I’ve always called myself a storyteller, so first I’d like to share with you some stories of my own TEDx:
My Co Organizer Joey and I met through TED, and now we are great friends. At that time, he just been made a TEDFellow for TEDGlobal 2010, and I found his information through TED.com and contacted him.
Last September, we started TEDxFactory798. We thought up a theme that intrigued both of us — Outsider Insider. Joey is an American artist living in China, while I was a very recent graduate from international relations and had gotten immersed into questions like nationalism and identity a lot. We invited our friends to present their thoughts and stories over the theme. It was so inspiring and after that, we wanted to continue this effort. The theme of our next theme will be around communication, based on our common query about languages, social media, political democratization, culture interaction, technology and media.
We want TEDxFactory798 to be a platform where people come to share their thoughts and engage with people afterwards.
At the recent TEDx Organizer Workshop in Beijing on October 16th, 15 TEDx Organizers from Beijing and Tianjinn came together to exchange understanding of TEDx and share stories at the Scent of Book school courtyard in the Hutong area of Beijing.
After Salome of the TED team gave a presentation about the TEDx rule and guidelines, each TEDx team gave a 5 minute presentation their event. We discussed and brought up challenges and solutions together. The most important message we gained from the workshop is: TEDx is not a brand. It’s about ideas and spirit. It’s about engaging with your local community. Rather than putting more emphasis on the quality and facility, more attention should be paid to the theme, speakers and audience.
Written by Ellen Cheng, the Co Organizer and curator of TEDxFactory798
TEDx Seattle Organizers Meetup
Earlier today, Kartik and I skipped our first day of Fall Quarter classes to attend a TEDx Organizer meetup at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. If I had to use one word to describe the event, it would be Ignite.
Conversations were diverse- we discussed sponsors, speakers, developing dialogue, and more. Our group was equally diverse- the spectrum ranged from new, young TEDx Organizers like us and TEDxYouth@Seattle to experienced, older veterans of TEDxRainier and TEDxDU.The atmosphere was welcoming and engaging, the sandwich lunch delicious, and the campus breathtaking.
There’s incredible power in bringing together a small group of strangers with a common passion. Before today, most of us had never spoken to each other. But almost instantaneously the shared love of TEDx brought us together as a cohesive unit. You could feel the TEDx drive in the air - ideas were being tossed around like a hacky sack and discussions seamlessly flowed like a stream over smooth rocks. It was interesting to observe our TEDx meetup embodying the values of TED itself. TED prides itself with the tagline of “Ideas Worth Spreading”, and our meetup flawlessly demonstrated the TED spirit: those who put on events eagerly shared their thoughts and best practices while those who were new to TEDx supplied a steady line of questions. On the one hand, I was impressed the Gates Foundation was so supportive of TEDx and so eager to support us. On the other, I was inspired that it only took the small spark of a half-day event to stimulate the conversation and collaboration of the local TEDx community.
One of best topics that was brought up today was how, as organizers, we could take “Ideas Worth Spreading” and transform them into “Ideas Worth Doing”. We brainstormed how TEDx could be used as a vehicle for empowering action, and how our speakers could light a spark in the audience to motivate tangible change. But as our conversation developed, an even bigger topic emerged: Should the focus of TEDx be to inspire action?
Personally, I view the focus of TEDx not to inspire action but rather to share ideas. Action comes as a result of ideas. TEDx is beyond the organizers, speakers, and even the individual ideas. TEDx is about bringing together a diverse mix of ideas worth spreading, piling them up as kindling in the fire pit of our venue, and igniting them. Ordinary ideas are potent and may require caution. Ideas mixed in the fireplace of TEDx are dangerously flammable.
One of my favorite quotes is:
“Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.”
-Fred Shero
It could not apply more to TEDx. Today’s meetup ignited our collaboration of local TEDx organizers, as well as my own drive to make TEDxUofW an unforgettable and life-changing event. It’s my hope that, in April 2012, The Next Generation will ignite the hearts of others.
Written by Tim Tan, TEDxUofW Co-Organizer.
Originally posted at http://www.tedxuofw.com/2011/09/the-next-generation-ignite/
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posted 12 October, 2011
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TEDx Southern Cone Organizers Workshop, a recap
May 15, 2011, Palermo neighborhood, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
It is a chilling Sunday morning, and a few minutes after 9 am people start arriving to AreaTres, a co-working space we saw fit for the kind of meeting that is about to take place.
23 TEDx organizers from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are getting together to share their experience, knowledge, best practices and hopes of what an amazing TEDx should be.
Atmosphere is relaxed, and everybody looks sleepy during breakfast. Most of us don’t know each other, so as soon as caffeine kicks in we start to play a game: we form groups of 3 - 4 people and in less than 10 minutes, we have to tell our team-mates what makes us famous, what’s the most unusual fact about us. We are amazed at some of the weird skills of other TEDx Organizers. After time’s up we get back all together and share with the other groups what we’ve just heard.
The atmosphere is now filled with good vibes and cheerfulness and we are ready to focus on what has brought us together this day: ideas worth spreading! So we get on with it. We split in groups again but this time to talk about common issues affecting sponsorship, speakers, communication and logistic of our TEDx events. The group dynamics is very fast paced and we find ourselves not only jumping from one topic to another, but also moving physically from one corner of the room to another. Still, we have plenty of time to discuss each of them, and after a couple of hours of sharing our thoughts we come up with many exciting new ideas.
It is time for a recess now and, as we are well past mid day, the sandwiches on the lunch table disappear in a blink of an eye as the horde of energy-requiring TEDx’ers discover them!
Finally, after dessert, we get back together to share our conclusions. Each team has to act out, in a funny way, the 3 ideas they liked the most. Everybody discusses, listens, suggests, and we all have some laughs.
So, after more than 6 hours of work/play we have come up with a dozen of great ideas and solutions to our problems, we have committed to perform actions to further increase the size of the TED community in our region, we have identified possible joint activities to improve the outcome of our TEDx events, but mainly, after this day, we have discovered that we all were … friends worth making!
Written by Julian Dominguez of TEDxRosario, Javier Yunes of TEDxRosario and Gerry Garbulsky of TEDxRiodelaPlata and TEDxRosario.
TEDx South Korea Organizers Workshop
South Korea is one of the most active TEDx communities — 70+ events have waved throughout the country since its first event taking place in last 2009 June.
On May 22, the second TEDx Organizers Workshop in South Korea took place in Seoul. And in this particular workshop, approximately 40 TEDx Organizers all across the country gathered to share their thoughts and ideas. While the first workshop in last February this year had focused on building mutual relationships and trust, meeting fellow TEDx’ers face to face, this time it was more about drawing the picture of collective future that we seek to create as Korean TEDx community.
The program for the day was made up of three different sessions. In the first session, licensees from 15 different TEDx events introduced their own event in 3 minutes.
In the second session, Lara Stein, Licensing Director of TED, gave a detailed presentation on rules and guidelines and on the TEDx spirit. It was short, yet extremely helpful, because it was actually the first physical contact between TED and TEDx’ers in South Korea. She has not only reassured the community that her TEDx team is open to any questions and feedback, but also made clear that it is TEDx’s vision that each and every one of TEDx event should collaborate with each other, trying to solve their own local problems. Lots of ambiguous questions were as well made clear for everybody who attended the workshop in following Q&A session.
The last session was group discussion, where 40 participants were grouped into 8 different tables and discussed three important questions inspired by Simon Sinek’s TEDTalk, as collective TEDx community:
- Why we do TEDx?
- What’s our vision? Where should we go?
- What we should do to go in that direction? What’s the exact things that we ought to act upon?
Participants were supposed to switch their table seven times every ten minutes so that they can visit all tables, and what’s been discussed among other people who’ve been on that table previously. Popping around tables during the session, participants naturally realized that there’s a lot in common in the way that why we do TEDx, how we do and what kind of future we want to create.
“It was such a great and excited moment with other TEDx Organizers in Korea! I was very impressed by their passion and vision. Through these coordination with all TEDx Organizers, I hope we would have opportunities to make our society and world better!” - Jooyong Moon of TEDxSinchon
“It’s hard to describe this wonderful experience in only 50 words, but I thought this was the pivotal point for organizers to come together and improve TEDx organizations in Korea. We came up with specific goals and plans, while we also had fun. I really enjoyed this experience and would love to do it again. ” - Minae Kwon of TEDxYouthSeoul
“TEDx Organizers Workshop Korea was totally amazing experience for me to share the idea of “Ideas Worth Spreading”“. - Youngjae Lee of TEDxBundang
“Every time I meet TEDx’ers, I got inspired so much! :-) It was an awesome experience to share passions and ideas about TED and TEDx events with other licensees. Lara’s coming to South Korea was also great! We’ve got clear answers/comments while communicating with her face to face.” - Jihye Kang of TEDxEwha
TED is a such a potent tool to catalyze social changes, big and small, in local communities. It is already bringing impacts here and there, calling for brilliant hearts and minds around the magnet of TEDx in all places.
Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” It was such a short but intense gathering in which we realized the potential power of TEDx community where each and every single member of the community is so motivated to make meaningful impact in society. In unity we can make better future!
