Being in Melbourne for training all week, I was lucky enough to catch Ignite Melbourne on Tuesday 9th August.  Below are some highlights from the generally amazing presentations.  If you’re thinking of running your own Ignite, then O’Reilly has some great resources to get you started.

• “Crowdsourcing: Stories from Kaggle’s frontline” from Nicholas Gruen [@NicholasGruen] of Kaggle
  This was a great presentation on how scientific problems were solved via crowdsourcing – and how to make crowdsourcing happen
• “How long is a piece of string? inspired by the concept of a Fermi estimate” by Jason Yip [@jchyip] of ThoughtWorks
  This presentation was amazing and used limits, statistical analysis and boundaries to provide a scientific estimate of how long a piece of string is.
• “The Awesome Foundation” from Ross Hill [@rosshill]
  Great presentation from Ross Hill around the work that 10 micro-investors do each month with Awesome Melbourne. In summary, 10 people put in $100 a month to fund an idea, startup or other proposal. No strings attached – a generally philanthropic and grass roots movement.
• “Modelling salaries in a financially transparent company” from Marty Andrews [@martinjandrews] of Cogent Consulting
  Great presentation on the model used to determine employee salaries at a small consultancy. Points are awarded for experience, level of business development proficiency and bonuses for things like peer or community recognition or other ‘valued’ citizenship type behaviours. Not so relevant for a large institution, but an interesting and valid approach to salary setting.
• “The History of LOL“ Kealey Nutt [@kealey] from Thelma Magazine
  Humourous preso on the history of LOLZ. Left early so I missed most of it. @Kealey is great to speak with – she’s inspirational.