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Since the energy distribution of the particles in any system that is in thermal equilibrium will be maxwellian you have some high energy particles in the tail of the distribution. As you raise the temperature of a gas eventually the high energy tail will have sufficent energy to ionize gas particles. Actually this is always happening howver the recombination rate is much higher than the ionization rate at room temperature. At high temperatures you have more ionization and you can get a large amount of you gas ionized. Ok so now you have an ionized gas, so what? Well, since it is ionized there are free electrons. These can be quite easily moved with an electric field( F=ma=e*Efield). So the conductivity of a plasma is extremely high. The particles can also be influenced by magnetic fields (F=ma=ev x B). There are many uses of plasmas, they are used for making semiconductors, lighting, fusion, waste disposal, microwave/light production, etc.. hopefully that is enough to get you started