The only thing worse than sitting through a boring presentation is sitting through a lengthy boring presentation. That's what makes the presentations at next week's Ignite Memphis event so appealing - none of them are more than five minutes long.

Here's how Ignite works: creative, passionate Memphians choose at topic to speak on. On Thursday night, these brave people will get on stage at Playhouse on the Square and give a five minute presentation with 20 slides that auto-advance every 20 seconds. The audience, ideally, walks away informed, enlightened, and not at all bored.

I'm completely excited that I was asked to be one of the speakers at this super cool, Pecha Kucha-inspired event.  I'll be speaking authoratatively (and quickly) on a subject near and dear to my heart - the rules of making quality mix tapes. And, I'm going first.

Check out the roster:

1) Kerry Crawford — You Can Make Girls Like You: The Making of a Better Mix Tape
2) Tyler White — Is Google Making Us Stupid
3) Gwyn Fisher — My Big Fat Failure
4) Cardell Orrin — Confessions of a Reformed Non-Voter
5) Michael Synk — The Three Most Important Pages in Business Literature from the Past 20 Years.
6) Brad Silver — Biomarkers and the Personalized Medicine Frontier
7) Dave Barger — Tribes
8) Mark Hakett — Crisis in Our Water

Intermission

9) Matt Beickert — Can we talk?  The history of media and why it’s still so damn hard to communicate.
10) Joe Leibovich — Improv Comedy is Serious Business
11) Brian Stephens — Data on Consolidation in Other Cities
12) Rhonda Perciavalle — How your lifestyle can change your genetics.
13) Eric Robertson
14) Josh Bell
15) Jim Pohlman
16) Zachary Whitten- The Technology Singularity AKA The Nerd Rapture

If you're not so sure about some of the topics, don't worry - they'll be over in five minutes.

Though there have been Ignite events in other cities, this is the first event of its kind in Memphis. If you'd like to attend, let me know - the organizers were kind enough to give me 20 codes for $5 off the ticket price. They're first come first served, so let me know if you want one in the comments or via email.

Go There:

Ignite Memphis

Tuesday, October 12, 7 p.m.

Playhouse on the Square