With the fifth incarnation of Ignite Portland coming up in a few weeks, one issue surrounded in a bit of mystery is the process used to select the presenters. With far more entries than speakers (Ignite Portland 5 had over 80 submissions with less than 20 chosen to speak), many people wonder why they weren’t chosen or how the field is narrowed.
Since the Legion of Tech folks seem reluctant to share how the process works, I figured I would share what I know. I was involved as part of the presentation selection committee for Ignite Portland 2. The information in this post is based on my experiences as part of that process. The selection process may have changed since that time, but here’s a look at how things worked in the past which may provide some insight. I do not represent the Legion of Tech, and this blog post may be completely wrong… but here’s what I recall:
Presentations were selected by a committee of 8 folks, all volunteer organizers of Ignite Portland. A shared spreadsheet was compiled listing all of the presentations. Each committee member reviewed all of the proposals and voted for each one as Yes, No, or Maybe. The vote was simply based on whether the proposal sounded interesting and would make a good talk for Ignite. Each presentation was then given a numerical score based on the votes (formula was (number of yes votes – number of no votes + 1/2 the number of maybes). The list was then reordered based on the numerical score.
For Ignite Portland 2, there were over 50 proposals. Two of them received Yes votes from all eight committee members. Two received unanimous No votes. Every other proposal fell somewhere in the middle. We had 13 presentation slots to fill. After including the two with unanimous Yes votes, there were several that were “almost perfect” in voting and were included.
After filling the eight or nine positions, we had to determine which presentations would make the cut for the remaining few slots. This is where the criteria got more subjective and we looked at three factors (in addition to the voting score):
- Subject matter: we looked for a mix of presentations on various topics (how to, tech, ideas/creativity, quirky, food, etc). If there were several presentations that were similar, odds are that only one would be chosen.
- Speaker skills: if we were waffling about a presentation, if the committee members had any first-hand knowledge that a presenter was a particularly good (or poor) speaker, that would potentially be a factor in whether or not they were chosen.
- Speaker gender: If we had chosen presentations strictly on the raw voting score, we would’ve ended up with a lineup that was overwhelmingly male. A majority of the committee felt that women should make up a larger portion of the show and I recall that one or two male speakers were bumped in order to make room for more female speakers. On the flip side, I’ve heard rumors (but do not have first hand knowledge) that for Ignite Portland 3, the reverse was true, and that at least one female speaker was bumped in order to allow for more male representation.
Based on those three criteria, we filled out the remaining slots on the lineup.
Personally I felt that the process worked well and has resulted in a good variety of shows over the four Ignite events thus far in Portland. I’m not sure that the gender bias factor should be included, but the Legion of Tech leadership on the committee felt that it should be a deciding factor.
I don’t offer this up as a criticism, or an endorsement, but rather as a look into the process since it appears that there is still some mystery to it all.
Postscript: what I’ve described above was the process as of Ignite Portland 2. Starting with Ignite Portland 4, the public could leave comments on proposals, these comments are taken into account when the committee makes the presenter selections.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I've heard of some grumblings from people whose submissions were rejected this last time around, folks who implied that you had to be in with the LoT people to have a chance of acceptance.
Wah.
I don't know the LoT people well. Hell, I've maybe met a couple of them in person once or twice, but that's about it. I don't know if they would have given any sort of preference to people they knew. Frankly, though, I don't have any problem with them doing exactly that.
It's like you implied in your second criteria above: if you know someone's strengths or weaknesses personally, you're in a better position to make a good judgment about their possible presentations. They'd be stupid not to apply that knowledge and lean towards presentations from skilled people they know over strangers with iffy submissions.
And I seriously doubt any of the people making the call would give preference to someone they knew if their submission sucked. They have their own reputations to consider, too, and they know that a shitty presentation will reflect badly on their selection committee.
Wow. If I had any idea people were wondering about this, I'd have put up a post on the Ignite Portland blog, explaining how it works. LoT is all about transparency, and I'm kind of upset that people think that there's anything nefarious, or "inside baseball" going on around Ignite.
The process you described is more or less correct, and we definitely strive for fairness when we pick the talks. But when we get 86 selections and have to narrow it down to 17, it's really, really hard. I'm sorry that some people didn't get picked – I bet that stings, a lot. But we can't pick everyone.
For the record, most of the talks that WERE selected for IP5 were people that none of the organizers knew. We were going off of the comments that people left, googling the person's name, looking for examples of them speaking on YouTube, etc. We were desperate for information on what the person was like – that's why we asked people to "hack the format", and put a video or something up on YouTube as an "attachment" to their proposal. In general, it would have GREATLY helped someone's chances if they had done this, at least to let us know what kind of a presenter they would be based on more than a few sentences of text. But no one chose to do a video or anything "supplemental", so we did the best we could.
If anyone in this thread has any questions about the process, how it works, or any other gripes, suspicions, or anything else, please, let me know, and I'll pass it along to the rest of the Ignite organizers, and get you an answer. jabancroft@gmail.com
I have to admit, I run hot and cold on this issue.
There are times, albeit few and far between, when I would love to learn more about what's going on with the Ignite Portland process.
And then there are times, far more often, when I think "These folks spend their free time volunteering to put on a free event that is one of the most consistently entertaining events in Portland. So who cares how they do it? I just hope they keep doing it."
I don't see anything in the post that says people think there's favoritism going on. It just tries to explain a process that, so far as I can I remember in my limited experience, hasn't been explained in-depth. As someone who was rejected, I'd say that us being in the dark about the details of exactly how proposals are selected doesn't necessarily mean we think there's "nefarious" things going on or that we feel shortchanged.
I definitely didn't get that vibe from this post, either. This post just reminded me that I wanted some of those folks to just get over it.
That said, though, Aaron's post (and Josh's comment) will no doubt help people who didn't get picked this time figure out how they could do things better next time around.
Thanks for a glimpse behind the curtain. I had always assumed that the selection process relied on one of Selena's chickens. Kinda glad I was wrong, kinda not.
At any rate, I think that Josh’s idea of writing a post explaining LoT’s selection process in more detail is a great idea.
Admittedly I'm not very immersed in this scene and I've only been to one Ignite, and it was a GREAT event. Ok, I’m pretty much a lurker.
But is interesting that some of names you see a lot on blogs, on stage at the last Ignite, etc. are giving presentations. Could be that they know what works at an Ignite better than others. Or it could be a Blink! phenomenon where there is sub-conscious selection going on, much like conductors did before orchestra tryouts were made blind (directors can only hear, not see the performer).
In this case, I think the selections would be much different if the committee knew nothing about the person submitting a proposal, so that the proposal stood on its own rights alone. Otherwise, and this is just human nature, there will be a subconscious preference for known quantities. Studies have suggested that this can't be helped.
Based on the above report on the selection process, here's my take. Yes, you do need a very strong proposal. Do you need to know people on the committee? Couldn't hurt.
Is it a big deal? No. There's no money at stake and it just entertainment. But it is interesting to see Blink! in action.
Addressing one of your minor points, you noted "on stage at the last Ignite". One of the "rules" used by the organizers is that once someone has presented, they're at a strong disadvantage to present again for a couple events.