Tonight was Ignite Raleigh 2 (the first one was last year). I was looking forward to attending, considering the good things my friends had said about it from last year.

I will give my kudos to every speaker, and thank them for providing a great night of entertainment. Having said that….here’s my summation in as few words as possible:

Why companies need dumb guys…

• This one really never got to the point. It was a great concept, but never really finished it out.
• I was left wondering what i had listened to…
• …and realized that I may have just heard a 5 minute pitch for the guy trying to keep his own job.
• I mean…he did say several times that he considered himself a dumb guy.

A weather girl’s daily routine…up and 3am….

• i was very interested in this talk when it began.
• Then i slowly realized that it was quite dumbed down as if it was made for an elementary school presentation
• I am still wondering why a weather person needs to take a nap 3 hours after their day begins. It would be like me needing to take a nap at 9am.
• I mean….i work just as many hours it seemed, but i go to bed at a reasonable hour, so that i dont have to take naps throughout the day. Just a thought.
• I did write down “maybe that’s why their forecasts are always seemingly wrong….they are too tired to get them right!”

Best Slide of the Night…..from the Nerd Girls Unite presentation

• : “Femtroopers: An imperial march….in your pants!”
• seriously…that was the best slide of the night…and we all knew it, even though it was one of the first presentations given.
• This was one of my favorite presentations of the night. She was well prepared, well spoken, funny, the slides matched the tone of the presentation.
• All in all, a great presentation.

Least Prepared Speech

• The “featured” presentation by the blogads CEO.
• Too many cliche self-help Tony Robbins quotes about how people are the real value.
• Heard it all before dude….you did not ignite me. not even a little. NEXT!

Best Use of “Fire It Up!” from the crowd

• this was the theme of the night…and the crowd was encouraged to yell/tweet/blog “fire it up” when they heard something they liked)
• In response to the PleasureMechanics.com presentation, where they said “Anal sex can be a pleasurable part of any healthy sexual experience” ……. someone from the back of the room said, over the soft giggling of the crowd “FIRE IT UP!”
• this was met with raucous laughter. Well played sir. Well played.

Best Prepared and Presented Speech

• Definitely the Mayberry Modernism presentation about modern-style houses.
• It made me want go to out and buy a modern style house right then.
• Well done sir. Really professional. Super presentation.

Biggest gap between my expectation and the presentation’s reality

• “All Media is Social” presentation was disappointing
• I wrote during this presentation: “Frickin’ history lesson. If i wanted a history lesson i’d go read a book. And what the hell is McLewen!”
• Apparantly i missed the part in the presentation where he said who or what mclewen was…..because i was confused at the start of every sentence…. “Mclewen states….McLewen said” blah blah blah…don’t care about McLewen…tell me what you think dude.
• Great concept, poor execution

Most likely to convince me to go out and do something immediately after the presentation

• “$5 is change”
• great concept where you have a party, ask everyone not to bring chips/dip/win, but bring $5 that goes to a microcharity.
• $5 can save 36 lives by providing birthing kits to developing nations. These kits cost 27 cents each, and can increase the survival rate up to 92%.
• I will be doing something like this soon I’m sure. It’s very close to my Kiva microfinancing, which is probably why it interests me.

Most honest comment of the night

• During the “My cat can get a job faster than you” presentation
• The presenter said “I sucked at HR (Human Resources). I sucked really bad. But, I’m such a crazy cat lady, and being in HR, I rank my cats in order of performance. Scrubby is number 1″
• Seriously funny. Seriously awesome.
• One of the funniest presentations of the night.

Overall observances…

• It was funny watching some of the speakers get ahead of their slides, and then forget what was coming next. I felt sorry for them, but it was interesting seeing them guess what was next, and then realizing what was actually coming up next.

So…i enjoyed attending, and will do it again next year. It was hit and miss for some of the presentations, but i’m okay with that. It was a free night of entertainment, and i appreciate everyone who worked to put it on.