Ann Arbor: Ignited

Lest visitors to this site think I write only about the local beer scene (which, I think I can say now and not be lying, I'll soon be doing for AnnArbor.com), here's a little shout-out for Tuesday night's Ignite Ann Arbor event, held at the Neutral Zone.

The concept is new to our town, but apparently it was imported into Seattle from Japan or somewhere in the Far East a few years ago and has been spreading steadily across the land ever since.

How it works: Speakers pick a topic – apparently it can be just about anything – and they get five minutes to expound upon it. During those five minutes, they can use 20 slides, each of which advances automatically after 15 seconds. It's a great way to keep speakers – in this case, all 14 of them – focused.

Topics for the first-ever Ignite Ann Arbor event ranged from all the nifty things you can do with a Wii controller to how to make your own near-space balloon that takes and transmits pictures of the earth from the upper atmosphere. Yes, the geekery was palpable, but the five-minute limit kept all of the nerds from getting totally wonky on their chosen subjects.

It's fair to say the event was a success: There were something like 200 people in attendance. The organizers are planning another event in the fall, and, they hope, roughly ever four months thereafter.