This was the title of my talk at the first London Ignite last night. I really love formats like Ignite and Pecha Kucha as they allow you to really explore a theme deeply and yet concisely and hopefully leave the audience wanting more rather than wondering when you’ll stop talking.

Thanks must go to Amy and Ben for organising and allowing me to talk, and also to Craig Smith from O’Reilly GMT for his support of the event and his inspirational talk on being in a band and creativity (which made me start to think about small making teams of coders, designers, entrepreneurs and product designers as bands, although I’m not sure which team member is the drummer in hommage to his “Don’t hire a drummer who can’t dance”).

I loved the variety of talks and the quality of the other talks was both awe inspiring and nerve wracking. Ben Hammersley’s romp through the mistresses of Renaissance artists was superb and I really enjoyed the theoretical counterpoint of Tina Basi’s talk on distraction and meditation to my more empirical exploration of retreat and finding balance.

Hope it’s the first of many. I’m now thinking about if I could makc good on my idea for a meta-Ignite talk entitled “How to get over 100 people into a Victorian undergroud toilet”. There must be more ways than Ignite last night but at the moment I’m finding it hard to think of a better one.