Ignite Talks

Ignite is an event meme. Several speakers give five minute talks, each of which are backed by 20 slides which advance every 15 seconds. Ignite talks educate and entertain; the time and format constraints break people out of the PowerPoint mindset into a vehicle of insight and wit. I attend Ignite events at Ignite Boulder which has had the largest crowds in the world.

Flip Your Org Chart: Trevor Stone's talk at Ignite Boulder 40

My second Ignite Boulder talk was about computer science trees, biology trees, and organization charts. I presented this at Ignite Boulder 40 on December 12, 2019. You can view the presentation deck online with Google Slides or download a copy as Keynote (59 MB), PowerPoint (36 MB), or PDF (34 MB). The presentation is shared under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

Inspiration for this talk came in part from the Black Rock Rangers at Burning Man. The first time I attended a Ranger training I was struck by the characterization of the Rangers organizational chart as a "shit funnel" because shit flows downhill, so you want your most experienced folks lower in the funnel to deal with the messiest situations. I was drawn into this topic further by an article in McKinsey Quarterly called Big data in the age of the telegraph about the first org chart ever put to paper, Daniel McCallum's organization chart for the New York–Erie Railroad. It documented the flow of information between regional branch lines and the central office. The branch lines have flexibility to manage their operations and workforce, reporting back to the central office and the board who can make strategic investments and whose role is to support the tree from the ground. You can explore a high-res copy of this original org chart at Wikimedia Commons. And if you're ever on the island of Maui, be sure to check out the wonderful banyan tree in the town of Lahaina. Its dozen trunks allow the tree to take up an entire city block, creating a wonderful community space.

Money and Other Useful Myths: Trevor Stone's talk at Ignite Boulder 14

On March 3rd, 2011, I spoke at Ignite Boulder with a talk titled Money and Other Useful Myths. Here are the slides: 31 MB OpenOffice or 1 MB PDF, made available under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. The video is available on YouTube in the IgniteBoulder channel.

If you're interested in the subject, here are some links worth pursuing:

• Planet Money from NPR and This American Life. A great podcast that explores contemporary and theoretic economic themes with an entertaining and easy-to-understand approach. If you're mostly interested in the "how does money work" stuff, check their pieces on currency.
• Planet Money came out of the fantastic This American Life episode The Giant Pool of Money, exploring several levels of the housing market collapse of the late naughties.
• Speaking of podcasts, The BBC's Business Daily is informative and accessible, though it's usually not of the "Let's explain how money works" variety.
• Crisis of Credit, a good animated short explaining the financial collapse of late 2008.
• economicshelp.org is sort of an FAQ about economics concepts. Here's their money category.
• Social Capital blog, from the Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America.
• Socialstructing, a good post from Marina Gorbis on BoingBoing.
• Gift economies like Burning Man are communities which use non-monetary forms of persuasion to create awesome stuff.
• NeighborGoods, a site making it easier for folks to share resources.
• The Awesome Foundation is a local-chapter based organization that gets a few people to pitch in to give $1000 grants to awesome projects that promote awesomeness.
• As always, Wikipedia has a lot of good information about currency and even local currencies if you want inspiration for creating a new one. They've also got a big page on social capital.

If you're particularly interested in what I say, you can check out my blog, flwyd.dreamwidth.org where I sometimes write about economics and money. You can also follow me as @flwyd on Twitter or any of the various forms of contact on my about page.