Posts tagged united kingdom

An Imperfect Instrument: Jennifer Stumm @ TEDxAldeburgh

Jennifer Strum calls the viola the “middle child of the string instruments.” Through a mixture of talk and performance, she offers a compelling meditation on the viola’s capacity for emotion— and for making beautiful music.

Each week, we’ll choose four of our favorite talks, highlighting just a few of the enlightening speakers from the TEDx community, and its diverse constellation of ideas worth spreading. Browse all TEDxTalks here »

Hip-Hop & Shakespeare?: Akala @ TEDxAldeburgh

Can you tell the difference between Shakespeare’s sonnets and hip hop lyrics? By rapping some of Shakespeare’s famous lines, Hip hop artist Akala reveals the striking and enlightening parallels between today’s hip hop and the Bard’s plays.

Hundreds of talks from independently organized TEDx events around the world are published on the TEDxTalks website weekly.

Each week, we’ll choose four of our favorites, highlighting just a few of the enlightening talks from TEDx community, and its diverse constellation of ideas worth spreading. Browse all TEDxTalks here »

This Week’s TEDxTalks Playlist

Hundreds of talks from independently organized TEDx events around the world are published on the TEDxTalks website weekly.

Each Tuesday, we’ll choose four of our favorites, highlighting just a few of the enlightening talks from TEDx community, and its diverse constellation of ideas worth spreading. Browse all TEDxTalks here »

6th graders love playing videogames — Thomas Suarez loves creating them. After developing apps like “Bustin Jeiber”, a whack-a-mole game, he is now using his skills to help other kids become developers.

Do kids these days have short attention spans, or does the world just move too slow? Gabe Zichermann argues that today’s video games are making children smarter — and we should all embrace the gamification of education and business.

Connor Brantley isn’t old enough to vote, but he’s already started his own political organization. In this talk, he makes the case that the first step toward a better government is ending partisan politics.

What makes each person unique? Using thought-provoking examples and neuroscience, philosopher Julian Baggiani tackles this age old question and argues that we are defined by our distinct combination of experiences.

The story of TEDxWarwick 2011

In May 2010, I was interviewed to become a member of the TEDxWarwick 2011 team, as the Deputy Logistics Coordinator.

Sitting in front of the panel, it didn’t take me too long to notice that this was serious business — every detail of my CV was being been looked at, every aspect of my cover letter was being, well……covered, and every weakness in my ability probed. I thought it was pretty hard going, and quite intimidating, but it turned out this was all for a very good reason. This was just the start.

Matthieu Baril and Sina Thieme, our coordinators, had been living and breathing TEDxWarwick longer than most of us. After becoming the “chosen ones” very soon after the 2010 event in March, they had set to work instantly, firstly by recruiting the executive committee made up of secretary, treasury, and team leaders that would bring TEDxWarwick to life for the third time.

The team demonstrated the very qualities that Matthieu and Sina had demanded in our very first interviews: drive, passion, attention to detail, organisation, and — in true TED spirit — the ability to think outside the box. In the exam term at Warwick, the coordinating team started to kick things into action. We set about applying for the TEDx license, inviting speakers and approaching sponsors. Even choosing a venue wasn’t as simple as we thought it would be, but fortunately we found out that our lecture theatre of choice was getting a makeover, and even better, in the TED colours! The groundwork was being laid slowly but surely, and pieces were coming together to form the bigger picture. Goals and objectives were set for when we returned from the summer holiday.

At the start of Term 1, recruitment was completed and we had our team. It was made up of two coordinators, a secretary, treasurer, logistics and technical team, marketing team, media team, speakers team, and sponsorship team. Weekly exec meetings took place first at 5pm on a Friday, and then 9am on a Monday in Term 2 (which, as you can imagine, didn’t go down too well, but anything for the cause). The tasks started to be broken down to an individual level and the big picture became ever clearer as our vision was becoming a daunting reality.

One thing we definitely learned was how plans can change during the year long preparation. If TEDxWarwick 2011 had gone according to the plan made in October 2010, speakers would have included both Ben Hammersley and Rory Sutherland, Theatre and Performance students would have been behind the cameras, we would have had an entirely different host, we would have had an illuminated TEDxWarwick sign for the stage, wristbands as tickets, and very importantly– there would have been no TEDxWarwick cake.

My personal task was to devise a way of allowing people to get through the doors of the event in the most efficient way possible, so drawing on my previous experiences, I followed the TED ethos of thinking differently and trying to do something new. Thankfully TED has friends, and Amiando were able to provide us with an amazing system of selling e-tickets with barcodes that attendees could print and bring with them to the conference. Even better, we could use the scanners in future years, and we got to design the tickets ourselves, so it was a win-win situation. By this point, the speakers team already had their line-up finalised, and were prepping them for the talk of their lives, as well as gathering final information such as travel arrangements and dietary requirements. Also around this time, we got back in touch with our friends at Warwick Communications Office who helped us out immensely by offering to film and edit all the talks. So they were employed to help release Matthieu from his obsession to get a video on TED.com. The videos from our conference can be found here and the talk made available on TED.com, by Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol, can be found here.

As our event time drew nearer and the marketing campaigns started, you could feel the buzz generating, as the banners went up and the chalk went down. Our popular promotional video meant that the sound of Mark Ronson’s “Bang bang bang” was becoming commonplace in the library, and news of the taster session spread fast. Our “Homegrown Ideas” competition went down well and the student speakers were impressive, from a talk on piezoelectric crystals to one on social media. Combine this with the fact that the sponsorship team were successful in getting Credit Suisse on board and suddenly it looked like we were on track for a success story. Stage design was coming to fruition after several re-works, the cake was ordered, posters put up, and Louisa Mottaz (secretary) recorded it all with her meticulous minutes. We finally decided that we needed to construct our TEDxWarwick sign out of MDF, so we set off in search of boards of MDF and red and white paints, as well as supplies of black cloth and red carpet which was needed to complete the stage decoration. Cutting the wood into Helvetica font for the sign was a challenge, and took a lot more time than we thought. After painting the “T” red, we were overjoyed (probably overly so) that it actually looked OK, and as you can see in the videos, the sign actually came out pretty well.

A one-off social for team bonding purposes quickly developed into almost weekly meetings at our Student Union Friday night out. We all got to know each other a little better, which I definitely feel helped us in the final build up to the event. So far all seemed to be going well…

Around two weeks before the event my partner in crime (Louisa Lim, Logistics Coordinator) developed the master plan for the day, a comprehensive list of the roles that each individual was to play on March 5th. Now the tension was really building. We had the full team briefing on the Tuesday before the event, and took lots of photos, which don’t really convey the anxiety of impending doom.

 At the briefing, Luke Mason (host and technical consultant) told us that he wasn’t feeling too well. The next day he went home with mumps. Thankfully Alex Moxon was happy to take up the position of host, and did a fantastic job on the day itself, with very little time to prepare. Luke’s technical responsibilities were taken over by Marcus Mo, who was equally as tech-savvy as Luke.

On top of an ill host, Ben Hammersley, one of our speakers, told us 24 hours before the conference was due to begin that he would have to pull out; much to our bemusement, it turns out David Cameron is actually more important than TEDxWarwick.

These are just a couple of examples of the issues that we had to face in the build-up. The day itself actually went without a hitch, probably a combination of luck and meticulous planning. Our two coordinators took to the stage and set us up for the talks. Behind the scenes there was running and waiting, glaring and Skyping (this was how we communicated during the talks) as everyone did their best to make sure they were in the right place at the right time. The hug between Matthieu and Sina at their closing coordinators speech sums up how most of us felt after the event. Relief that it went so well, but sadness that it was all over. Well, I say this, but it is still going on as we recruit for the next TEDxWarwick.

The speakers we had invited were each phenomenal in their own way, but they all had a few things in common:  an extraordinary capability to think out of the box, a curiosity that lets them see connections between different areas of knowledge, and a willingness to share their ideas with us. Even though we could sense their nervousness in taking to the stage, their anxiety was trumped by the power of the ideas they had to share. With each speaker, the excitement in the room escalated. We soon all realised that when we hear someone deliver a passionate story, it not only gives us an insight into what drives that person, but also a stimulus to extend this passion to other areas of knowledge within our own lives.

Hopefully this can give you some idea as to what exactly went into TEDxWarwick 2011. All I can say is that it was definitely one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. To have 7 months of work come together in a 1-day event is a surreal but hugely satisfying result. I think everyone on the team had to use every skill in their armoury at some point, and probably picked up a few more along the way. So going back to the interview…high standards were set right from the very beginning, and this is what made TEDxWarwick 2011 the success it was, along with the desire to take our event to the next level, and a whole lot of elbow grease. If you get a chance to be involved in such an event in the future I would definitely recommend it.

Written by Nick Clayton, Deputy Logistics Coordinator, TEDxWarwick 2011