Video from Tampa Bay Business Journal
On Thursday, Anitra and I went to the 2016 edition of Ignite Tampa Bay, the sixth gathering where people from the Tampa Bay Area gathered to see presentations in the Ignite format, which has these constraints:
Each speaker is limited to exactly 5 minutes for his or her presentation.
Each presentation is accompanies by 20 slides, no more, no less.
The speaker has no control over when the slides advance; they automatically advance every 15 seconds.
Ignite Tampa Bay has always been an interesting evening, and this year was no exception. There’s a piece in Tampa Bay Business Journal covering the three of the 20 presentations that were directly related to business in Tampa Bay, but no one else seems to have covered the other presentations and the opening talk — so I did. I took notes throughout the evening on my iPad, and after fixing and fleshing them out (and dealing with what “autocucumber” did to some of my fast and furious typing), I’ve posted them below for your enlightenment and enjoyment.
Opening talk: Nathan Schwagler, Founding Co-Director, Dali Museum Innovation Labs
“This goes much better if you laugh at the jokes,” quipped Schwagler, after which he welcomed us to FetishCon 2016, which got a laugh.
He told the audience about his trip from St. Pete to Ybor City, which wasn’t made easy by a traffic jam on the causeway and the fact that his car had no air conditioning. In spite of an unpleasant trip, he said that he still arrived in Ybor City with a smile on his face, because he was glad to be with the creative, passionate, and involved people participating in Ignite Tampa.
Much of his talk was meant to encourage us to see things in new creative ways. He started with a slide showing one of the larger pieces at the Dali Museum, Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko):
This is my favorite work on display at the Dali Museum. If you stand close to the piece, you see a somewhat surreal portrait of Salvador Dali’s wife Gala looking at the Mediterranean Sea as the sun, which doubles as the image of Christ, shines overhead. From a distance, or if you squint, the image morphs into a 121-pixel icon depicting the head of Abraham Lincoln. You can find out more about this painting and how it was inspired by Scientific American on the Dali Museum site. What you see in the painting depends on how you look at it.
The next thing he showed the audience was this image of a wheelbarrow:
He pointed out that while its design may seem “wrong”, there are cases where such a design would be useful. First, you don’t lift the handles on this wheelbarrow; you push down on them instead. This would be well-suited for moving heavy loads with precise steering, such as on skyscraper construction projects, where you might have to push a wheelbarrow while walking down an I-beam. Given the right circumstances, the “wrong” solution is actually the right one.
He then asked the audience to close their eyes and form a mental picture of Death Valley. He then showed this photo of a superbloom in Death Valley:
Even though Death Valley is the hottest, driest desert in North America, it experiences heavy rain every ten years or so, which leads to a super bloom like the one pictured above. Given the right conditions, even the biggest apparent wasteland is a bed of flowers waiting to happen.
He encouraged the audience to:
Learn in new ways, just as they did by looking at Dali’s painting differently
Think in new ways, just as they did with the wheelbarrow
Imagine new possibilities, just as they did with Death Valley
Schwagler saved the best story for last: a “Christmas miracle” story for creatives.
A friend had given him a set of Thomas the Tank Engine toys in a bag to give to his son. His son opened the bag of toys on Christmas morning, and mixed in with the toys was a wooden lion. The son took a fascination with the wooden lion and brought it to the kitchen, where they had a lion fridge magnet. He tried to stick the wooden lion to the fridge to match the other lion, but being made of wood, it simply feel to the floor. He tried and tried again.
“It’s not going to work,” said Schwagler to his son. “It’s not a magnet; it’s not going to stick.”
Schwagler proceeded to make coffee, and a short while later, he felt a tug from his son. He turned around and saw that his son had rearranged the other fridge magnets so that they held the wooden lion to the fridge.
That’s when Schwagler realized that he’d just done the opposite of what he does every day: encourage people to find creative solutions. His son, on the other hand, was doing just that. “It’s too easy to forget that new things can happen too.”
Bee Sting: John Foster
I’m an entrepreneur, and have been my entire life
I struggle with work-life balance, but I do have hobbies
My beer brewing hobby led to making mead, which in turn got me interested in bees
Maybe you think of bees as pests, but they’re incredibly important to this planets ecosystem
The 2.4 million honey bee colonies in the U.S. contribute $15 billion to its crop production
Bees have been disappearing for quite some time, and researchers trying to figure it out for past 15 years
You’ve probably heard of colony collapse disorder, which has been on the rise
The biggest threat to food supply is loss of honey bees
Estimates of how much of food crops are pollinated by bees go as high as 70%
While that figure is debated, it really doesn’t matter
Demand and quality of food supply makes honeybee loss an important issue
Honeybees are the canary in the coal mine
We have come to depend on their contributions
We do to bend the curve of honeybee loss, but it will take a personal solution
It’s too easy to blame corporate America, but we as consumers also shoulder the blame; corporations and industry are responding to our wants
One thing we can do is plant flowers that bees need! [Throws packets of wildflower seeds to the audience]
How Coworking in a Library is Like a Silent Disco: Ramesh Sambasivan
Remember in grade school, there was always one disruptive kid in class? That was me
What comes to mind when you think of a public library? “Shhhh!”
Recently, I’ve been gathering friends from tech world and setting up CoderDojos in public libraries
[CoderDojos are volunteer-run programming clubs where kids learn programming]
At CoderDojos, you hear kids squealing in delight
Will still a sanctuary for mindful work, some libraries allow upbeat celebrations of local innovation
Libraries have so many guidelines; for example, you can take bananas through security line at airport, but not the library!
There’s a fine line between just smiling at strangers at the library and being “the creepy guy”
I’m trying to change the culture of how grown ups use the library
I went to libraries in Tampa Bay Area and across country
Each library has its culture and characteristics, but the common thread is that people work there, and get stuff done
Libraries are a good workplace for entrepreneurs who aren’t yet ready for incubators
Libraries are good for silent coworking, smiles permitted
Many people at libraries work with headphones, but I’d like to see a little more socializing. How do we get people to drop their headphones?
I understand the need for headphones: “I want to work in the flow”
Libraries are changing: Now they have yoga and coworking, and eventually, I expect we’ll have silent discos!
How We’re Beating Childhood Cancer with Computers: Kyle Matthews
Photo by Brenda Young. Click to see the source.
For past 7 years, I’ve been trying to change what neuroblastoma means for a family
There’s a shift in the way we treat cancer: it uses genomics to look at how cancer mutates, with the goal of specifically attack cancer cells
Chemotherapy is terrible; it attacks all cells, cancerous or not, and is rough on the patient
The human genome project was completed in 2003, and in 2010, there was enough data from it to use in cancer treatment
We opened new trial to use the data
The project requires a lot of computer power to crunch all that data
We partnered with Dell to get faster computers
With Dell’s computers, we can take deeper looks at genomic data
It used to take 2 full months to do test, with Dell’s computers 2 weeks
Using FDA-approved drugs (that are typically used to treat other ailments) to treat cancers based on data
It’s a precision medicine initiative
My son Exra was diagnosed with neuroblastoma; he died
Remember, at the end of all these treatments is a kid
These are big problems that were moving the needle on, but the stakes are too high
For more information, see BeatNB.org
Bread: A Love Affair: Steve Lazaridis
I would wager to say that everyone in this room loves bread
I remember bread from a meal with my wife 30 years ago
When I was a kid, our family moved to Greece, and we’d go to the bakery every day for a loaf of freshly-baked bread
40% of American families eat meals together fewer than 4 times a week
The American family dinner has died, and we don’t know why
We just chose convenience
We opened a restaurant after moving back to the U.S., and working there, I ;earned the importance of making a good meal
I wanted to learn how to make bread and took it up
The first time we made bread, we dipped it into everything we had
I once brought bread to a birthday party where I didn’t know anyone. Thanks to the bread, by I knew everyone there by the end
Bread is a great conversation starter. “It’s the appetizer no one expects!”
Friends ask me to teach them how to make bread, and some of them have started baking. We share recipes and sourdough starters
It’s not really about feeding people, but starting conversations. When we eat bread, we talk
I’m building community through food; bread has allowed me to form my own community
Bread brings people together
This talk is not about baking bread, but breaking bread
It’s about how you can make small dents in your community
I want to bring back the lost art of the family dinner
We all have something to bring to the table; find what your something is, and share it with your community
Community Makers: Lisa Kirchner
Connection is what makes for change
In intergenerational communities, there’s a benefit: the older members are healthier, and the younger people learn more
Diverse companies are 45% more likely to report that their firm’s market share grew over the previous year [and 70% likelier to report that the firm captured a new market].
Gandhi built microcommunities with his adversaries. “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.”
The lesson of Jericho is that impermeable communities fail. You need to be able to connect
You know how I make it look easy? I work hard at it
It’s because I was looking to connect with my audiences. It’s a strategy used by great leaders, such as Martin Luther King
Audiences make great editors! I couldn’t find a publisher until I changed my work to work onstage
I went to The Moth: competitive storytelling events in NYC
Seeing her made me realize that I needed to learn to get onstage and learn how to tell a story
I never had any interest in Jodi Picoult until I saw her speak
I started a storytelling show: Keep St. Pete Lit
Later, I got into yoga to meet people. It required me to learn from my students
In order to make new friends in these new places, I told stories. But not by saying them, by typing them up on folded paper and handing them to people
When I was a kid, our family moved every year
Healing with Nutrition and Natural Therapies: Sean Stringer
I have a patient, Mike. He’s 44, weighs 284 pounds, has diabetes, and was depressed that he would orphan his daughter
We know from quantum physics that everything is energy and everything has a frequency
We use this to be able to send virtual signals
Health is all about maintaining balance. If you’re in balance, you’re healthier. If you’re out of balance, you’re sick
I had to get a baseline for Mike — get all sorts of readings and try to find what would balance his body
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”
[Mention of epigenetics — wasn’t able to get a complete note here]
It’s your choice: big pharma or farmer?
Water can store energy frequencies
We’ve discovered a treatment by injecting lab mice with water that was treated with energy frequencies of medicine
Start investing in yourself, in your health!
It’s my mission to educate people about alternative therapies
There are technologies out there that help you restore balance in your health
Visit my site at BodyMindDoc.com
Marc Ensign: One Thing That Matters
[Showing a photo of him as a geeky kid on an Apple II computer] When I was around 6 or 7, I had a feeling that I was going to do something extraordinary with my life
I always carried it with me, and I carried it out to world
I’ve performed on Broadway, recorded with Grammy-nominated musicians, written books, and started my own marketing firm, but I felt that I had failed anyway
I couldn’t point to one thing that I considered a success
I felt that I didn’t matter, and saw life through that lens
So I did what any rational person would do: pack up my family and run away, from New Jersey to Florida
I started an unsuccessful blog about SEO. I think it had 2 readers and I was both of them.
I changed my voice and got more visitors to my blog; about 1000 a day
One day, a reader sent me a picture of what looked like a car buried in snow, and my name was written in the snow
It came from a guy who’d quit his job and worked on a glacier preservation project
He wrote me a letter: telling me “What you are doing does matter. At least to me. What you wrote a year and a half ago still rings in my head encourages me to keep going.”
It became clear to me that the photo was of a glacier, not a car covered in snow
You don’t have to walk across the country or build a school to do something that matters. Do one thing that matters for you, your family, your community, the world, or the internet. That’s how you change the world
The Millennial Problem: Carl Vervisch
When you type “Why are millennials” into Google and look at the auto-suggestions, you’ll see a lot of bad stuff
I don’t take pictures of food, that’s not what food is for
I don’t take pictures of myself, that’s what strangers are for
I’m not like the millennials you hear about
Or maybe I am, which is why I’m claiming I’m not like them. Am I pushing away from their sinking ship and claiming a moral victory? That might explain my hipster moustache
Do millennials lack the loyalty that my dad’s generation had? The lesson we learned was that loyalty to company was rewarded with corporate mugging
Are millennials entitled in the workplace? Maybe it’s just that they want to take charge because they’re dying to make a difference, stand up for who they are, and face the challenge they were born to take on
Why can’t put down their damned phones? Maybe it’s because it’s amazing computing power that’s never been seen before in the world, with access to a world of knowledge and communication, in their hand.
I’m not just a millennial, but the the cofounder of a company where 17 of them work
They’re dedicated, passionate, hungry, and when I fall, they don’t just catch me, they hold me up higher
The real question should be: Why are millennial so hopeful in the face of certain defeat?
Bill Carlson: Cuba
The first U.S. – Cuba mission took place in 1528, when an expedition from Cuba landed here in Tampa Bay right where present-day St. Petersburg is.
Vicente Ybor, after whom this part of town is named, came here and started the cigar industry
The Cuban Hero, Jose Marti — Cuba’s George Washington — gave many speeches in Tampa, gave most important speech in 1893
We need to revive Cuba in a big way, and reignite the entrepreneurial spirit in Cuba
The Tampa chamber went in 2013
Went there in December 2014 to promote entrepreneurial trade
There are 11 million people in Cuba. Imagine 11 million people that don’t have the household goods you take for granted at home
Things have already improved for many Cubans. Many have gone from an income of $25 a month to $2000 to $3000 a month.
The IT sector in Cuba is growing rapidly
You can see a great exhibit of Cuban art at the Moreau Arts center
You should follow the Jose Marti trail
In 1930, a fledgling airline came to Tampa Bay, wanting to build a waterplane hub with links to the Caribbean and Cuba. Tampa said “no”, worried about the noise. That airline became Pan Am. Let’s not pass up the Cuban opportunity again!
Trust — The Main Ingredient for Flight: Jason Fraley
When you get on an airplane, you sign a trust contract with a lot of people you never met.
You’re trusting the the pilot and mechanics are competent, the plane is maintained, and that there’s actually a seat waiting for you
If we build on trust, we can start to do some amazing things
We’re a group of acrobats from St. Pete, and we rely on trust
Trust is:
Confidence that you can do something
Control, which we pass to each other seamlessly, knowing when to give it and take it back
Compassion: When learning a new skill, sometimes it’s scary. We use compassion to attack that fear together
Communication: When we do our acrobatics, we communicate with our bodies
Join us! We’re @bonestackers on Twitter
The Power of Smile: Rich Castellano
I do facial plastic reconstruction, and I travel the country teaching people to teach doctors about the process
There is no surgery as good as mother nature’s facelift: the smile
When we think of people, we don’t remember the words they say, but how they make us feel
I’m the Smile Doctor, and I’m here to present my smile prescription
We live longer when we smile more. We stay married longer when we smile more.
Smiling is a tool that helps you to become a better nonverbal communicator
I conduct smile audit, where you score people on how much they smile
Smile scores are predictive of people’s relationships
When you are around people with high smile scores, you do better
Are we good communicators? Do we make people smile?
That what good customer service is: Did you make your customer smile?
Next Wave of Open Source: Jacob Redding
Open source is software where the source code is made available so you can see how it works and make changes to it to suit your needs
What makes it work? Freedom, liberty
There are four freedoms of open source software:
The freedom to run the program for any purpose
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
With open source, it’s more like building a program with pre-existing building blocks
It allows you to customize and fix software, and even innovate
Open source is ubiquitous: every day, you’re benefiting from open source software, whether you realize it or not
Open source has problems that we need to solve
Perhaps you’ve heard of the Heartbleed bug:
It was a seious vulnerability in a key piece of software called SSL, which is used all over the internet for secure communications
Part of its cause was that only $2000 a year was set aside to pay developers to work on it, making it a low priority
We need to find ways to fund the open source projects that we all depend on
I’ve come here to ask you for a few things:
If you’re a user, businessperson, or cretive, I want your ideas
If you’re software developer: I want you to become an open source software developer
Going open source typically gives developers a 20% to 30% pay raise because their source code is out there and potential employers can really see what they can do
The economic models for open source are not yet figured out
Niel J. Guilarte: Connecting the Podcast Community via a Documentary.
Who here knows what a podcast is? It wasn’t that long ago when I discovered podcasts
Wanted to showcase podcasting by doing a documentary
We went around Florida and interviewed a lot of interesting people doing podcasts, asking them “What is your message?”
One example — Lee Silverstein: diagnosed with illness, he uses his podcast to inspire people
It became clear to me that there’s more to podcasting than simply someone getting in front of a mic and talking
I saw another world that I didn’t know existed
This is a community that has a “family” feel, with a heartfelt story in the background of every podcast: emotion, compassion, education, entertainment
Sandra Scott: How 3 Letters Changed Our Life
We have struggled to get pregnant
It took months to find a doctor
I didn’t like the first one, who kept referring to my husband’s testicles as “the boys”
We then went to Reproductive Medicine Group, whom we liked, and they suggested that we use IVF — in vitro fertilization — to get pregnant
Insurance did not cover anything after diagnosis. The cost is $12,000, and that’s before before medicine
Only 15 states have mandate to cover IVF, and Florida isn’t one of them
There’s no dipping your toe in the infertility world
In our first attempt, we got one embryo, and it didn’t make it
I felt so much anger at money spent for nothing
We tried one more egg retrieval, which resulted in 4 frozen embryos of high quality
We were finally crying tears of joy
The process afterwards was painful: 12 weeks of lower back injections
It’s stressful, and tested our relationship. Waiting for results is hell
Resolve.org was a help
People will often say the wrong things — the worst was “Why don’t you just sleep with someone else, because it would be cheaper and less invasive?”
If you know someone going through this, just be supportive
1 in 8 couples have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy
If you’re one of these 1 in 8, don’t be ashamed by your story, but share it! It will inspire others
By the way, we are totally pregnant…with twins!
A (Very) Brief Introduction to Cognitive Science: Todd Allen Joseph
I have two small children growing up in an increasingly dysfunctional world
Reason takes a back seat to ideology
We spend over a trillion dollars a year on education in this country, yet the people making decisions on how this money is spent don’t have a background in cognitive science
It’s the science of mental processes, the study of how human process information, language, perception, and what hinders and helps memory
One major problem we face today is confirmation bias and belief perseverance
This comes from the way we learn: statistical learning. Everything you experience is encoded in your brain’s neural structure, brain makes mental model of world based on this
What we learn gets sorted out in a process called consoldation. It happens while you’re asleep, which means if you want to learn better, get more sleep
Our brains form schemes, which are organizations of thought based on our experiences. No two people have same experiences, and thus no two people have the same schemes
We know that memory can be reconstructed, and people are prone to inclusion errors and false memories. People can create memories or details of events that never happened
Example: Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson [From the Innocence Project: Ronald Cotton was exonerated in 1995, after spending over 10 years in prison for crimes he did not commit. His convictions were based largely on an eyewitness misidentification made by one of the victims, Jennifer Thompson-Cannino. Cotton and Thompson-Cannino are now good friends and leading advocates for eyewitness identification reform.]
The Future of Religion: Joran Oppelt
When we choose not to talk about the diversity that defines us, we become more polar, repressed, and intolerant
Religious belief is an identity, similar to political identity or sexual identity
It isn’t just “believer” and “non-believer”, but occupies a spectrum: fundamentalist on one end to progressive on the other
The problem with religion today is not holy wars, but the fact that progressives get along better with progressives in other faiths that with the fundamentalists in their own faith.
There is a rich diversity in all these traditions, but we end up creating cardboard cutout flat stereotypes insteads
Religion has refused to evolve. Religion needs to be disruptive and revolutionized
Most doctrine still divides us from ourselves, each other, and nature
What does modern spirituality look like? It’s people with a highly attuned bullshit detector, who turn to things that work for them: ecology, environment, volunteering, neighborhood, and a spirituality speaks to their soul without the need for a chaperone. It’s not a spirit of “either or”, but of “with and”
We need science and spirituality
We need something that captures the salvation of Christianity, the study of Judaism, the mindfulness of Buddhism, the submission of Islam
We’re still writing sacred texts today that show the world through a spiritual lens, and they include Star Wars and Harry Potter
The best scripture is the one you write every. Our meditation is our relationship
Back to the Future – Tampa’s Streetcar Neighborhoods Can Save Us: Brian Willis
There’s a big misconception about Tampa Bay — that it’s separate from rail and mix use development
We were built to be a streetcar and rail-compatible area
The place we now know as University of Tampa was not just a hotel, but a terminus for Henry Plant’s rail network
Safety Harbor had compact, walkable urban rail grids built around rail system
Lutz and Citrus Park [presently car suburbs] were built around rail lines
You could take rail line from Lutz to Tampa via a system that was 59 miles of rail cars
Tampa’s original form was the streetcar suburb, but we tore it all up and replaced it with the automobile, which is worse. The more roads you build, the more traffic you create
We can go back to the future
Tampa’s compact blocks make it rail friendly
Urbanism values walkability, connectivity, and mixed-use public space
Go to Curtis Hixon Park and Tampa Riverwalk, once places that nobody went to and are now places to be. They show how high equality public space pays dividends
We need good transit; we’re a community the size of Rhode Island
In our future, there may not be flying cars, but there will be better transit
Sven Boemeester: Tampa Bay, the Next Dubai of the Americas
Photo by Brenda Young. Click to see the source.
I came to Tampa Bay and to marry Christina (and her dog, Max)
Before Tampa, I lived in Dubai, which grew from nothing into a world city in just 20 years
Dubai got its start when a sheikh cashed out of the oil business and used $2 billion to build 5 strategic landmarks:
Airport
Highway
Seaport
World Trade Center
Burj Khalifa
It’s a city where people of 120 nationalities are collaborating and living in harmony
Dubai’s second growth came from the formation of the smart city
It came from the realization that Dubai was not competing with just the region, but the world
They created free zones: mini cities for different industries, with collaboration centers, where 500 competitors would share a common space. It fostered relationships and collaborations.
I see Tampa as a Dubai waiting to happen. The stars have aligned, and the tipping point is here:
We’re spending $1 billion on doubling the size of the airport. The capacity of the combined Tampa and Orlando airports will be about the same as Dubai’s
At 5,000 acres, Tampa’s port is the largest in Florida, and it’s expected to quadruple in size
You see industry clusters forming in Tampa, just as they did in Dubai: beer, franchise restaurants, and home shopping, to name a few
The new Panama Canal just opened, and that’s going to be a game changer for us
Cuba also just opened, and that’s a market of 12 million people just 300 miles away
And the lifesstyle here is great! I tell my friends in Dubai that you can eat pork sandwiches and drink beer at the beach, and they don’t believe it
Jeff Vinik is our sheikh!
Why You Should Write a Book: Eli Gonzales
Photo by Brenda Young. Click to see the source.
I’m a best-selling ghost writer, and I’m here to tell you that maybe you should write a book!
This world is ruled by dead people: men and women who wrote their ideas down and passed the knowledge down to generations to follow
They are the laws we abide by, the truths we tell. A book is the single best invention
Tyler Durden was wrong, mom was right. You are a unique snowflake!
Some of the best stories will never be told, because people thought “Who am I to write a book?”
How well do you know the story of your grandparents? Your great grandparents? Are you going to let someone else write your legacy?
I’ve been teaching seniors how to write a memoir that people care about
What’s your book gonna be about? Whatever that crazy thing you’re thinking about is, write about that! It doesn’t have to be a best seller
If you’re a business owner, the credibility you get from a book is better than any Google ranking
Writers block doesn’t exist, only writers who aren’t prepared
Write an outline, and fill it in when inspiration strikes
The goal isn’t to live forever, to create something that will
How to Crush that Little Voice in Your Head Saying “Quit”: Sean Davis
In my sophomore year, I weighed 130 pounds. I went up to to 199 pounds (but fit) by senior year
I did a lot of cycling, won races and championships
Me and my wife Stephanie are now into climbing
I read Peak Performance, and recommend it. One thing I learned from it is that you cannot brute force the voice in your head into submission
I calm down through visualization and relaxation, letting me exceed what I can do. It help you get in your head the things that matter the most to you, what motivates you and drives you
Do that, then write them down, make them concrete
For 20 to 30 minutes every day, lie down, pick a spot on your ceiling, look at it, and feel yourself start to relax
Take intensity and internalize it
Remember, your brain will break before your body does
You have to make it intense and train your brain and body to relax. Visualize the most intense workouts you’ve ever done, then do them, and keep going
Let go, feel the training flow through you