Mary Mulvihill

If you had five minutes on stage, what would you say? Allowed 20 slides, changing every 15 seconds, what images would you show?

That’s the challenge for an ‘Ignite’ talk – and if you know about Ignite events, you’ll know how popular they’ve become.

In communications training I’ll often ask participants to prepare a three-minute talk with no images. So I was curious to see how five minutes and 20 slides works as a communication exercise.

For people used to giving 20-minute seminars or 50-minute lectures, a five-minute ‘pitch’ means quite a change of pace, style and content. But last night, 16 people rose admirably to the challenge at Dublin’s first Ignite event (here’s the line-up).

The 20-slide rule means images have to be simple, as the audience sees each one for literally a few seconds. And it probably increases the time pressure on speakers, as they try to fit thoughts and words into each 15-second slot. (I did wonder what the dynamics might be like with just 10 slides? Of course, there’s nothing to stop anyone using 10 images, and just showing each one twice.)

It’s not the five-minute slot I’m worried about –  which is long enough to present something a bit more substantial than a soundbite — but I don’t like handing control of a talk over to the images.

For me, slides are “visual aids”,  to illustrate some point in a talk, whereas Ignite turns this on its head, and the speaker becomes a commentator.

So, Ignite won’t suit every topic, and especially not complicated research. But it, or perhaps a 10-slide version, is certainly a useful exercise. And definitely worth considering as an option for the annual ‘science communication’ events with PhD students.

With that in mind, last night was an energetic, enjoyable gig – full marks to everyone involved – and I was sorry to have to leave at half time.

One advantage of a five-minute limit is that, even leaving at half-time, you still get to hear eight talks (Ignites? Ignitions?). Last night these ranged from the genetics of what makes us human, to betting exchanges (I’d never realised gambling was now so sophisticated), by way of an eco-project to ‘slim’ part of Dublin city, and the merits of ‘open-coffee’ mornings.

We had not just a range of topics, but a range of styles: from mini-seminars to project pitches, to college of art lecturer Tim Stott, who read a paper!

Only one person played with the ‘slide rule’: John Whelan craftily left one slide blank for ‘buffering’.

My own favourite, however, for sheer subversiveness, was ‘19 facts about Taeko Japanese drumming’. Three women drumming to 20 PowerPoint slides and, apart from some Japanese exhortations (as explained on one slide), not a word was spoken. Take a bow, Jennifer Edmund, Leah Kennedy and Fiona Murphy. And likewise Conor Houghton, who lit the fuse under the Dublin Ignite event.