(cc) MrAnathema on Flickr

Last night I had the most amusing honor of emceeing the first Phoenix Ultimate Geek Smackdown (PUGS) at Phoenix Comicon, put on by the Horror Track and the Midnite Movie Mamacita. This was an idea Andrea and I came up with over beers one afternoon. I need to stop drinking beer. Gets me into too much trouble.

Anyway, the idea was to see who had the best overall knowledge of geekery, on topics ranging from science-fiction to gaming. The gauntlet would be a series of tournament bracket debates where a Question of Great Import would be revealed, argued, and then finally judged by audience approval. The Questions of Great Import were given to the debaters on the spot, and they were assigned which side they would have to champion. A true geek would be able to argue both, would he not? About 200 people in the audience and our eight (somewhat reluctant) contenders waited breathlessly for each topic to be revealed.

The Questions of Great Import for the first round were:

• Fast Zombies or Slow Zombies?
• Autobots or Decepticons?
• Team Edward or Team Jacob?
• River Tam or Buffy Summers?

Winners are in bold. The Twilight one was thrown in for fun, and nearly started a small riot. The debaters rallied to a topic they clearly didn’t know well and argued whether women preferred pretty men who sparkled, or hairy men who grunted. The winners advanced to the semi-finals where the topics were:

• Alliance or Horde?
• Better Rogue Captain: Han Solo or Malcolm Reynolds?

(cc) MrAnathema on Flickr

The Captain one was my favorite of the series, and with sporting Browncoats in the audience things got heated. The World of Warcraft topic brought out the hidden need of some men to dress as women in armored bikinis. By this point the audience was openly debating the topics among themselves and with the contestants.

Finally, only two contestants sat upon the battlefield and took aim at one of the all-time classics:

• Marvel or DC?

BEDLAM! Fortunately, order was restored before security needed to be called, and Chris Calilung won the day, a big box of prizes, and the creepiest trophy ever - a lion, being ridden by Chewbacca and Geordi LaForge, with C3PO’s head in the lion’s mouth. This bizarre work of art was paraded around proudly, and documented in the cameras and cell phones of many stunned attendees.

Chris ran the field like a true Geek, and despite repeated threats about being so nervous he was going to hurl, when things got going he faced his fears like a Sicilian when death is on the line! Mad props go out to the runner-up, Ben Mandall, who came ready to rumble with his Dungeon Master’s screen and giant D20.

(cc) MrAnathema on Flickr

Huge thanks to Andrea for adding this into the Horror track, awesome Phoenix graphic designer Victor Moreno for making the presentation look so pretty, Phoenix geek blog Lightning Octopus for helping spread the word, relentless photographer Joe Abbruscato for the great pictures, and everyone else who contributed to make this goofy thing happen. It went so well, and people had so much fun, I’m hoping we make it part of the overall Phoenix Comicon event and get a bigger room. (HINT, HINT!)

Until then, I hope Chris enjoys his reign as Phoenix’s Ultimate Geek… and that the trophy doesn’t give him nightmares.

UPDATE: Due to popular demand, I present to you a picture of the Phoenix Ultimate Geek Smackdown Trophy!

Phoenix Ultimate Geek Smackdown Trophy

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(cc) via Stéfan on Flickr

For a silly little project I am noodling on, I need to collect some of the Greatest Debates in the Realm of Geekery! Those things that, when targeted at the right people, will spark mayhem and finger waving of truly spectacular proportions. For example, in the realm of Comics the question of “Who is faster: Superman or the Flash” got a whole DC Comics message board shut down recently.

The constraint is that it should be a debate between two positions, and not open ended. For example, “Who is the best Star Trek Captain?” won’t work, but “Who is better: Kirk or Picard?” is perfect.

It can been in any geek/fandom realm including, but not limited to, comics, sci-fi, movies, horror, fantasy, anime, superheroes, or video games.  You don’t have to post your view on the matter, but you are welcome to if you want.

Here are a few off the top of my head to get you started:

• Which is better, Star Trek or Star Wars?
• Who would win in a fight, Batman or Wolverine?
• Who was hotter, Princess Leia or Padme?
• Which movie was better, Spider Man or Iron Man?

Much appreciation for any and all ideas!

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Through an odd series of events over the past two years I ended up involved in the crazy, passionate, chaotic world of Phoenix non-profit groups and events. I’ve been constantly impressed by the amazing things going on locally on an independent level, and constantly horrified at how difficult it is to get just the basic funding needed for great ideas to take off.  People work their butts off on a shoestring, while big investments often go towards established entities with so much overhead they can’t execute.  It’s maddening.

So when I was asked to be part of a board looking towards sharing grant money with locally based non-profits, I was torn. I needed another commitment like I need an extension to the Chunnel plowed through my head, but I liked the idea and figured I could put my network to good use and help get the word out.  Specifically, I want to try and reach a lot of the local, community-level groups that are online and actively leveraging all these social tools to try and move forward.  They’re groups that this grant process may not normally reach, and I want to get them into the application stack.

The grant program is called Sharing The Prize Seed, and the $25,000 “Sharing the Prize Seed” grant program is sponsored by the law firm of Jaburg & Wilk and the Jaburg & Wilk Foundation.  The “Sharing the Prize Seed” grant has at its root the story of a farmer whose crop won top awards every year. Upon receiving his annual honors, the farmer would distribute some of his prize seed with neighboring farmers to plant in their own fields. As the growing season progressed and his neighbors’ fields began to flourish, the wind would blow pollen from field to field, and the cross-pollination assured that all the crops were strong.

Qualified candidates will put forward a proposed community improvement project that requires at least two Valley of the Sun 501(c) 3 non-profit organizations to work together to improve the condition of Valley education, children, at-risk programs and other community-based efforts identified through the Sharing the Prize Seed Giving Areas.  Grant applications are being accepted until Monday, April 19, 2010.  Grant details and the grant application are available here.

Grant applications are being reviewed by the Sharing the Prize Seed Advisory Board, of which I’m a member.  The public will make the final decision through an online voting competition at sharingtheprizeseed.org of the ten finalists selected by the Advisory Board. The winning project proposal will be announced in May.

If you know a qualified Maricopa County 501(c) 3 non-profits organization please send them this info. You do not need to send them to me – just get them the application details and information.

Short Version

If you know great non-profits based in Maricopa county, send them this info and have them submit this application.

Please help me share, Tweet, Facebook, and (Latest Tool Thingy) this info as much as possible. Click the little tabs at the bottom of this post. I really want to spread this info as far as possible among online groups who may not have heard about this opportunity yet.

There are some amazing things going on in the Valley, and thank you for helping support them!

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Another part of my Year End Clear Out related to Ignite Phoenix, a few of the reasons things work as they do related to the event. My normal approach is not to air a lot of the internal stuff and just let people enjoy the show, but many people have been generally curious or offered other approaches so thought I would share how things are viewed.

Most of these are decisions by the Ignite Phoenix team, who I’ll encourage to chime in here, as not every one of us agrees with every approach. Most of these topics at least come up once each cycle to see if we need to modify it. None are set in stone, though a few of them I feel much more strongly about than others.

I’m going to try and be concise – a challenge for me as I’m getting my blog-legs back – and I can expound if anyone has questions.

Size of the event

500-600 people is as large as we want Ignite to get. We could fill larger venues, but then it becomes more attractive to sales-pitches and scarier to average people who want to give it a try. It also becomes harder to really interact with presenters during breaks with this many people. If it ever got so big that there was no benefit to going in person to meet the speakers, we would have lost something important.

Multimedia presentations

We keep a hard line on static slides without music or video. We’ve made an exception for music a few times (Ignites #1 and #4 come to mind)  but Ignite should be about a person sharing their idea personally, not taking time to show something prebuilt. As a bonus, this simplifies the tech issues enormously, but the core reason is to force the presenter to be the center of the talk.

Props & teams during presentations

We discourage this heavily for the same reasons as above, but have made some exceptions like with music. It has to be integral to the talk. Done right the slides are prop enough, but many people don’t use them as effectively as they could.

Exceptions

We try to do 90% of the work by general rules we’ve set, but are always willing to consider exceptions. Nearly every Ignite has had at least one talk that has been non-standard in some way. We’d be stupid to leave out a great talk just because it was a little different.

Private voting

Ignite should never be a popularity contest. Some people already get very upset when their idea isn’t selected, and we don’t want to make that worse. We keep the process public but the votes private. Perhaps one of the few absolute rules we have is that judges cannot disclose anything about the voting results.

Why Wasn’t My Presentation Chosen?

I hate this question, but get it every time. Since I don’t pick the presentations, I really can’t answer it. Sometimes it is just the way the voting falls, sometimes we just get a lot of submissions on one topic and it splits the votes. Often times the difference between the 18th (Made It) and 19th (Missed) presentation votes are a fraction of a percent. One time we had about 6 all clumped together, so often times it just becomes a lack of space. We encourage people to resubmit, but very few do.

Three Times In Tempe?

We hadn’t planned to stay in Tempe for a full year (Ignites 3-5) but we made an agreement with sponsors back during Ignite Phoenix 3 and wanted to honor them. Overall Tempe was very hospitable to use – the vast majority of the problems we had were related to the venue itself.  Our plan now is to move around the Valley quite a bit more, but may still revisit venues if it makes sense.  We don’t want to be in one location for a full year again.

Involvement & Input

Holy crap, SO many people work to make Ignite happen, from the core team that meets for a few weeks leading up to it, to the volunteers who help the night of the event. We welcome anyone to jump in and grab a role and put their stamp on it, but we give preference to people who are really involved. We watch a lot of the general community feedback and take it to heart, but sometimes topics are a lot more complex (and sometimes stupid) than people realize so we don’t always react to public comments. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve invited someone to devote hours to make a change they proposed and they are never heard from again.

Wifi

Having wifi is a priority for us in all future venue selections, or at least not having a venue that blocks 3G and cell connections. Many people use their phones and other devices to tweet and connect during the events, so wifi may not be a deal breaker. We want people to be able to share and talk about the presenters on the back channel, and believe me – our frustration on this topic may exceed that of any attendee to date.

Charging for Tickets

As Ignite grew, managing the tickets against reservations became a real challenge for our volunteers. Ignite #4 used Eventbrite and the reservations came through to us very spotty. Plus, no-shows on the free reservations were nearly 40%. It turned that out since the tickets were free, people just reserved a bunch even if they weren’t sure they could come. (I’ve learned since then this is a common issue that events face.

If we have a venue box office do it, they charge a handling fee we can’t get around. Our solution for #5 was to set a price ($5) that ate the fee, gave us some revenue, and set the bar just high enough that people wouldn’t grab tickets unless they were fairly sure they would come.  It worked much better, but shifted the problem to the 100 free tickets we held back to give away that night – people heard we were “sold out” so didn’t drive down to claim them.

To be crystal clear on a related point, nobody makes a profit on Ignite. Nobody draws a salary or is in any way directly compensated for their time. All money – from sponsors and tickets – goes to pay the expenses tied to the event.  Money coming in from tickets just helps reduce our need for getting sponsors. Ignite still costs money to put on.

Our plan for Ignite #6 is to put all tickets on sale, except for the free ones that sponsors and presenters receive. We think this is the best balance between reducing load on our volunteers, and ensuring that anyone who wants to attend that evening can plan accordingly without having to show up way in advance to wait in line.

Mini-Ignites

There have been several topic specific, mini-Ignites over the past year, with the most notable being the Intel sponsored Developer Ignite, and the Ignite High School hosted by Carl Hayden High School.  We love these, and our hope is to have a few more of them each year, but not a flood so it overwhelms people.

We ask that some basic rules be followed, mostly around transparency, and that we cross-promote, but then let the mini-Ignite find its own style and voice. I think this is a great way to leverage the brand of Ignite Phoenix, and have new ideas and methods feed back into the overall event.  I love having the mini-Ignites have a different look and feel, and I hope to see a few more of these in 2010.

Blah blah blah…

Well, I still seriously suck on the brevity angle.  I held this back to try and edit it, but these are really all questions I get. It seemed dumb to make a series about it, so I’ll just put them all out there and discuss any that people find interesting.  I still have a post in mind about how to improve Ignite, which hopefully I’ll still get out this week.

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In 2009 Ignite Phoenix grew from about 140 people at Ignite #2 to the nearly 600 we had at Ignites #4 and #5.  It’s become something very different from what I ever imagined in more ways than just size. This year it generated a lot of discussion, especially after the most recent one, and I learned a lot about how people view Ignite.

I am amazed at how passionate people are about many parts of Ignite, and especially how their views so fundamentally differ from my own. It was an interesting milestone for me as I saw how many people had invested enough in Ignite to feel a sense of ownership in its direction, and motivated enough to add in their thoughts.

As part of my Year End Clear Out I wanted to share my thoughts on what I love about Ignite Phoenix. I also want to talk about the reasoning behind some parts of Ignite (like charging admission), and where I think Ignite can improve, but one topic at a time.  I’m still getting my blogging legs back and Ignite tends to make me even wordier than usual.

I’m posting it here rather than at ignitephoenix.com because this is really just my opinion. This isn’t any “official” Ignite stuff, and people who want to just attend and participate in the events may not find it interesting.  If something really good comes of it I’ll cross-post, but really consider this one person’s view who has just spent a lot of time with the event.

There are a lot of things I love about Ignite, but here are my Big Three. Almost everything rolls into one of these areas:

A Chaos Bringer

We all make patterns in our lives, our thoughts, our groups, and our habits. We build our communities, view them as the whole of the world, and sometimes lose sight of how much out there we really don’t know. We may be very open to exploring new ideas, but sometime our habits just don’t bring them across our path.

Ignite brings things together in unexpected ways, putting something new in our field of view. I have a number of personal benchmarks for a successful Ignite, and one of them is whether people tell me they were originally looking forward to presentation X, but the one they liked the best at the end was presentation Y.  Something new caught their eye.

I work hard to keep the chaos in the system, which means fighting against my own patterns. I’m as much a creature of habit as everyone else, so try to shake it up with a rather odd voting process, and multiple judges that change between events. My benchmark here is if at the end of voting every judge only had some of their favorites make the cut. Also I expect there to be at least a few presentations that I personally am disappointed didn’t make it, and a few I am worried that DID make it.  If I’m not somewhat nervous about the final lineup, then I’ve messed up.

I believe there is inherent value in this chaos, and I work hard to try to keep it that way.

A Connector

Ignite brings different groups and views together, and it grows stronger as it reaches more groups. Some people have been frustrated by mentions of Ignite in mainstream media – like the Arizona Republic and Phoenix New Times. One concern was that the community will be diluted and lose some of its value with this wider exposure. I contend that hungry-minded individuals are welcome at Ignite no matter how they hear about it.

I love seeing the growth of Ignite via word of mouth, but I believe that mainstream mentions is simply someone finding the event interesting enough to pass on via their own channels.  I’ve never sought paid ads for Ignite and don’t seek mainstream coverage, but I support people who find Ignite and want to share it through other mediums.

I believe this is self regulating. Ignite is just not for everyone, and that’s all kinds of okay. People who come to Ignite are hungry for ideas and are intellectually curious. Many people who read about Ignite in the Republic could probably not imagine a more boring way to spend an evening, or they may come once and never again. I only care about the people who come and love it just as much as the people who heard about Ignite #1 via Twitter and have been coming ever since.  If I tried to limit where people passed on info about Ignite, and which new groups and perspectives it brought in, I’d be doing it a great disservice.

Ignite appeals to a huge range of people, and keeping it inclusive and evolving is a huge piece of its value.

Source of Personal Innovation

Ignite Phoenix provides opportunities for people to share and learn something new, but where it goes from there is up to each person. There is no grand plan.  On the simplest level it is an opportunity to hear new ideas and have a good time. Better is to explore the ideas you hear and connect with new people and activities.  Best is to take action that changes something in your own life.  It doesn’t have an agenda, but relies on everyone to make their own effort to engage – or not – however they see fit.

This often throws people who desperately seek to classify Ignite as a “networking event” or a “startup pitch”, but keeping Ignite open prevents it from being constrained and limiting connections to just one channel. We don’t invite venture capitalists, think-tank planners, publishers, or agents, but people still make connections.  Ignite has resulted in people getting new jobs, joining new groups, gaining business, meeting great friends, and starting new careers… but it was always by the personal action someone took to take another step after seeing someone on stage.

Ignite provides an opportunity for individuals to change themselves, then go out and foster greater change. To grow from the inside out.

So…

That took longer than I thought to write, was is probably too long for most people to read, and I clearly need more practice to get back into the blogging groove. Still, I think I captured the core of what I value in Ignite: bringing groups of curious people together, exposing them to new ideas, and keeping an open format to allow anything to happen.

Next up some of the common “Why does Ignite…” questions I get, and then where I think Ignite can improve.

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