Ignite Denver Turned Twenty-Five
Last week we held another Ignite Denver, number 25. I hadn’t really given it much thought, we do three a year, the team is awesome and I love them immensely. This one was set to be every bit as awesome, we’d sold out, had great food trucks lined up, had great speakers ready to inspire and amaze. Then. Dan gets on stage and starts talking, and as I lean over to Vanessa, to ask why he’s vamping, and where’s Kat our emcee, I realize what he’s doing. This awesome group of people, behind my back, decided to bring me from the background to the fore. Before I finish that story though. Ignite Denver is eight years old. In eight years we’ve held 25 events all around downtown Denver, from bars…
Another Denver Startup Week in the bag!
Welp, that’s that, Denver Startup Week 2016 has come and gone. I’m still tremendously proud to work on this event. It’s a ton of fun (and some stress, and head shaking). This year we set another huge milestone having over 13,500 people sign up for the week. That’s amazing. I had the honor of being the headline events chair, and as always we packed a lot into a week, and this year the week was only 4 days for me. We decided to move the closing bash to Thursday night, which based on attendance was a great idea! It was epic! Far busier than previous years when it was on a Friday. The Job fair this year saw almost 2,000 people show up to hang out with and talk to 70+…
Gratitude
Saying “Thank you” is important. If nothing else it’s polite, but for events, it’s important to realize, you’re the least important piece of the pie. No one is buying a ticket to hang out with you. They’re coming to see the speakers, possibly to meet sponsors (especially if they’re looking for work). If you factor in at all, it’s a distant third. For every event I organize I hand write thank you cards. Every speaker gets one (barring hiccups in the process, etc) when they check into the hotel or when they arrive at the conference. For 360|iDev that’s almost 60 cards. For 360|AnDev is was just under 30. I think too many event organizers forget that it’s not about them, they form a cult of personality around them as if…
Conference lunches…. They don’t have to suck
Conference food… There’s typically two types of conference food; “Oh my god, this conference has really good food” and, “Let’s just go somewhere else (and spend our own money), this event has crappy food” More often than not 360|iDev (and 360|Flex in it’s day) were usually the former. I’ve always thought that conference food shouldn’t be gross, it shouldn’t be rubbery chicken, and steamed veggies. It should be something that people go back for seconds for, it should be something people actually talk about, as much a valued part of the event as the content. I’ve mostly been successful at that. That’s not to say I’m batting 1000 (I think i used that reference right), there are times when the meal fails to deliver, either i picked poorly, or the venue…
