I should have known better.

I submitted the slides for my Ignite Great Lakes talk “MOHO is the new SOHO” last week. The five minute talk was a silly look at working out of your car. I had originally delivered the talk at Ignite Automotive (see the talk here).

Last night, I decided I needed a “just one more new slide” to keep the talk fresh. I snuck my new slides to the production booth just before show time and come show time: nothing. Blank screen. 

So here it is: The missing slide. Paris Hilton driving her car with a new Green Screen Interior and then with Gordon Gekko punched into the background.

The idea: When we get webcams embedded in our rearview mirrors, we’ll need to use green screen technology to make our mobile office look like our corporate office. “Green is Good.”

… 

Overall, Ignite Great Lakes was an amazing night – and just a part of MakerFaire Detroit weekend.

I was blown away by the quality of the presenters: funny, insightful and thought provoking. Give them a follow: Erik Hofer, Chantelle Diachina, Dixon’s Violin, Joshua Scott, Maria Andersen, David Murray, Jerzy Drozd, John Hayner, Brian Mulloy, Dan Meyer, Evelyn Chou and Alex Manwell.

Thanks to Mary Rotman and the good folks from O’Reilly Media for organizing Ignite Great Lakes with production help from Benjamin Slayter and Nick Gaydos.

The night also featured sets by Rockstar DJs Norman Witte, Rachael Parker and Jake Pechtel.

What if Albert Einstein, Willy Wonka, Curious George, R2D2 and MacGyver threw a really big party? They’d invite all of their really cool friends: the artists, the inventors, the crafters, the mad scientists, the happy scientists, the curious, the creators, the hackers, the tinkerers.

Sure, Leonardo da Vinci would be there showing off his new helicopter prototype and Rube Goldberg would be making people laugh with his convoluted contraptions and Grace Hopper would be taking apart all the clocks while writing new computer languages. It would be the kind of place where everyone who’s ever been called weird, crazy or geeky would feel right at home.

Good news: That party is happening this weekend in Detroit.

MakerFaire started out in San Mateo back in 2006. Last year, the party spread to Detroit and New York. MakerFaire is a celebration of crazy ideas and the can-do spirit. It’s now the World’s Largest DIY Festival. A two-day family friendly shindig showcasing invention, creativity and resourcefulness.

Last years event featured Twinkie-powered go-carts and fire-breathing bicycles and car-crushing mouse traps. There were more legos, robots and strange creations then you could arc a Tesla coil at – and that’s not counting the 250 Lobster and Fish that make up the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. It was a jaw-dropping, inspiring crazy event for our family.

The event is put on by the good folks at O’Reilly Media, the publishers of Make, the journal of the Maker mindset. It’s fittingly hosted at The Henry Ford, where you can tour Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park “idea factory”, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House or the Wright Brother’s Bicycle Shop.

Saturday Night, O’Reilly is also hosting Ignite Great Lakes, featuring entertaining and enlightening speakers from across the Midwest and Canada. They’re letting me give a talk too. ;)

Overall, it’s a great weekend for Makers and people who #makeithappen. I hope to see you there.

Bonus for Parents: Read “Want Kids to Win the Future? Turn Them Into Makers — and Sci-Fi Fans” by Angela Watercutter in Wired Magazine.

Bonus for TED fans: Watch MakerFaire founder Dale Dougherty deliver “We are all Makers” at TED@MotorCity.

With more and more folks trading their corner office for a mobile office, I thought it was time for a lighthearted look at some of the trends shaping the mobile computing in the passing lane.

This talk was originally part of Ignite Automotive 2. Also take a looksee my love letter to the manual transmission, solar roadways and a quick fix for the daily commute from the first Ignite Automotive.

I’m excited to be a part of Ignite Great Lakes with is an Ignite “best of show” hosted in conjunction with Maker Faire Detroit. Hope you can come out and see some of the best speakers in the region Saturday, July 30, 2011 at the Fillmore in Detroit. Get all the details at: http://igniteshow.com/greatlakes

Presentations, both online or in-person, are phenomenal ways to share your passion and develop your personal brand. Smart professionals continually hone their pitching skills so their ready at a moments notice to spread their idea.

We’ve talked about the importance of a compelling 12 second soundbite and the strength of a hour-long keynote, but one of my favorite speaking formats is called Ignite (or the very similar Pecha Kucha)

Ignite talks that are exactly five minutes long and use 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. The events usually include several speakers presenting on diverse topics. Some are serious, some are heartfelt and some are down right hilarious.

It’s fun and challenging - business storytelling at it’s finest. But more importantly, it’s a chance for you to take a risk and do something fun with PowerPoint.

Find an Ignite Event near you at http://ignite.oreilly.com/

Find a Pecha Kucha Night near you: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

The power of sound bites and the secrets of successful communication in a short attention span culture. It took me five minutes to tell everyone to shorten everything they have to say down to 12 seconds. Maybe I should listen to my own advice…

This was my presentation from the inaugural Ignite Detroit. Not familiar with Ignite? It’s a night of fast-paced 5-minute presentations by people with an idea to share. Ignite talks are more casual and less pointed than TED talks. Topics range from humorous to intellectual to inspirational. Each presenter gets just 5 minutes and 20 slides (that auto-advance every 15 seconds) to make their point and make us laugh, cry or think.

There’s probably an Ignite happening soon near you. Don’t miss it. In the meantime, what the rest of the Ignite Detroit presentations on YouTube.