We’ve got a bunch of great speakers this time! Check ’em out below. Ignite Seattle 6 will take place on 4/29 at the King Cat Theatre. Doors will open at 7PM and talk will start at 8:30PM. We are very grateful to be getting sponsorship from Google, Biznik, and Phinney Bischoff Design House.
Roy Leban (@royleban) – Worst Case User Experience: Alzheimer’s
When the time came to move my father-in-law into an Alzheimer’s facility, I approached the problem as I approach any technical problem — I needed to meet the needs of the user, even if he didn’t know them and couldn’t express them. I crafted an experience (a UX) for him in his new home which meets those needs and I worked to make sure that the actual move itself did the same.
Ron Burk – The Psychology of Incompetence
Why does software suck so bad? Is it possible that a lot of us really smart computer programmers are, in fact… incompetent?
Dominic Muren (@dmuren) – Humblefacturing a Sustainable Electronic Future
We geeks love our personal tech. iPhones, Kindles, and Netbooks — these are the things we are quick to buy, and quick to trade up to stay on the bleeding edge. But in our wake we leave mountains of discarded, useless, and toxic ex-electronics. But must this necessarily be the case?
Jason Preston (@Jasonp107) – Goobye Tolstoy: How to say anything in 140 characters or less
Twitter’s greatest contr. to society is: any idea can be shared in 140 chars or less-beyond that, it’s just drivel. See how & why in 5 mins.
Jamie Gower – How to Set Up a Machinima Studio for $20 (or Hamlet: Armed and Dangerous)
The startling true story of the production of the climax from Hamlet that defied sanity—staged entirely in Starcraft: Brood War, a deeply-discounted, 11-year old computer game!
Chris DiBona (@cdibona) – The Coolness of Telemedicine
Remote medicine is coming a long way. Chris will run us through the latest.
Ken Beegle (@kbeegle) – Decoding Sticks and Waves
Yesterday’s breakthrough solutions are today’s historical curiosities. Such is the case of stick charts, which were once used to navigate the Marshall Islands. By observing the waves, wind and stars, select Marshall Islanders were able to find their way across the water. In 1898, Captain Winkler of the German Navy began decoding the stick charts, allowing us to understand how and why the charts worked. Using his experiences as a lens, we can look at the maps we’re building today and ask what type of historical curiosities will they become.
Maya Bisineer (@thinkmaya) – Geek Girl – A life Story
From being a tomboy, secretly hiding away my cousin’s hot-wheels cars at 5 yrs of age all the way to imposing geekiness on my own 2 year old by refusing her pink dresses :). I WILL make a claim that we are a special breed of people that need special privileges in order to save our creed.
Dawn Rutherford (@dawnoftheread) – Public Library Hacking
Money tight? Want to save more for a rainy day? If you aren’t fully utilizing your public library, you might be wasting thousands of dollars a year!Librarian Dawn Rutherford will give you a quick trip through all your public libraries have to offer, and how to make the most of it, using tricks and tips gleaned from someone who has spent over half her life working or volunteering in them.
Mike Tykka – The Invention of the Wheel
It seems Nature has beaten man to almost every “invention” of his: Helicopters, Submarines, Electricity, Video Cameras, Supercomputers, etc. For the longest time i thought one notable exception was the wheel – seems hard to do out of flesh: think blood vessels; How do they attach? Then i started studying biochemistry and learned about proteins. Turns out nature has invented a full blown, reversible, proton driven turbine engine, many tens of thousands of which churn away in every one of the billions of cells in a human body.
Beth Goza (@bethgo) – Knitting in Code
Remember the joy of writing your first Hello World application? Do you still have a copy somewhere so you can gaze upon your coded baby steps into the world of binary goodness? In knitting, creating something beautiful is just like binary, with a series of knits and pearls you can dream up the most sophisticated of patterns. In the spirit of hi-tech meets hand-tech, I will show you how to convert your binary Hello World app into a pattern of stitches (think kint =1 pearl = 0), so that you can create, mount, frame and hang your Hello World genius for all to see.
Hillel Cooperman (@hillel) – The Secret Underground World of Lego
Get a glimpse of a thriving user generated content ecosystem that’s been around since long before the web. See an incredible example of a community, and how a large corporation has completely let go of control only to find incredible success despite and maybe because of the economic downturn.
Shelly Farnham (@ShellyShelly) Community Genius: Leveraging Community to Increase your Creative Powers
We’ve all heard that it’s a myth that creativity occurs in isolation. We’ve even heard about *group genius*, the ability for group with “flow” to create ground-breaking works of art or technology. Well, in this brief talk Shelly Farnham, social scientist and leading expert in community technologies, will take it to the next level and provide tips for how to leverage *community genius* to improve your creative powers.
Katherine Hernandez (@ipodtouchgirl) – The Mac Spy
I made a last minute decision to attend a meeting I somehow caught wind of. Assured of its importance, I flew down yet again, not even a month after MacWorld, to see what would happen at this 25 year reunion of the Berkeley Mac User Group.
Scott Berkun (Scottberkun.com)- How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk
To give a good talk you want to have a story. You have to be able to frame it. If you’re going to give an Ignite talk you have to do this really, really quickly.
Scotto Moore (Scotto.org)- Intangible Method
A digital fairy tale about a young woman who realizes that first person video footage from her own life is being posted to YouTube – before the events actually occur in real life.
Jen Zug (@jenzug) – The Sanity Hacks of a Stay At Home Mom
Drawing from her real life as a stay at home mom (as opposed to her imaginary life as a bar tender on Cape Cod), Jen Zug shares her parenting hacks to staying sane when the majority of her day is spent discussing the merits of Optimus Prime over Buzz Light Year.
Chris DiBona is the Open Source Programs Manager for Google, which includes running the Summer of Code, releasing open source software on Google’s Code website and contributing to several og Google’s blogs. He also helps plan the annual Sci Foo Camp with Tim O’Reilly and Nature’s Timo Hannay.
Jason Preston is currently the Director of New Media at 
Ignite Seattle 