, and collaborating energy that you just can’t replicate.

I have to start out by giving mad props to Todd Bishop of TechFlash, who had the misfortune to be speaking when the power cord to the projector got inadvertently yanked.  While a lesser man (me) would have melted out of embarrassment or anxiety, Todd showed remarkable grace under pressure and waited a few minutes until the team got the issue sorted out, then calmly finished an interesting presentation on Seattle Geek History.

I had drinks beforehand with friends Andrew Hyde and Sarah Novotny, and, as it happened, Andrew was one of last night’s speakers, giving a great and personal talk on minimalism and the “cult of less”.  Sarah and I got to see a preview of his talk as he was practicing at the Rob Roy, and it was thought-provoking and inspirational.  Andrew is starting an 18-month trip around the world, visiting 61 countries and carrying everything he owns in a single backpack.  Safe and happy travels, Andrew! Follow his journeys on Twitter at @andrewhyde.

Speaking of grace under pressure, my friend Tom Music gave a funny talk about his recent battle with lymphoma.  I don’t think I’ve ever cheered when the word “Lymphoma” was shown to me before, but Tom has a wit and self-deprecating humor that is infectious and endearing.  I’ve witnessed Tom’s challenges and am amazed and in awe of his strength, resilience, and ability to stay smiling.  Good for you Tom; great talk and I’m very glad you were on stage last night.

Yet another friend, Jenny Ingram, a fellow Ragnar team member and famous blogger/vlogger, gave a talk about “how to get famous on the internet without taking your clothes off.”  I usually just take the easy route, but Jenny may have convinced me to pay attention to things like setup, lighting, props, background noise, and promotion.  It was really nice to see Jenny and her husband Paul and I hope to see them again soon.

Jacob Applebaum, who works with Wikileaks in some capacity (it’s all sort of mysterious to me) gave a really interesting presentation on “going dark” – which touched on privacy, secure communications, intrusive government spying, and corporate collaboration.  I really liked it and speaking as a guy who was geekily into PGP way back in the day, I’m surprised that more products and services don’t have privacy “baked in”, as Jacob might say. You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @ioerror.

The other talk I wanted to call out was by Michelle Bates, who sort of kept the theme of minimalism going with a riveting presentation on plastic-camera photography.  You can really get some interesting images with a cheap piece of hardware.

I’ll say one other thing about the talks in general – unlike some previous Ignite events I’ve attended, there wasn’t a single talk that stood out head and shoulders above the rest.  I think this speaks to the growing tendency for *all* the Ignite presentations to be really high quality.

Sadly, because I was drinking beer and catching up with friends, I missed the icebreaker, which was a collaborative puzzle-solving exercise dreamed up by speaker and friend Roy Leban (and Justin Martenstein? Not sure).  When I walked in, the front of the theater was packed with participants who seemed to be having a great time.

I’ll close with a word or two about community.  Although the range of topics presented at Ignite events is really broad, there’s a palpable sense of community, and I think it’s driven by a real curiosity and desire for exploration on the part of the audience.  Not a lot of moss grows on Ignite attendees, who seem to me to be the sort to constantly seek out new challenges, new creative outlets, reinvigoration, and reinvention.  It’s heady and magical to be surrounded by these sorts of folks and I love to be able to walk into a crowd of hundreds and stop every few yards or so and chat with yet another great person I’ve gotten to know over the past few years.