Technoccult

What is Ignite?

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.

We’re pleased to announce that EsoZone will be hosting a one hour Ignite during EsoZone on Saturday afternoon, October 10th.

Of course, there’s a twist.

Instead of 20 slides, at EsoZone Ignite speakers will use 5 props. The time will still be exactly 5 minutes. Speakers must incorporate all 5 props, and must speak for exactly 5 minutes.

Want to do it? Send a proposal to klint @ renegadefuturist dot com. Up to 10 talks will be selected by a panel. The deadline is September 15th, 2009.

Be sure to check out the next Ignite Portland this Thursday if you’re in town to see how the whole thing works, or check the Ignite web site for a schedule of Ignites in other cities.

You might also want to check out the BIL Speaker Guidelines for some general ideas for how to give a good talk.

(Please note that there is no relation between Ignite EsoZone Portland and Ignite Portland)

EsoZone Portland 2009 admission is free. We are funding this year’s event through sponsorships, merchandise, individual donations. We hope to raise as much in individual sponsorships as the cost of a single sponsorship fee – $250.

Speaking of which, if you’re interested in sponsoring, you can find more information here.

Esozone Portland 2009 will be an FREE unconference October 9-10. And for those who haven’t heard, I’m back in the saddle as organizer.

ANNOUNCEMENT:
Esozone Portland 2009
The New Esozone

The Esozone virus is resilient. It mutates and evolves. Faced with a rapidly changing environment, Esozone has rewritten its own code.

No more admission fees, no more weekend passes, no more divide between speaker and spoken-to. The new Esozone is an unconference, an open environment with an agenda determined by its own participants.

Esozone Portland 2009 will be held on Friday night, October 9, and all day Saturday, October 10. It will bring together renegade philosophers, experimental magicians, visionary artists, outsider academics, street entrepreneurs, mad scientists, sexy satanists, conspiracy theorists, benevolent pranksters, fearless psychonauts and other shameless mutants for two days of discussions, demonstrations and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.

Come for free, but be ready to share. Bring what you do and what you know. Bring who you are. This year, Esozone is all about you.

Coming soon: a FAQ, forums, and announcements about after parties and other events that weekend.

Announcing the new Esozone

Update: A Public Apology to Danny Chaoflux for my out-of-line comments here and following.

For the record:

I put off saying anything until I’d talked to the current Esozone staff, and determined where things stand legally.

Danny does not and never has owned the Esozone trademark. I do. I was financially and legally responsible for Esozone from the beginning. To be honest I’m a bit sick of people who think they have a claim to ownership over the project because they spent a lot of time talking about it on the Internet.

I’m in the process of transferring the ownership of the trademark to the current Esozone staff, and it will be up to them if the want to make “Esozone” an open brand. It’s not really my place to make that decision at this point, it’s up to the people who did the actual work to make the event happen (as opposed to just talking about it) and who are now responsible for making it happen again.

As many people know, I embrace free culture, going so far as to open all my creative works to the public domain. But it’s a bit trickier when it comes to identity.

It’s much easier for someone like Danny, who has no responsibility for what happens with the name “Esozone” to say that anyone can use it. It’s hard for me to begrudge the people who will actually have to deal with fallout of fraudulent use of the name for wanting to have some say in how it’s used. If someone holds an event and calls it “Esozone” pre-sells a bunch of tickets, and skips town the money, Danny and I aren’t the ones who are going to deal with it. If some Gary Spivey type puts on some cornball psychic scam event and calls it Esozone, we aren’t the ones who get slimed by the association. The guys who are putting labor and money into Esozone are the ones effected by it.

In short: do not listen to what Danny Chaoflux tells you about Esozone. He has no moral or legal authority regarding it. What he does with his own designs – the logo (which was stolen from the Alien screenplay anyway), the ouija board, etc. are his own prerogative. But the only people with the authority to make decisions about the use of the name Esozone are the organizers of Esozone.