{"id":453,"date":"2012-02-10T17:18:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-11T01:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2012\/02\/10\/ignite-portland-10-win-kill-or-rock\/"},"modified":"2012-02-10T17:18:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-11T01:18:00","slug":"ignite-portland-10-win-kill-or-rock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2012\/02\/10\/ignite-portland-10-win-kill-or-rock\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignite Portland 10: Win, Kill, or Rock"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-9BajCBKCT04\/TzW92Xn3dXI\/AAAAAAABWKU\/LL_zBBADUiw\/s1600\/photo.JPG\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"231\" width=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-9BajCBKCT04\/TzW92Xn3dXI\/AAAAAAABWKU\/LL_zBBADUiw\/s320\/photo.JPG\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Last night, I gave a presentation on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/sparCKL\/ignite-portland-10-a-homebrew-cat-feeding-robot-curtis-c-chen\">&#8220;A Homebrew Cat Feeding Robot&#8221;<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/igniteportland.org\/\">Ignite Portland 10<\/a>.  It was very well received.  In fact, depending on who you ask, I achieved one of the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;won&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/snarke\/status\/167811952410755073\">1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/geekportland\/status\/167812090243977216\">2<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/ZoeMerkle\/status\/167821960447918081\">3<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;killed&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/mariafi\/status\/167811854947725312\">1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/concerted\/status\/167811731693895681\">2<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;rocked&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/CherylBle\/status\/167811612777000960\">1<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;brought the house down&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/nylorac15\/status\/167811797842268160\">1<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Thanks again to everyone on Twitter who gave positive feedback!*  <\/p>\n<p>Now I&#8217;d like to talk about the &#8220;brought the house down&#8221; moment, which was as gratifying as it was surprising&#8211;to me, anyway.  (This is your cue to <a href=\"http:\/\/knowyourmeme.com\/memes\/tldr\">TL;DR.<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>I did <i>not<\/i> expect this particular slide, <a href=\"https:\/\/picasaweb.google.com\/lh\/photo\/6d8J6K-8Tl2FNjfaa313WdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink\">a graph of our cats&#8217; weights during 2011<\/a>, to get such a huge response.  I knew <i>I<\/i> found it amusing, but it was one of the last slides I&#8217;d created, almost as an afterthought:<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-BlM1diG8UYY\/TzW-hrfRGQI\/AAAAAAABWKg\/OuXw_FJ4tjY\/s1600\/Slide19.png\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-BlM1diG8UYY\/TzW-hrfRGQI\/AAAAAAABWKg\/OuXw_FJ4tjY\/s320\/Slide19.png\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Our friend <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/rmalena\">Richard<\/a> suggested that after all the stories I&#8217;d been telling about the cats and their auto-feeder, this image simply nudged me &#8220;over the top&#8221; in terms of hilarity.  (DeeAnn actually, literally wept with laughter.  That reaction may have made me the happiest of all.  I mean, I <i>like<\/i> all y&#8217;all, but I <i>love<\/i> my wife.)<\/p>\n<p>Does this somewhat unwitting success mean that I&#8217;ve attained <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Four_stages_of_competence\">&#8220;unconscious competence&#8221;<\/a>&#8212;<i>i.e.<\/i>, that a particular skill has become second nature to me?  I don&#8217;t know.  That seems a bit presumptuous after a single performance that went well.  But it is encouraging.  No less than six people came up to me after my talk and complimented me in person.  That&#8217;s huge, especially when you consider that this wasn&#8217;t a traditional &#8220;show&#8221;&#8211;this was a bunch of geeks getting together to share their crazy ideas in five-minute chunks.  I hadn&#8217;t expected to connect so strongly with the audience.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not lingering on this to crow over my triumph**, or stroke my own ego; I am honestly trying to figure out how I did so well.  Because this has a bearing on other skills I&#8217;m working to develop and hoping to make a living with.  To wit, writing fiction.  (Making <a href=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/game\/\">puzzle hunts<\/a> is a distant, pie-in-the-sky second&#8211;as far as I can tell, nobody has ever succeeded in turning our particular type of events into a viable, consumer-driven business.)<\/p>\n<p>At the moment, the only thing I can identify as a contributing factor is the thing everyone already tells you to do: <b>practice<\/b>.  Put in the hours, do the work, keep doing it until you improve, and then do it some more.<\/p>\n<p>I directed a lot of focused effort into the five minutes I did at Ignite, and that was backed by many years of experience giving presentations and performing in front of an audience.  It&#8217;s going to take a lot longer before I have the same kind of handle on fiction writing&#8211;which, if not a more complicated undertaking, certainly comes with less immediate feedback.  I think of it as the difference between <i>driving<\/i> a car and <i>making<\/i> a car.  A lot more work needs to go into the latter, because you can&#8217;t make adjustments on the fly, as you can in the former situation.<\/p>\n<p>Automation is hard.  I guess that was the main point of last night&#8217;s talk.  But it is doable, and anyone can figure it out, if you&#8217;re motivated and persistent.<\/p>\n<p>So I&#8217;m <a href=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/512\">practicing<\/a>.  I&#8217;m <a href=\"http:\/\/sparckl.livejournal.com\/tag\/rejection\">working<\/a>.  I&#8217;m not stopping.  We&#8217;ll see what happens.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-18N7tu6b42s\/TzW-2bkYqiI\/AAAAAAABWKs\/7fbFKEz5e6U\/s1600\/es3bo.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"240\" width=\"320\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-18N7tu6b42s\/TzW-2bkYqiI\/AAAAAAABWKs\/7fbFKEz5e6U\/s320\/es3bo.jpg\" \/><\/a><br \/>(Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/geekportland\/status\/167812090243977216\">@geekportland<\/a>)<\/div>\n<p>* <small>other words used to describe my talk included &#8220;great&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/cmstudios\/status\/167811660063571968\">1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/Willowbottom\/status\/167812587155750912\">2<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/sdavee\/status\/167818650416451584\">3<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/eikonoklastic\/status\/167826682185658371\">4<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/possiblerobot\/status\/167880408049004544\">5<\/a>), &#8220;loved&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/colinthesealion\/status\/167812077912723456\">1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/demew\/status\/167823485580742656\">2<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/ceeweb\/status\/167823903983542272\">3<\/a>), and &#8220;awesome&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/ghalidrim\/status\/167812026192764929\">1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/nylorac15\/status\/167811797842268160\">2<\/a>); and at least two people ranked me among the best talks of the evening (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/daviddlevine\/status\/167822433066295297\">1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/possiblerobot\/status\/167873495391408129\">2<\/a>). Woot!<\/small><\/p>\n<p>** <small>I&#8217;m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.  (Sorry, had to say it.)<\/small><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/HotSheet\/CKL.jpg\" alt=\"Curtis\" title=\"Curtis\" border=\"0\" height=\"32\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, I gave a presentation on &#8220;A Homebrew Cat Feeding Robot&#8221; at Ignite Portland 10. It was very well received. In fact, depending on who you ask, I achieved one of the following: &#8220;won&#8221; (1 2 3) &#8220;killed&#8221; (1&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49,70,64,69,30,18,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doinitrite","category-foodrobot","category-geeky","category-igniteportland","category-introspection","category-pdx","category-thisbusinesswecallshow"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}