Matthew Petro

My caffeinated take on Ignite Phoenix 6

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Tonight’s the night. Ignite Phoenix 6 is happening tonight at the Mesa Arts Center. Myself and 17 other people will be presenting topics we’re passionate about. My passion: making great coffee at the office. I do it all the time and it makes me a happy guy.

There’s been some debate about what Ignite is. For me tonight, Ignite is all about passion: the passion of the presenters, the passion of the audience to learn something new and the passion of the community to see the presenters succeed. In the process of creating my presentation for Ignite Phoenix 6, I’ve realized that capturing passion in 20 slides is both the easiest and most difficult thing to do.

It’s easy because I could probably talk about small scale coffee making in the office for an hour. I have no shortage of material to draw on. But it’s really difficult to distill all of that discussion into 5 minutes, and then split it into 20 slides. It’s even trickier to turn those slides into a presentation which flows well when the slides change every 15 seconds.

However, the process is cathartic in the end. It forces you to find the essence of your passion and talk about only that. The fact that you as a presenter have no control over the number or timing of your slides means that there is nowhere to hide behind public speaking tricks. There is only you and your passion for 5 minutes.

After the Ignite Phoenix 6 presenter’s training session, Stacy Holmstedt commented, “You have to do one at least one terror-inducing thing each year.” I agree. Putting yourself in a scary situation means that you’re pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. It might be difficult, but it’s a great way to grow and change. I’m a little bit terrified for my 5 minutes of Ignite, but I’m really excited too. It’s 5 minutes of presenting to a great group of people. It’s something that I haven’t done before. It’s already made me think long and hard about what I’m really passionate about in life.

Ignite is all about motivating a community by creating change on a personal level within each individual. I’m sure I’ll be changed by this one.