Portland is on fire? No. Ignite Portland is, though…. And you can be ,too.

Today IP5 tickets were gone in less than 5.5 minutes. Wow. Is this a hot new rock band? No, but close. It is the Legion of Tech's sexy-younger-sister/brother version of Pechu Kucha. Sound hot? Want to aspire to fire? Start the smoke rolling out your ears about what grooves and moves you to tell the world. Submissions for IP6 will be coming up, as submissions usually open within a week after the latest IP. Essentially, presenters are selected from submissions to speak for five minutes, but only with a maximum of 20 slides, on topics chosen on the judges' whims. The only stipulations are the presentation be inspirational and instructional. This is your big chance to get your face in front of a crowd that will carry a message.

The presenters go upon stage at the Bagdad Theater before a tribe of over 600, bound by social media networking, who crave two hours of delight in humor, information, and visual treats at mind-melting speed. This is not directly self promotional, but what a bang for the buck; a theater full of crowdsourcing and community building (social media buzz words about marketing and networking) at no cost. The presentations are then posted on youtube.com

The big upside is that this will be fun - for you and your audience, while you carry a message over-streaming your topic. How much fun can one group of information- and advocate-philes pack into one night? The answer is how much can you put out to them? A sampling of the presentations for the latest upcoming:

Science. It Works, Bitches. The DNA Edition

How to Creatively Destroy Pesky, Non-moneymaking Community Efforts

Hacking Life with Kids, but Without Car

How to Tell if You're a Narcissist

Notice that the messages are couched in the lovely format of community weaving. Jayson Falkner is a local Bill Nye the Science Guy - all around scientist and social media enthusiast. John Metta is a self-described, "Catastrophic failure at starting companies, unfortunately good at building community efforts," who attendees consider so sexy, that packaged undies will be thrown at him (to be donated later to a worthy cause). A finance guru gone work-at-home mom, Sarah Gilbert has demonstrated her presentation chops at The BackfencePDX already. Jerry Ketel is an uber ad guy figure that challenges the paradigm by his very existence on the planet. Anyone can be selected to present. On the Ignite Portland submittal proposal pages are the bios of the presenters and proposals for all the IP submission ever made. Warming up to a successful submission is embarrassingly easy.

The other four IP events were just as diverse and colorful, and boasted just as many high-profiles and paradigm busters. It is fierce competition to develop a submittal that will burn through the judging. Thus, it is probably a good idea to get to know who you will be speaking to. At the center of it all is the Big Heart that beats warmly throughout the Northwest high tech and creative communities. The Legion of Tech's one sole purpose in this world is to, "...grow and nurture the local Portland community through free, educational, community-run technology events." And boy, do they.  A visit to their website and events listings on Calagator (the PDX tech community's calendar+aggregator and wheel of fun) and Upcoming, Yahoo! (easier interface, less current) reveals a smorgasbord of business, nonprofit, academic schmoozing opps that are envied nation wide. And this is the bonus - you will be infiltrating networking groups and referral sources just by doing your home work.

Sponsors cut on the bleeding edge of enterprise and community. These are people you want to be aware of your existence. OTBC is incubator, home and foster parent to dozens of start ups, and has put the flight feathers on thriving dozens more. Wieden+Kennedy, Vidoop, Aboutus, Beer 'n Blog, and even (gasp!) Microsoft fuel the funding and resources. The network webbing becomes exponential.

Tickets are free. Ticket holders vie to be assured a seat for the event. This is a philosophy of networking based on the concept of transparency, a term you may recall from President Obama's promise regarding government. Everyone gets a chance to see what's going on. Money is not the object community is. And community means networks. Yes, Virginia, there is a waiting list for tickets, and a general admission line is admitted 45 minutes after ticketholders. The event is on February 19, with general admission seating at 6:00p.m. Be early.