Last night was the tenth edition in what is unarguably the best geek event in Seattle, the Ignite! series.  Hey – don’t believe me?  The Ignite! crew just won some sort of award.  To summarize the format for those of you too new or too forgetful to the scene – bring about 15 speakers up on stage in front of about 700 raucous geeks, have them talk for exactly 5 minutes in front of their slideshow, which is exactly 20 sliides long and which advances every 15 seconds.

You get nerves.  You get laughter.  You get those squirmy uncomfortable silences as the slide show gets borked or the speaker goes all doe-eyed in front of the headlights.  Mostly you get entertained and informed.

Maybe it was just me, but the crowd last night seemed more restrained compared to previous Ignite events.  My hunch is that there were a lot of people attending Ignite for the first time – call them late adopters, to use a geek’s parlance.  The cover charge may have had something to do with it.  It may also just be a busy time of year and the normal attendee patterns are thrown off a bit.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s very nice to see new faces and meet some new people.  But the normal drunken naked debauchery was in short supply.  (ed: Drunken?  Naked? – OK, not naked, and maybe just buzzed).

There were some headline names that everyone in the Seattle geek scene probably knows, or knows of: Marcelo Calbucci, founder of Seattle 2.0; Andy Sack, founder of Founder’s Co-op; and Matt Harding, better known as Dancing Matt, and who is truly Internet Famous.  In keeping with the egalitarian theme of the event, however, the speakers that stole the show were:

• Mark Selander, presenting on the Commutapult, a utopian commuting scheme with a sure-thing 100% safety record.  Biggest LOLs of the night.
• Bradley Vickers, who gave a talk on his real-world experience rowing across the North Atlantic with four guys and not enough food.  Not quite the Shackleton experience, but very captivating.
• Dan Shapiro, former CEO of Seattle mobile tech company Ontela (which merged with PhotoBucket last year), who gave a funny and informative presentation called “Hacking Birth”.
• Vanessa Fox, one of the handful of people who might legitimately vie for the title of “Best Search Expert in the World” (ed: didn’t she just write a book? Yes!  Yes she did), gave a fast-paced and very diverting talk about search and Those Crazy People On the Internet.  I must, in good conscience, ding Vanessa several points for showing photos of a guy on ChatRoulette dressed in a very meowy cat costume.

Last night was one of those nights I learned a lot.  For example:

• You can put rose petals in ice cubes. (via Kim Prohaska)
• You can hail a taxi using the same dispatch system the cab companies use. (via Aimee Cardwell)
• There is a restaurant in Seattle called Nettletown, which coincidentally is located not 100 yards from where I sit as I write this, that serves foraged food. (via Michelle Broderick)
• A donation of one pint of blood can save three lives. (via Jeff Shuey)

Overall: Even a slightly subdued crowd can’t diminish the pure genius of the format or the enthusiasm that the speakers bring to the stage.  If you haven’t yet attended an Ignite event, plan on making the next one – they’re not going away soon.

p.s. What happened to the exclamation point?  I think it used to be Ignite! Seattle, but now it’s just Ignite Seattle.  As a result, my synapses fire slightly less frequently when I read the name.

p.p.s. PSA: do not – EVER – use your cell phone when you are standing at the urinal.  Just sayin’.

p.p.p.s. If you’re in even the slightest funk, go to an Ignite event.  It will expand your consciousness, connect you with the community, and make you laugh.  Guaranteed.

UPDATE:Here are Vanessa Fox’s slides and here is Scott Porad’s slide deck.

Last night at STS Vanessa Fox of Nine By Blue gave a great talk on SEO – she really, *really* knows her stuff and is one of the acknowledged worldwide experts on the topic. Scott Porad of Pet Holdings (I Can Has Cheezburger, and other sites) then talked about User-Generated Content and wove together a lot of great thoughts into a very interesting presentation.

Mike Koss of StartPad has posted both videos here for your viewing pleasure. Highly recommended!