Hacking the Red Circle: Recent Episodes
Mark Sylvester, Host
Hacking the Red Circle is designed to illustrate what it takes to organize, produce, promote and create a world-class event. Veteran organizers share lessons so that first-timers can benefit from their expertise.
Experience a behind the scenes view of the creation of a TEDx.
Not an organizer (yet)? We hope to inspire you to get involved in a local TEDx event in your community. Enjoy the show.
Finding ways to be creative and stay connected to your TEDx Community during these challenging times of sequestering and dealing with a global pandemic can test even the most creative Organizers.
When I read about our guest, Martin Nera of TEDxUCLouvain on the TEDx Organizers Facebook page, I was intrigued about their plans that involved virtual production, strategies to engage their Community - all while focusing on creating an experience. Their theme for the event was All-Knowing Generations.
TEDxUCLouvain is a University event that has been in production for five years. It was started by 4 Ph.D. students and a 100 person license. This year they were supposed to produce their live event for 800 people in April, and due to COVID, elected to postpone until the Fall and see if things changed. In fact, they didn't, they got worse, however, Martin and his team used those constraints to guide their creativity.
In this episode (and sorry for the long delay between episodes) you'll hear how Martin and the team focused on living into a few guiding principles. One, Change Expectations and two, "If you don't want to disappoint, you have to surprise." You'll need to listen to the show to get the deeper and profoundly interesting way those ideas manifested themselves.
Martin explains that his audience of students' lives for authentic experiences and streaming pre-recorded TEDx Talks to dorm rooms was not the experience his team wanted to deliver. Listen as he explains how they decentralized the event into forty (40) locations of ten (10) people each, created and distributed a Knowlege Box to each pod of listeners, and how they activated each pod, the collective pods and individuals to deliver a truly unique experience and refined what a TEDx event could be.
Congratulations to the team at TEDxUCLouvain and the impact they made on 400 people and how they delivered on the promises they'd made to their speakers, the community and their partners.
Alerted to an amazing TEDx's theater design posted on Facebook, we sought out the organizers of TEDxHyderabad to walk us through the fantastic video and tell us the story.. Please meet Vipin and Viiveck, the co-organizers of the event and a lively pair of conversationalists who told us that story and more.
Ironically Facebook came up at the beginning of the show when they told me how they hadn't known one each other, and no one on the team had known one another until a post appeared asking people to volunteer for the event.
Their 2018 TEDx, with over 2,500 people, was held in the 400-year-old city of Hyderabad. Watch the video posted below to see how they transformed the space into a stunning technological wonder - and listen to the show to hear how things just barely made it by showtime.
We talked about how they've interpreted the TEDx Mission of 'Ideas Worth Spreading' into their local Mission which is to "Build a community of (T)hinkers, (E)nablers, and (D)oers with the X standing for a single idea." Listen as they go into detail on how this Mission is a binding theme that pulls their team together.
Team is a consistent theme for TEDxHyderabad. In their advice to existing organizers, they suggest focusing on building sustainability into the team structure.
Listeners will note at the end that I was invited to join them in Hyderabad and we're going to do the next best thing which is to meet at TEDSummit 2019 in Scotland!
https://HackingTheRedCircle.com
In 2011 Stefan Bucher, an award-winning Designer, presented at TEDxAmericanRiviera (now known as TEDxSantaBarbara.) He recently spoke with Mark Sylvester about reflections of his road to the Red Circle. Stefan speaks to audiences large and small and travels the world talking about design, typically to designers. He remarks that stepping onto the TEDx stage is unlike any other event.
For Organizers, hearing this conversation will help you understand the thinking of an accomplished speaker when understanding how different the TEDx experience is - and how he'd wished he'd taken more advantage of our help. You'll get some great tips on how to coach your speakers by listening to him.
Stefan's hack for speakers is to consider how you open your talk and capture the imagination and energy of the audience. He suggests using a musical opening, much like the overture to a Broadway play. You'll see how he used this in his talk from 2011. We've posted Stefan's talk below so you can watch, then listen to this episode so that you can understand the context of his answers.
On the first day of TED2019, Randy Bretz joined the show as a guest host to help me interview the founder of TEDx, Lara Stein.
My favorite quote from her was "there's so much innovation on the edges."
Randy Bretz wrote an extensive piece on this interview on Medium. You can read it here: https://medium.com/@randybretz/lara-stein-founder-of-tedx-and-believer-in-the-open-source-movement-7f2c949c2eb
In five minutes of listening to Mariette Fourmeaux du Sartel talk about why she has spent the past couple of years going to prison every week to help create TEDxDonovanCorrectional, you will understand how her passion drives her to continue, overcoming obstacles every visit.
Mariette deeply cares for the men at Donovan Correctional and taught me so much about the challenges she and the team face in producing the event. She quoted one of the men who told her, "In my 20 years of incarceration, I've never been treated as a human until now." Wow.
After the wild success of TEDxDonovanCorrectional held at San Diego’s Donovan state prison, Mariette has transferred her passion for building resilient high-performing teams and authentic human-centered leadership – honed through two decades in corporate and start-ups – into the unlikely environment that is prison. She founded Brilliance Inside, a nonprofit program to transform prison from being strictly a container of violence to a creator of rehabilitation and peace.
Before this, Mariette spent 17 years in business, developing cutting-edge technologies for world-scale problems, such as a cancer-detecting medical device in Paris, d.light’s solar lanterns for the rural poor without electricity in India and a new augmented reality technology at HP, Inc. She also grew up intertwined in the creation and expansion of her family wine businesses, starting at the ripe age of 6. Mariette is a true global citizen: born in France, she’s lived on four continents and has explored some of the most remote corners of our world. Finally, Mariette holds a double materials engineering and economics degree from Brown University and a Berkeley MBA.
Monica Alba is a force of nature and the perfect person to lead the team at TEDxCancun, located in one of the most beautiful places along the Gulf of Mexico. Cancun is only 40 years old, and unlike other colonial cities in Mexico, it is full of many nationalities, creating a diverse population.
Monica is also the TEDx Ambassador for Mexico, and after the first few minutes of listening to her, you'll see why New York picked her for the position. She's sees the challenge of producing a TEDx in a city of 1 million citizens as a way to open their minds and inspire them.
Her latest event was themed Resonance. She said these are the ideas that need to be heard; we want to have them resonate with our community.
Her advice to other Organizers was simple; be open and vulnerable and share your failures. Be able to say, "I tried this, and it didn't work out..." and learn from it.
In this special episode, recorded in September 2018 right after TEDxSantaBarbara, Mark Sylvester (me), the host of Hacking the Red Circle, is interviewed by TEDxLincoln's Randy Bretz and TEDxLaçador's Ana Goelzer. This podcast is the first time I've told my own TED story. I'm hoping it will give you a glimpse into how I think our event.
Randy and Ana take a deep-dive into my motivations for producing a TEDx event here in Santa Barbara, since 2010. TEDxSantaBarbara has evolved over the years, and we've expanded into Youth, Live and in 2019, Salon events. My involvement has become more focused on the outcomes associated with a finely curated slate of speakers each year and stunning production design.
We got into a great discussion about how to turn the theme influences everything starting with set design, graphic design, web design, communications strategy and most importantly the curation of the speakers.
This small plate influenced the entire graphic design of the show I found in Brooklyn at TEDFest 2018. Seen on the right. For the first time, I also produced a podcast to go behind the scenes of the show, from the graphic design to selecting speakers, to talking about what it means to be a volunteer. This short-series of shows was designed specifically to bring the community closer to the core team and give them an inside look at the event.
I got into a discussion about our philosophy on speaker selection, and how we brought back three of our past speakers to give the audience an update on where their idea has traveled since initially presenting it in Santa Barbara. This year we focused on the impact of ideas on our community, something I learned from several of the podcast interviews I've done with other organizers. It had a profound effect on so much of what we did.
Something unique about TEDxSantaBarbara is the amount of speaker training we provide. On average, each speaker has 40+ hours of one-on-one, group and stage training from our coaching team lead by my wife and co-organizer, Kymberlee Weil. She's fine-tuned the process with her team and spends as much time as needed to be sure each speaker has everything necessary to give the talk of their lives.
Randy took me on another journey into the motivation for creating this show. I spoke at length about the show has become a Master Class for me as I work on being the best organizer I can. TEDxSantaBarbara has become a laboratory for me to implement ideas I hear from these interviews.
Ana wanted to know more about my journey to Red Circle and what it was like preparing for my TED talk at TEDxFargo. What a trek — shoutout to Greg Tehven, the organizer, for inviting me and creating one of the most respected TEDx events in the country. As much experience as I have with TED, it was not until I got the tap on the shoulder to walk onto the stage in front of 4,000 people that what we, as organizers, do and why we do it became instantly real to me.
TEDxLeicester, located in the United Kingdom, is organized by Siddhi Trivedi, who has a unique story; she was born in Tanzania, educated in the UK and the United States and has lived and worked across three continents. Truly a global citizen.
She started as the TEDxLeicester project manager in 2015 and is most proud of the work she and her team did in 2017, hosting the very first TEDx event inside a UK prison. The aim was to build collaborative partnerships to break the cycle of re-offending. She spends a good part of the conversation detailing the challenges of producing an event inside prison walls.
I loved how she phrased what it means to be an organizer, and she said that through conversations she could build partnerships, and through them, she builds opportunities. She has a unique point of view about partners and finding connections for them as a result of being involved with the event.
Gildo Conte is the Organizer of TEDxLaval, located on an island next to Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. His passion and energy are infectious, and I bet it's great fun being a part of his small, five-person team. His first brush with TED was when his kids said, "Dad, do you know about TED?" He says that it was a magical moment for him.
He's purposely kept the event small, 150-250 people with nine speakers in an evening event. I love that he serves cocktails before the show. His biggest surprise was that the reach of the event in just two years has been remarkable. Gildo says that there has been a good reaction from outside the region.
His biggest challenge is that the French community of Laval doesn't know about TED or TEDx. We've heard this often from other Organizers, and it doesn't appear to be isolated to any given region. As much as we think everyone's heard about TED, the reality, is they've not.
In 2018 they've managed to produce four Salons, plus a Youth event. Remember, this is with a team of 5. That's impressive.
Kimberly Marcus traveled the path to the Red Circle first as a speaker then made her way to Organizer of TEDxTarrytown in 2017. She made the trek to TEDFest in Brooklyn to remove the population cap off her event. She went to Brooks Institute (originally here in Santa Barbara) to study photography and moved to the east coast in 1987, where she's a Children's book writer.
If you're not familiar with Tarrytown, it's one of the river towns along the Hudson River, north of New York City. If you're familiar with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, then you know where Tarrytown is.
Tarrytown is a very diverse community in gender, race, and age. Kimberly feels that showcasing this diversity in the Talks is important. It's a small town of 15,000 people and she mentions that the 78 people who applied for 5 spots generated humbling and heartwarming conversations.
When I asked what her biggest surprise was, she said, "I was surprised that it all worked." Spoken like a true first timer. We recorded this episode before she produced her second event in November 2018, and we're pretty sure it went great.
John Werner is the Organizer of TEDxBeaconStreet, one of the top TEDx events that other Organizers would love to visit. In this episode, you'll learn why John and his event have been so successful, over 86 million views since 2010. John's very generous towards everyone that has helped him build a staggeringly connected community.
John's been producing TEDx events since 2010 and is deeply integrated into the TEDx Community. He's on the TEDx Board of Advisors, was the original creator of TEDx Adventures with over 365 to date, and over 10,000 attendees each year. He's a part of the TED-Ed brain trust, and you'll soon learn his deep passion for education which comes across loud and clear in this episode.
John is also a TEDx speaker, having presented at TED University, TED-Ed, and TED Global. He nominates TED Fellows. His career and experience are vast as evidenced by an extensive list of accomplishments, Fellowships, and Awards on Wikipedia. John's certainly a role model.
This episode covers so much ground that you don't want to read about it, you want to listen. Hear John's passion, deep thinking behind making connections and how he let's just enough chaos into the system to make it all work.
Ajit George is the organizer of TEDxWilmington, located in Delaware. He is a bundle of energy, as evidenced by the fact his tribe produces 12 events a year, with 172 speakers and 164 talks. It takes an incredible amount of organization to manage the sheer volume of speakers and attendees. They've had 7.4M views of their talks since they starting producing their event in 2011.
I learned so much from this conversation, as will you. Ajit talks at length about how they plan their event and salons, find speakers and manages a team of 70 volunteers. One tip is they have their speakers write a blog post at the beginning and middle of their journey to the red circle and one at the end. I took this to heart with my journey to TEDxFargo and kept a journal as a result of this tip.
Another significant aspect of their organization is they will fund any member of the tribe (as he calls them) to attend another TEDx event. This includes attending TEDSummit or TEDfest. He sent two members of the tribe to TEDfest this year, which gave me a chance to meet them in person. He believes this exposure will help broaden their experience. They pay the registration fee and 50% of the travel. Wow.
He makes it a point to visit every TEDx event in Delaware and provides support in mentoring, and even lends their letters to the events that can't afford them. He also welcomes referrals of speakers from other TEDx events around the country.
We spoke about how they've been able to find such a volume of speakers for being in such a small city, within a small state. He attributes this to three things: - They are halfway between Washington, DC and New York City. It's only a 90-minute train ride. They are close to the airport and positioned centrally in the mid-Atlantic region - Delaware is what's called a corporate state. This means thousands of companies across the US are incorporated in the State of Delaware and have headquarters there. This gives them access to sponsors and partners. He believes that his contacts over 64 years of life have helped him develop and fantastic network. - His alumni speakers recommend new speakers. They have an unbelievable pool of available talent as a result. They have a Speaker Ambassador as well, to focus 100% on them. He believes these alumni are their greatest resource.
Ajit says that his venue selection is specific in that they look for small, intimate spaces and keeps the event small on purpose. He says he likes to keep it a ratio of 10-12 attendees per speaker.
This episode will inspire you. Please feel free to share it.
How do you prepare an event for 7,000 people in rural India from 4,100 miles away in London, and don't hit the ground running until a week before the event? In this episode, we talk with Masarat Daud, the Organizer of TEDxShekhawati, located about 150 miles west of New Dehli. There were so many challenges producing this event that you'll not want to miss a minute of this compelling conversation.
Masarat grew up in Dubai and has lived in London the past seven years. She and her family produce this fantastic TEDx in spite of overwhelming odds in their way. For instance, they marketed the event by printing leaflets and going door to door and talking to hundreds of families about TEDx and why it was essential to the community.
Did I mention, it's also Free! And a one-woman show. Wow. Yes, she produces the event by herself. She says that now, eight years later, she feels like she's just starting to scratch the surface.
What surprised everyone was that the women in the village showed up. The venue itself, loosely constructed of tarps and fabric was itself a huge risk. What else was in their way? The entire concept of an event based solely on ideas is as foreign a concept as could be imagined.
Masarat's driving goal is to accentuate TEDx' mission for education, diversity and bring ideas to the community, especially girls. Her vision is that more girls will start going to school.
There's so much here to encapsulate in a simple abstract. You will appreciate one of her closing comments, "Maybe the impact of TEDx is event bigger than I thought!"
Chris Daley is the Organizer of TEDxPittsburgh and is part of a regional TEDx ecosystem with ten events within a short distance. Pittsburgh is a large region, but a small city, so the challenge of colliding events and keeping an identity for each TEDx is something Chris and his team think about.
He started as an attendee when the event was called TEDxGrandViewAvenue, then volunteered, became a part of the core team and in 2015 took over the lead organizer role. His background is in marketing, so he has a strong skill set which helps him produce the event.
"We want to be ambassadors for the City. It's the part of the story that motivates us."
Chris talks about the need for two teams and something that they're experimenting with this year. One team works on the event and passes the project over to a second team that manages the after-event tasks, videos, promotion, planning so that the first time can catch their breath. We all know how much of a sprint it is to get a TEDx produced and this strategy seems like a smart way to go.
Chris also shares his team's strategy for finding speakers in this episode. We know how hard that can be, especially with an event that continues year after year. He suggests that you get out in the community and participate in local activities. Live music, Moth sessions, spoken word festivals and jams of all sorts.
Chris also said that they're transitioning to 12-minute talks, down from the typical 18. Note: The guidance from TEDx in NYC is that video viewership drops precipitously after 12 minutes (my words). Good to know.
Chris and his wife share duties with their TEDx as she helps with the speakers.
Scott Mallory is the lead organizer for TEDxECUAD. This is a university event held in Vancouver at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. This year was their second event, and the interview was just a few days after the event concluded.
Scott talks about how art and design permeate everything about the event, so much so that Will Davis took many of the ideas presented and put them into his 2017 Innovation talk that he took on tour last year. Specifically, the Coloring Book (seen above) was something we've not seen before and indeed worthy of being called an idea worth spreading.
Scott discussed how to manage a team of creative students who have tons of ideas and how those ideas create a new set of logistical challenges regarding implementing. As a professor, he uses the experience of working on the event to generate Teaching Moments for the students. He worked with the University leadership to get credits for students who worked on the event, as well as some tuition waivers (for this year at least). Great motivator.
TEDxECUAD is a perfect environment for students on the team to learn about integrating their portfolio materials, high stakes work, the nature of feedback, working on teams, working with clients, collaboration, showcase work on a global, meaningful platform.
I'd been looking forward to posting this conversation with TEDxAmsterdam's organizer Paul Rispens for some time now. I'd heard such great things about the event, and it's on the list of TEDx events other organizers would like to attend. Paul has been involved with TEDx since 2009 and works with a core team of 30. This episode is a lively conversation with someone who believes that their event is a perfect blending of the best of TED with the best of Amsterdam.
I thought it was interesting that they have six people on their partner team, 12 on communications, five curating and working with speakers, and 4 focused on the user experience. Paul says he spends two days a week, full time on the event in the months coming up to the show.
He talks about an interesting thing they did at the end of the 2017 show, which was a surprisingly light closing ceremony. It was to support the idea of 'big questions.' Listen as he explains how it all worked. It sounds like it was a fantastic experience if you were in that beautiful theater.
Paul is gearing up for the 10th edition of their show. Look at the TEDxAmsterdam website to get a sense of the excitement. They are going to mix the best of the best from the past ten years. With 850 attendees expected, this is going to be a memorable event.
Alexandra Opiel started at TEDxBuffalo as a volunteer, eventually replacing the original license holder and has run the event for the past three years. By days she's a project manager for a local Buffalo real estate development company, which is a perfect skill set to bring to the role of a TEDx Organizer. She naturally seeks out more responsibility, and it was this attitude that led her into the leadership position.
Alex explains that they go about selecting a theme a bit different than I've heard from other organizers. They start by finding speakers, then once they have a full slate, they determine what the theme might be. They've had Perspectives, and Ignite as themes that have come out of this process. She says that they look for a vague term that is inspiring and lends itself to a cool logo yet doesn't lock them into a corner.
Their event is under 600 people, and they've found a great venue that allows them to have a more significant event than their old location which only held 100 attendees. One of the things that they do differently is to hold the event on a weeknight instead of a whole day, then follow it with a great after party.
I love that they have food trucks at the event to feed people during the break. The event starts around dinner time, and a Buffalo favorite is Pirogi's and BBQ and Vegan offerings. The food trucks allow people to buy what they want, and how much they want, so there's no waste. And doesn't add to the TEDxBuffalo budget.
They've been able to produce the entire event for under $10K, and keep ticket prices to $20. This puts a challenge on the team to come up with a low budget way to create experiences. She says that it helps to have the event on a Thursday evening, which keeps costs down as well.
She's surprised at how big the TEDx world is. Her experience at TEDxBuffalo, which focuses exclusively on Buffalo ideas, people, and food, had her thinking that TEDx was just limited to her city. This perspective changed dramatically when she went to TEDFest in 2017 and saw how vast the world of TEDx really is and how different everyone's events are, while still falling under the umbrella of Ideas Worth Spreading. TEDFest also opened her eyes to resources like the Hub and the TEDx organizers Facebook page.
This was the first mother-daughter podcast we've done. Mom is Grace Belangia, organizer of TEDxAugusta and Chloe Belangia, her daughter, is the organizer of TEDxGeorgiaTech. It was great to meet them in person at TEDFest and have the opportunity to enjoy the family dynamic in action. You'll love the back and forth between these two energetic TEDsters.
Both are highly accomplished in their fields and bring a lot to the table with skills that help them produce their events. There was a lot of real-time idea sharing going on too that was fun to watch.
This is one of those episodes that it's nearly impossible to write cogent show notes because of the back and forth between these two powerhouses. You're going to want to set aside some time, as you'll also want to take notes. Plenty of great ideas here.
What you're going to learn is the difference between the challenges facing a University event vs. a Community event, and ironically how similar they are in some areas.
They reached out to us on Facebook and thought their story would make a great show - they were right. If you have an exciting story to tell to the TEDx organizer community, let us know. Find us on Facebook.
Samuel Titera came to TEDxPrague through the route of being one of the four original Czech translators for TED talks. When he learned that TEDx was being organized in Prague for the first time, he offered help as a volunteer and soon became one of the core organizers. His first brush with TED was Barry Schwarz's talk on the Paradox of Choice. Nowadays he focuses on supporting team communication, finding and preparing speakers and organizing TEDxSalons with scientists.
Samuel now lives outside the city and our conversation centered on his focus on family and his new community. He describes himself as a why-keeper and continually is asking that question of the team.
He says he enjoys staying in touch with the 150 past speakers while helping build a stable team centered on sustainability and passing knowledge along to new team members.
This was a deep and thoughtful conversation as if we'd been friends for many years, which led to truly candid moments. I loved his quote, "Don't be afraid to take time off." This is so true (We took a 3-year hiatus ourselves).
As a musician himself, he is adamant about having music at TEDxPrague, including having a quartet in the audience one year.
You'll enjoy this show as it was one of the more personal conversations centered on how he feels about the event, instead of focusing on operational aspects of producing a TEDx.
Note, Samuel has personally translated 104 talks into Czech. Huzzah.
Vincent Kumwenda is the Organizer of TEDxLilongwe, located in the capital city of Malawi. Because they are next to the second largest lake in the world, they focus on ideas that address local issues, such as Agriculture, Fishing, and the burgeoning startup economy. An interesting fact that you won't be able to tell from listening is that Vincent called me on his cell phone while the city was in one of their frequent blackouts, and I could only see him from the light of his phone. It was eerie and cool at the same time.
TEDxLilongwe does something interesting to reach two goals; develop a unique activation for a partner and deliver ideas to the rural regions of Malawi populated mostly by impoverished people. After his event, Vincent packed up team members and speakers and traveled to small villages over a few days and introduced the villagers to TEDx and big ideas.
Malawi is a country of 18 million people and provides a rich source of speakers and topics. Vincent's day job is the Chief Executive Officer of mHub, Malawi's first technology and innovation Hub. mHub is a social enterprise that champions the development of local technology solutions. He manages a team of determined and passionate youths who nurture young innovators and emerging entrepreneurs with technical and business skills to create sustainable business solutions.
Vincent is also a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow, a US Government sponsored Young African Leaders Initiative.
Shout out to Randy Bretz, Organizer of TEDxLincoln for introducing us to Vincent.
When Juanita Wheeler attended TEDxSouthBankWomen in 2012, she was at a crossroads. She was a director of global marketing for a multinational corporation, but she had fallen out of love with her work. She wanted to do something bigger, something more important, and something that would change the world. Enter TEDxBrisbane. Now, in 2018, Juanita is a full-time organizer and has enlisted her entire family to help.
Let's back up. This started in 2012, then in 2013, she became a TEDx Advocate, in 2014 she was a TEDx speaker when the event was branded as TEDxSouthBank.
Since 2015 her family fills critical spots. She's the Executive in charge of Curation, her husband Rob is the head of the production, and she has three kids, 24, 20 and 19 one is the experience manager, one is the greenroom manager, and one is the backstage manager in charge of the technical production. That's a lot of TEDx. I think they only have to go into the Living Room to have team meetings.
There is so much richness in this episode, and it was kind of Juanita to say that the entire family listens to this podcast and gleans a lot of information every week. Thanks. Now that we have this conversation on record, she's added to the richness of several fundamental concepts you'll want to note.
Juanita shared a few of the episodes of the show that have been helpful, Hannu's talk about pre-mortems, Ingrid's tip to use Basecamp, Craig's insight on running a green room, Gavin's deep dive on what it takes to scribe an event and Arthur Zards treatise on Adventures. What are your favorites?
The TEDxBrisbane Advocate program is a fantastic innovation. Each attendee is assigned an advocate, 10-12 attendees per person. The advocate contacts their people and ask; - What are you looking forward to? - Makes sure they're settled in on the day of and have everything they need. - Helps to introduce them to other attendees, based on their interests - follows up with them after the event to find out which of the speaker's ideas or initiatives do they want to follow up and do something about.
Juanita is also passionate about making a difference and uses the term Engineering Impact to create an internal meme she repeats endlessly to partners, volunteers, team members and the community. They want to be sure everything they do engineers impact in some form or another.
As an organizer who works closely with family ourselves, we applaud the commitment the Wheelers have made to their community, and we'll be taking many of the ideas she's shared to heart, as should you.
Humberto Cardoso Filho is the organizer for TEDxBlumenau located near the capital of Brazil. He and his team have produced 11 main events and 7 salons, all under 100 people. He recently attended TEDfest so the population limit will be removed. The event held in March 2018 had 300, they're going to take it slow as they expand, especially into a new venue. Blumenau is a city of 400,000, with a vibrant TEDx community that has been developed strategically to keep everyone engaged by using Salons to focus on relevant themes.
"We find the conversations our city needs to have." This explains what Humberto believes makes their event compelling. Blumenau is a center for fashion in Brazil, and they've seen how fashion can be used as a tool for social transformation. They addressed several topics, including Intimacy, which sounds like it was fascinating for a Salon to focus on.
Humberto says that their coaching process takes six months and is a significant difference between TEDx and other local events. Their speakers are very prepared and the entire six months is broken down into a detailed timeline.
About his hack, he suggests that a workshop is held for sponsors to bring them into the event and show how they might help make an impact. Note: I've not heard this before, we're going to replicate.
Dora Dzvonyar is the Organizer for TEDxTum (Technical University Munich) in Germany. She's been organizing since 2015 and has several events and produced Salons including a TEDxLive event. There are 40,000 students at TUM which is bigger than some of the towns that provide a TEDx event. She's a grad student and teacher. She watches one TED talk a day and saw an announcement about a TEDx in a flyer and took the leap to be an organizer and never looked back.
One of the significant challenges for them has been establishing a structure for the event that transcends the transient nature of being a student-run organization. They now have six team leaders, that are Ph.D.'s who are going to be around, this stable core of people is able to work well with the flexibility of the primary workforce. This is an excellent solution for a University TEDx event.
An interesting anomaly that exists as a cultural consideration for the team is that in Germany, outgoing persona's are frowned upon. Everyone, especially students, wants to be perceived as serious. They encourage a playful atmosphere to counter this behavior.
When I asked her about the intrinsic awards of running a TEDx she said that if one person says, "I think differently," it's all worth it. I agree.
Dora says that she gets a lot of ideas for her event from this podcast, thanks, we love hearing that.
Januario Jano is the Organizer for TEDxLuanda, which is a beautiful city on the western coast of Angola. He is a global soul, born in Angola, with homes in London and Lisbon. Angola is a former Portuguese colony. The TED Talk by Sir Ken Robinson changed everything for him and incited him to be an activist.
In 2012 he wanted to get a license for Luanda and applied, however, he wanted a more significant event than 100, so he invested in attending TED ACtive in Palm Springs. He came back home to educate his community and friends about the power of TED. Since then, he also made the trip to Doha for the TEDxSummit.
In 2005 Luanda became an economic boom town. Playing on this, Jano blends the regions deep African roots with entrepreneurial vitality to create a unique event. I love his story about having a big dinner the week before where past speakers, the current slate of speakers, local leaders, influencers and the press gather around great food to get excited about the upcoming event.
Jano does this cool thing after the event, he takes a few of the speakers, and they travel hundreds of miles into the countryside taking the talks and ideas out into the villages that would never be exposed to them.
Richard Lucas is a British businessman and social entrepreneur. He has lived in Krakow for more than half of his life, having grown up in Oxford. He has been involved with TEDx as a speaker, sponsor, and organizer, with TEDxKazimierz since 2015 and other TEDx events since 2010. Kazimierz is the Jewish district of Krakow and provides a fascinating cultural context to the TEDx event. Richard says that he curates Talks that focus on community building, offering ideas that are coming out of Kazimierz, for Kazimierz. Richard wrote extensively about community building, and I immediately shared it with our team, you may want to do the same.
Richard's life is steeped in TED. He has attended Summit, Global, various workshops and visited the TEDx in Capetown. One daughter is the licensee for a TEDx in Soctland, the other is helping at TEDxWarsawYouth, and his son is a magician who performs at TEDx events as well. Richard is deeply involved in the entrepreneurial community and promotes a modern renaissance of technology and innovation in Europe. Having met him in person at TEDFest2018, I can attest to him having an abundance of energy, required for all the things he's involved in.
Richard believes that as a licensee you're gifted, free of choice, to work with one of the top brands in the world and that TEDx is a way of making the world a better place. I was taken with his philosophy of the user experience. "They arrive at a different world than they were expecting." This episode is rich with quotes, and you'll want to have a notebook handy to capture ideas for how you can make your event more engaging, and as Richard says, "Get it right from the start!"
TEDxCampinas held their first event in March 2018. We had this conversation precisely 16 weeks before the big day. Mario Gioto, the Organizer, is also a TEDx Translator. There are over one million people in this city that is about 2 hours outside of Sao Paulo in Brazil.
He and two friends applied for the license and built a team with some of their close friends. Within four days of posting a call for volunteers on Facebook, they had over 60 people sign up.
Campinas is the Silicon Valley of Brazil and provides a wealth of sources for speakers and team members. There's an innovation hub associated with the University, and they almost instantly had 150 recommendations for speakers.
As this is their first TEDx event, it was great to hear that the way the team has worked out has been so natural and fulfilling. He mentioned that the most significant challenge is that TEDx is not a known brand in the city.
Fenella Kernebone is the Head of Curation for TEDxSydney, responsible for leading the programming for what has become one of the most significant TEDx events in the world. She also curates the youth program, TEDxYouth@Sydney and TEDxSydney Salons. Fenella manages a team of over 20 curators and producers dedicated to spreading great ideas and strong stories in fields including science, technology, arts, business, and design.
Fenella is also a noted television and radio presenter and producer, MC, interviewer and writer with a distinguished career working in arts, music, design, and culture.
She started as the host for the TEDxSydney Livestream for three years before becoming Head of Curation. She’s one of 250 volunteers at this massive event.
This episode is perfect for any organizer who’s deeply involved in curation, as she goes into all the tips and tricks, as well as how to manage the process in depth. This episode is a must listen for anyone that’s trying to figure out where to find speakers, and how to keep getting amazing speakers year over year.
I was particularly keen on learning about their FAST IDEAS concept. All attendees are encouraged to participate and get their idea on stage. There’s a separate team that works with them to get to 8-10 finalists who get a thirty-second spot on the red circle, with the audience voting by applause for who the winner is.
Syed Irteza Ubaid is the Organizer of TEDxLahore, the TEDx Ambassador for Pakistan and a TEDx Translator. That's a lot of TED. He has been involved with at least 18 TEDx events and has one of those personalities that we see so often when we talk to Organizers, passionate, curious, interested and helpful.
TEDxLahore is the oldest TEDx in the city of 15 million people. If you search for Lahore on the TEDx event page, you'll see there have been over 90 events in the city. Lahore is a major cultural and educational hub, and the citizens are hungry for intellectual events that challenge and stimulate them.
In 2017 he was nominated by his peers to be a TEDx Ambassador and the liaison for the region with TED in NYC. The role of ambassador includes helping TEDx leadership understand the cultural considerations of the region. There are 20 TEDx Ambassadors.
He deeply involved in TED and TEDx and has helped form 20 TED-Ed clubs throughout the city as a way of nurturing community.
He shared a great trick, which is to have journalists on your curation team. They have ways of finding the most interesting people and stories, especially in a city of 15 million people.
Réka Artner and her team of 70 have been producing TEDxVienna for several years now. She joined the team after attending TEDxVieannaLive in 2012. It's one of the TEDx events that other organizers would love to visit. Set in some of the cities most amazing historical venues, this TEDx also features Adventures (see video) and workshops. TEDxVienna has been around since 2010 and has produced 23 events, including Salons and Live simulcasts.
Réka has an infectious laugh, and her first job was as an event manager and working with 50 volunteers on the day of the event. She says that the most significant surprise has been what the audience reacts to. Having a close liaison with the speakers gives her a sense of how the audience will respond, and they resonate with the ideas in unexpected ways. She loves this.
The idea of producing Adventures for the event, essentially mini-field trips, led by volunteers, is a way to take attendees on a local exploration into a place that they'd probably not be able to get to on their own. They did ten adventures with 20 people in each one. (The more we hear about adventures, the more we want to produce them ourselves).
Javier Yunes, whom I met at TEDFest last year, is the organizer for TEDxRosario in Argentina. His town has over 1 million citizens, and thousands of them come to their event each year. He’s most excited about a recent Organizers’ workshop he attended in Bariloche and told us the story of his first workshop in 2010 on a floating hotel in Amazonia.
Javier tells a great story about a big surprise at his most recent event. TEDXRosario 2017 was held outside, and a sudden rainstorm forced the event to halt. He and his team were resourceful and located a source of umbrellas, but not enough, so people had to share. Sharing umbrellas turned into an unexpected community building activity. He says the best part of the event was the rain. Note: Maybe they didn’t think that at the time.
Javier has been producing TEDx events since 2009; he was one of the first. And in talking to him, you can tell that there’s a lovely, friendly rivalry between him and other South American countries, especially Brazil. He says, “We’re catching up.”
Kiki Tolles is the Student Executive Producer for TEDxLagunaBlancaYouth, an event held here in Santa Barbara, California, home of the Hacking the Red Circle podcast. Kiki is a member of a TEDx production class this semester, led by Anna Alldredge, their faculty advisor.
Kiki has the type of passion and energy that we've come to expect from other organizers and more pronounced in Youth event teams. She was first introduced to TED Talks by her teachers, and when the opportunity to produce an event, and be a part of the leadership came up, she jumped at it.
With over 30 students on the team, they've been able to organize, develop and produce an event that's going to happen two weeks from the date of this post (January 31st, 2018). It's not unusual for a group of teenagers to create a TEDx these days; we see it all the time. However, for this team, they have had to work through some staggering logistical challenges since the most massive fire in the state of California started on December 4th, 2017 and burned until a few days before Christmas. Then on January 8th, 2018, the day they would have returned to school, the community was hit by devasting floods and mudslides. This event has separated students and teachers from the school and has made logistics very challenging. As of the posting of this show, the main highway connecting Santa Barbara to the world is closed for the foreseeable future.
I love talking to first-time organizers before they've done the event, then circle back and have a cup of coffee afterward, to see how perceptions and assumptions changed in the meantime. Kiki said one of the primary motivations for her and the team is to put on something real, produce an actual event and leave a legacy for the school.
As the executive producer of TEDxSantaBarbara, I invited Kiki and their executive team to the dress rehearsal for our event on November 11th. We escorted them backstage, into the production room, visited the green room, and they sat through a couple of the speaker's talks, hearing the coaches give last minute advice. It was eye-opening for them and gave them a good sense of the many moving parts it takes to produce an event.
Emmanuel Adegboye is the organizer of TEDxYaba, which is a community located in Lagos, Nigeria. He has a long relationship with TEDx, going back to 2014 as co-organizer of TEDxIfe. He is also the TEDx Ambassador for West Africa, and once you get to know him, you'll understand why he was singled out to represent this vital part of the world for TEDx. He's been on the team of five TEDx events in Lagos and in 2017 took the lead as the sole organizer and leader.
Yaba, located in the center of Nigeria's Silicon Valley is a tech cluster and hub for entrepreneurial activity and thought leadership. Emmanuel says that they balance the tech-heavy influence with storytellers and artists to make their event reflective of the region.
Our listeners know that I'm always interested in local cuisines and how the food choices reflect regional favorites. Emmanuel spoke highly of Jollof Rice, which looks delicious.
I appreciated his take on why he does TEDx, and it's a perfectly ambassadorial reply, "I don't make TEDx about me - it's about building a community.
Kaila Colbin is the Curator of TEDxChristchurch (New Zealand) and TEDxScottBase. She's also the founder of Missing Link and the New Zealand Ambassador for Singularity University, a co-founder and Chair of the non-profit Ministry of Awesome, and a force of nature. I learned a lot about Christchurch during our conversation and how she came to NZ in the first place.
In 2009 she did a talk at TEDxAuckland and was hooked. She'd set a goal to speak at TEDx and achieved it. She also set a goal to produce a TEDx in Antarctica and rallying other Kiwi TEDx Organizers to the cause. We interviewed Trent Yeo about his role in that enormous effort. I loved her quote about that effort, "We married the hurdles of working in Antarctica plus producing a TEDx."
You'll want to listen as she tells the story of the 2011 earthquake that destroyed 70% of the city, just weeks before TEDx. I won't spoil the surprise. How they managed the crisis turned into a talk that she gave at TEDActive in 2011.
Mark Sylvester and Kymberlee Weil have been bringing TEDx to Santa Barbara since 2010. They started with TEDxAmericanRiviera on 10/10/10, produced it again in 2011 then again in 2012. After a couple of years off, they produced two TEDxLive events, rebranded the local event as TEDxSantaBarbara and relaunched in 2016.
Mark and Kymberlee have a great story about how they met and created a project that debuted at TED2003, which led to a software company that is still Mark's day job, in addition to podcasting. Kymberlee fell in love with helping people get their ideas out and onto the red circle and since 2010 has coached over 150 speakers, both for TEDxSantaBarbara and many TEDx events around the world.
Kymberlee has been behind the microphone as well, speaking at the TEDSummit on Story Telling and in other venues around the globe. It was at the 2016 TEDSummit where Mark and Kymberlee learned that they're one of the few couples who work together to produce a TEDx event. (They'd love to meet more TEDx organizing couples at TEDfest in 2018!)
One of the great things about hosting this podcast and producing an event is that we're able to share the best practices and fresh ideas we hear from others with our team, in real-time. As a result, we've added new experiences, team members and workflows to improve our event.
Stacy Bradford is one of three co-founders of TEDxTysons. Their event is just 20 minutes from Washington DC and is in the middle of a tech corridor she calls the Tech Petting Zoo.
Their most recent event in June 2017 called [i]mpact featured speakers who represented organizations who each are making an impact on the community and the world.
She first encountered TED Talks at a sales training course, listening to Simon Sinek's, How great leaders inspire action. As the Executive Producer, she's always looking for a way to have a hyper-local focus and continue their emphasis on being deeply integrated into the community.
Norberto Amaral is the organizer of TEDxPorto, located in Portugal and formally known as Oporto. It's a long story. Norberto tells us about how they were not able to get into the venue until midnight the night before the event started, on March 31, 2017. The production crew worked all night and the opened for 1,100 people the next morning on April 1st. No fooling.
They do something that we've not heard in all the shows before, which is to have a stand-up comedian do a seven-minute wrap up at the end of each session. This reminds me of Tom Reilly's end-of-TED comedic routines back in the early days of TED. Sounds like a lot of fun.
Norberto is one of the organizers that loves being the host of the event. He says, "I put people on their toes and keep them uncomfortable - to make them rethink." He says he wants to lift the veil on the talk, and spark curiosity. He'll frequently stay on stage to ask one question to get more information from the speaker. Something this really buts a nice bookend on the talk.
Bethany Lerch is a former Fulbright and Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar and was a speaker on the 2016 TEDxOshkosh stage. She spoke about avoiding the pitfalls of taking the wrong approach to international aid using examples from her time in Afghanistan.
She served as a military advisor in Kabul, Afghanistan, from February 2015 until June 2016 and while there received a note from TEDxOshkosh inviting her to tell her story. She made a list of the four things she could speak on, and the curators selected one from her diverse set of life experiences.
Bethany tells us a fantastic story of how she wrote her talk, by walking, for a month, across Spain. She trekked the Spanish Camino and memorized her talk one-step-at-a-time. She finished just in time to arrive on the TED stage. (Note: We don’t recommend cutting it this close for other speakers.)
She’s the founder of able to, a non-profit also known as the Afghan Education Project, which brings women from Afghanistan to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to develop their leadership skills, then returns them to their home country. Able to is a project she runs in conjunction with local and regional Rotary groups and individual members.
Shelly Govila is one of those super-energetic, passionate TEDsters you’d just love to have on your team. Her team at TEDxWanChai loves her energy as well. She’s very involved in the region, having traveled to TEDxSingapore, TEDxShanghai, and TEDxWeekend (for Organizers). You’ll love getting to know Shelly and will discover new ideas you will want to put to use on your show.
Originally from India, she moved to Hong Kong and first was involved in a University TEDx. In 2014 she ran marketing for Wanchai. There’s a lot of TED in her adopted town, three TEDx events in Hong Kong, Wanchai, Hong Kong and Mongkok.
She says they have a divide and conquer system, not all the team works on all the events. They do six events a year, which can burn out a single group.
We talked at length about their Open Mike night and how tricky it is to pull speakers from the x-patriate community. The ambiance and vibrant nightlife of a music store/bar, with 300 people as the Jury helps them find some exciting ideas and presenters. Everyone gets a rating card and picks 3 to 5 speakers.
Kara DeFrias is a force of nature. She's been involved with TEDx since 2010, having worked at TEDxSanDiego and produced TEDxIntuit. She has many years experience producing big events, including the Oscars, the Emmys, and the Halftime show at the Superbowl, working with Sting, No Doubt, and Shania Twain. Wow.
She brings that level of experience to everything she does including recently being the Director of Experience Design in the Obama White House. From 2010-2016 she worked on TEDx projects until she was tapped to work with VP Biden on the Cancer Moonshot Project.
We talked at length about producing an internal TEDx program at Intuit and what it was like working with TEDxSanDiego. While there she was profiled as a TEDInnovation for her description of how they got 1.2 million social media impressions during the 2013 event. Click to read her top ten tips for creating a social media strategy for your event.
Here's a fact you may not know. Kara created the show run-down worksheet (Excel spreadsheet) used by the majority of TEDx events. This is the item-by-item description of what happens during each minute of the show. This attention to detail is a lasting legacy she's given to the TEDx community.
Arthur Zards is the organizer of TEDxNaperville and has been innovating with his team since 2009. He watched TED DVDs he'd borrow from friends who attended in Monterey. Since then, he's done two TED talks, been to 20 events, and last year hosted an Adventure with 350 of his 750 attendees participating.
Arthur loves sharing. He is just back from TEDGlobal and asked to take some Hacking The Red Circle flyers with him to encourage other organizers to join us. Thanks. His Engagement Project which is an open source collection of ideas for engaging audiences is an excellent example of sharing ideas with other organizers.
He's got a fantastic well of energy that comes across during this conversation. He's also very motivated by creativity and building community. He suggests thinking about the experiential side of your event makes it unique in the community and can reframe what the audience thinks of as a typical TED talk.
Mike Lundgren is a nine-year veteran of TEDxKC (Kansas City), having produced almost 40 events. His 2017 event sold out in four minutes. They enjoy one of the most spectacular venues for a TEDx, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. They entertain and inspire 3,000 people and have over 30 different activities for attendees at the massive afterparty.
Mike says they have amassed over 900 volunteers, with 70 who are super active on any given event. They have an intense focus on the user experience, thinking about before, during and after as touch points to pay attention to. Even in the fantastic venue of a performing arts center, no seat is more than 100 feet from the stage.
I love how Mike self-identifies as a 'DJ of ideas.' He also suggests they have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to creative input. His company VML has been the original sponsor and is one of the top Marketing firms in the region. They solve branding and communication problems for clients and pour all of that energy into TEDxKC each year. No wonder they sell out in four minutes.
Remo Giuffre, the original licensee of TEDxSydney, has the envious position of curating one of the most widely respected TEDx events in the world. TEDx organizers who've been on the show in the past say it's the single event they'd love to attend.
Remo was at one of the original TED events in Kobe, Japan and is celebrating his 25th year as a TEDster. In 2010 he produced one of the first TEDx events and has since gone on to create an extremely high-end event with state of the art production values. He will be the first to tell you it's all about the team and delegating everything.
He's doubled the size of the event since moving from the Sydney Opera House to 4,200 attendees. They do so much innovation; I don't want to spoil the surprises by writing about them; you'll want to listen to this episode a couple of times. I've gotten several incredible ideas from this conversation as I expect you will too.
Remo says working on TEDxSydney is a rite of passage for the team, and now, seven years since they started, team members have gone on to do some amazing work, using skills learned at TEDxSydney.
Craig Fifer has a great job. He runs the team that manages the Green Room at TEDxMidAtlantic. Now, you're thinking, how hard can that be? Well, he's three floors away from the stage, has to make sure 49 people make it to the stage, on time, and needs a team of volunteers to help. He loves it so much; he's going into his sixth year on the team.
I met Craig at TEDfest and was amazed when he told me what he did at TEDxMidAtlantic. I'd heard how amazing the event was and here was a chance to get a behind the scene glimpse into the event. His day job is as the Director of Communications and Information for the City of Alexandria, and each year, he volunteers his time to manage this critical part of an expansive puzzle. You can learn more about TEDxMidAtlantic from our interview with Dave Troy, the organizer.
Craig says his real job is to make sure the speakers are the best versions of themselves when they hit the red circle. Funny enough, the second biggest job is to ensure that they find the stage. Remember, the green room is three floors away.
Gavin Blake is a visual scribe, a graphic illustrator, and a significant value-add to over 50 TEDx events around the world. His ability to synthesize a talk, in real time, and convert the ideas into an image is impressive. He's been doing this work for 17 years when he started scribing floor-to-ceiling whiteboards at Ernst and Young.
We were introduced to Gavin by the lovely folks at TEDxCanberra and soon learned he's recently worked with TEDxSydney, and if you follow him on Twitter, you can keep track of where he's at on any given weekend.
He's figured out a workflow that lets him stay at his home in Australia, and listen to live streams of TEDx events. He draws what he hears, passes the image off to his ink and painter collaborator, who then gives it to someone on the team who pushes the image out to social media. The TEDx speaker then has a published image that reflects their talk within 30-minutes of them finishing. His work has boosted lives stream participation by calling attention to the talks through innovative visuals.
For the last 18 months, Penelope Misquitta has been the Organizer and Curator of the internal TEDx events at Johnson & Johnson. TEDxJNJ is a part of the Ambassador Leadership program inside HR in the company. This program was originally started by Steve Garguilo, who has been on this podcast
Penelope is the epitome of a TEDx organizer. She's passionate about ideas, has an endless source of energy and is ever-present on the TEDx Organizers Facebook group, encouraging and offering help.
She started working at J&J in the Singapore office and enjoyed her first TEDx on 12/12/12 at the company. She heard about the event from a candy bar a colleague gave her with a link to the internal TEDx platform.
Internal TEDx events are a way for companies to inspire their employees and a voice to ideas within the enterprize. J&J was one of the first corporations to host an internal TEDx. There is an event most weeks on the many J&J campuses around the world.
David Troy has been producing TEDxMidAtlantic with his co-organizer Nate Mook since 2009. That's eight years of experience which is evident in this episode. David said that working on TEDx adds a lot of value to his life. His talk on TED.com has been seen over 1.3M times. He's been asked to speak globally, including a talk at TEDxIstanbul.
As a host, he loves working with the speakers and helps curate with Nate, and together they craft an event that he likens to a concept album, with a narrative flow that covers the two-day event. He says the theme puts a frame around the current zeitgeist represented by the speakers.
TEDxMidAtlantic is a Level 2 show. This year's theme is Superpowers, which is one this podcast's favorite topics. Over the years the team has grown to 275, with 50 active on any given event and 25 on the core group.
Jacqueline Oliveira is a teacher, coach, and TEDx speaker. She spoke at TEDxCesena in 2016 and has some tips for organizers. She's an expert at cross-cultural communications, which helped her, as an American, present at a TEDx in Italy. She talks about how to read audiences, how build trust across cultures.
As an educator, she has used TED, and TEDx talks extensively in the classroom. She's particularly fond of Susan Cain's talk because of her 'genuine voice'. She appreciated the help she got from the coaches on the flow of her talk and their guidance on selecting the title.
For speakers, she recommends a Rehearsal Ritual that included deep breathing, memorizing your talk while exercising (She swims and paced the transitions between themes as she counted laps), and visualization.
Trent Yeo, the organizer for TEDxQueenstown in New Zealand was invited by TEDxChristchurch organizer, Kaila Colbin, to join a team of five to work for nine months, then spend nine days on the ice.
The group came together in celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Scott Base, Antarctica New Zealand's research station. The event was a unique opportunity to herald the success and participation in Antarctic science and research from the New Zealand base on Scott Island.
TEDxScottBase went out to 60 viewing parties around the world on every continent on Earth including a couple of locations in Antarctica such as the South Pole. All of the gear was registered and packed and sent on a plane three months ahead of the event.
Our conversation covered a lot of ground, as Trent also runs a TEDx in his town and is involved with other New Zealand TEDx Organizers. We talked about how creating small events has a different sense of satisfaction. Trent remarked, "Small is beautiful."
If you love adventure, you're going to love this episode. If you listen carefully, you'll hear the sea birds in the background.
Doug Coleman, the organizer of TEDxJacksonville, is humble and unassuming, which belies his event's impact on the city. He's retired now, but hardly hanging around at the beach. Instead, he's busy producing a Level 2 main event, Salons, TEDxLIVE, TEDxChange and TEDxWomen events. He was inspired by early TEDx events he attended because they were collaborative and optimistic. He and his team of 25, produce 8 or 9 events a year.
Doug talks a lot about the team. It's in his hack, and it's in a lot of this episode. He says his superpower is about collaboration, and really, it's his skill in finding the right people to serve on the team. Towards the end of the episode, he talks about IKIGAI, which is a Japanese philosophy about the reason for being. It's a guiding principle for him and how he selects people to join TEDxJacksonville.
Doug does something very interesting at his event. They have a voting system, and one of the questions is, "Which speaker's talk should we shoe to the Mayor and City Council" He's committed to having TEDxJacksonville be a positive impact on the Community.
Samantha Nienow is the organizer of TEDxBemidji, in Minnesota, and a professional slide designer at her firm, Red Zest Design. She’s produced the decks for speakers at 14 events and this year produced her first event.
Samantha says that her job is to help the speakers feel comfortable and confident. She loves presentations and takes great care in getting to know each speaker. Once she feels like she understands them, she can set about helping them tell their story visually.
She got her start doing presentations by stumbling upon Nancy Duarte’s book, SLIDEOLOGY in 2009. Nancy is a TEDster and has helped hundreds of speakers on the main stage with their slides. When Sam saw the book, which suggested she could make a career out of creating presentations, she never looked back. She soon realized that there was a TEDx event, TEDxFargo, only 150 miles away from Bemidji and ventured there to see how she could help. Thus begins her story. Thanks to Greg at TEDxFargo for introducing us to Samantha.
Samantha created a special page on Red Zest for Hacking The Red Circle listeners with links to resources and examples she mentioned during the conversation. Thanks for the tips.
Elena Crescia is a TEDx Organizer, a TED Talk Translator and a force of nature. She is from a city of 20 million people and is not awed by producing an event for 10,000. Seriously. Not at all. Last year they successfully hosted 5,000 in a new football stadium and saw they could easily double the crowd and reach more people. So, they said, "Yes, let's do that."
The stadium is large enough for them to have an inflatable planetarium with five telescopes and a working television studio, built just for the day. There are some logistics to deal with that other organizers don't worry about, like firefighters, ambulances and other emergency services to name a few.
So far, the team at TEDxSaoPaulo has organized over 30 events, and Elena says once you've done a big event, it's impossible to go back. With 10,000 in the stadium, it's still only half full. What do you think they'll do for 2018? Stay tuned.
Maurizio Berti from TEDxCesena produces an event that highlights the area and emphasizes the hospitality that the region is so well known for. His hidden talent is attracting speakers using food, in the form of Piadina's, as a compelling reason to come to Cesena, located on the eastern edge of Italy near San Marino.
He started like most of us, doing an event for 100, and now produces events for 800 to a 1000 people. He also is a part of an Italian cohort of TEDx organizers that support each other through workshops, attending events and sharing camaraderie. With over 30 TEDx events in Italy each year, their annual gatherings are quite spirited.
He's excited about doing TEDx Adventures this coming year in addition to Salons to continue to grow the local TEDx community.
Keita Demming, the co-organizer of TEDxPortofSpain in Trinidad believes TEDx is an in-depth exploration of what it means to be human. He also knows we have to be a little bit crazy to be organizers, especially when you are an expatriate living in Toronto and producing an event in your home country. He says he sees potential in things others don't see.
Keita wants to know how TEDx can have an impact on his island nation. "How do we make this country one of the most desirable places to be?" When I asked him if he was an activist, he suggested no, "I'm a citizen." Indeed. One who cares deeply about his country and its future. He thinks because they live on an island, it's easier to affect change.
This might be one of the few Mother-Son Organizing teams. Keita's mom, Dennise Demming is deeply involved in the operations with him. Note: If you know of other family-run TEDx events, let us know, we'd love to have them on the show.
Craig Burnett is one of the co-organizers at TEDxOshkosh, located in Wisconsin. In 2012 he saw Dan Pallotta's TED talk, and it changed everything for him. Craig likes to explore conflicting ideas. After the licensee, Michael Rust came back from TEDxNormal, he was convinced that Oshkosh was ready for a TEDx.
They do something fun at their event which is to ask each attendee to sit in a different seat for each session. They get a little push back, but held their ground, as this is a great networking ploy.
Oshkosh is proud of their heritage as an event city, as evidenced by a talk about the Oshkosh AirVenture which brings 500,000 people and 100,000 airplanes to their town of 60,000. They had an excellent TED talk about the AirVenture. TEDx fits a niche that the community has warmly embraced and provides a perfect venue for ideas worth spreading.
More at https://hackingtheredcircle.com/tedxoshkosh-craig-burnett-co-organizer/
Annemarie Galeucia runs operations for TEDxLSU. As an educator, she focuses on communications coaching and loves giving students the experience of running a TEDx. Her experience in high-stakes communications helps her mentor and prepare students for real jobs.
TEDxLSU celebrates the ideas from Southern Louisiana, and she coaches students and speakers to translate these local ideas for a global audience. Their event in the LSU Union Theater peaks out at 1,200 people. She mentions that the people of Louisiana love to throw parties and TEDx is a great excuse to throw a big one.
To improve communications, she strongly recommends that teams use SLACK to stay connected. She's a big fan of the TEDx Hub and has found many resources there that she shares with the larger team.
Andrei Dinu wrote his dissertation on Organizing a TED event in Romania in 2008 before TEDx was conceived. He focused on the benefits, what to do and how it would work out. He says, “TED found me, and I found TED.” He loves partnering and curating and believes that the highest level of event production in the world today can be found on the TED stage.
He’s doing something that is fascinating, called Open Mic. This year, he held it in conjunction with TEDLive by partnering with a local Cinema. The top three winners were invited to his 2017 event.
I liked his focus on long-term relationships with partners. His oldest has been with them for five years. He even will give partners the benefits of working with them, even if they have to take a year off in-between due to budget constraints. That’s an interesting idea.
Marc Winn is a Changemaker. When he started his TEDxStPeterPort (Guernsey) journey, he asked himself a simple question, "How do we make Guernsey the best place to live on Earth?"
Now, a few years later, they've asked and answered that question and have a new one, "How can we, as a community, contribute to future Guernsey and help to turn that plan into a reality?" The curation of their most recent TEDx addressed this question with the goal of creating the equivalent of a 20-chapter book that drives action. The 20 talks were carefully considered as to how each one pushed the overall agenda forward and created an incubator for action.
Marc is an inspiration. He loves mischief, has a wickedly compelling grin and as you'll learn, is incredibly talented when it comes to leading the team towards the bigger objective. Most significant surprise for me? They do not have group meetings. Ever. Seriously, you'll need to listen to hear his rationale, and he makes a compelling case.
Ted has become one of America’s leading advocates for education policies that foster creativity, innovation, motivation, and purpose. He knows what skills are valuable in a world of change, and how we can transform our schools to prepare kids for their futures.
His story on how he got to the TEDxFargo stage, in less than six days, is a testament to his passion for his subject and his commitment to getting his idea out on as many stages as he can. He said, "There are red circles all over the world." He's relentless in his pursuit of making a difference in education.
One of the things that we learned in talking with Greg Tehven of TEDxFargo was his focus on the speaker experience. That led to this conversation with Ted, so we could hear, from his point of view, what it was like as an outsider, on the inside of the red circle.
Raashi Saxena, the organizer for TEDxKoramangala, near Bangalore, is an area packed with startups and provides a great mix of scientist, creators, and inventors.
One of the reasons that she loves TEDx is that fulfills her desire to meet and work with people. She says she, "Loves TEDx'ing." This is the first time we've heard TEDx as a verb. I got to meet Raashi at the 2017 TEDfest in NYC. She's gregarious and enjoyed being around 500 other organizers on her first trip to the US.
Her focus on the event is clearly on making sure that the audience experience is optimized to meet new people and start conversations. With over 1,000 at her last event, we can imagine lots of new friendships were created.
Ingrid Tomanuits is the newly installed Executive Producer of TEDxCanberra (Australia). This event has a rich history going back to 2010. Ingrid's been involved since 2012, originally as an attendee. Many will remember Stephen Collins, the original licensee, who retired last year. He left an organization in perfect shape to transition to new leadership.
Ingrid tells us a story about how they got MINI involved - read at the end of this post. It's going to her hack of shamelessly asking for things. It's a great example of how far you can go, and how your partners can then take it a bit farther. Ingrid suggests that one of her main strengths is being able to 'see connections,' then leverage them for the event.
With their event centered in the country's capital, they see an opportunity to focus on a creating a vibrant, creative community, instead of a news cycle that's driven by politics and the government.
Belen Jimenez-Mena is the co-head of curators for TEDxAarhus. Her passion for public speaking began in University when a mentor introduced her to TED talks. She loves listening to the personal stories that are shared. As a scientist, she believes that their public speaking skills could be improved, and has a passion for helping them tell their stories.
She says, "Aarhus is a very exciting city." Its location lends itself towards a very cosmopolitan population, with citizens from around the world. The Aarhus TEDx team certainly reflects this geographic diversity. In 2017 it was named the European Capital of Culture.
As a co-curator, she spends most of this episode talking about their process with speakers and helping them to craft a talk that helps them get to the core idea that makes the audience want to care.
Amman Abid and his wife, Kay Chauhan, are the founders and organizers of TEDxWandsworth in the boroughs of London. They've learned first-hand how building deep community connections have contributed to their event's success.
I had the distinct feeling when talking with Amman that he doesn't approach any project with less than 110% effort. When he and Kay decided to do a TEDx (while having dinner on a rooftop in Barcelona), they spent many hours researching, watching other TEDx events, reading material on the Hub and reaching out to other organizers on the Facebook Group.
You'll learn a lot about the success of his approach to audience engagement and Two Rules for the attendees when they enter the theater. I'm going to adopt these as they make so much sense.
Phil Klein is a longtime TEDster, having attended, produced and managed several events. He worked for the mothership (TED) for a year and helped at TED2014 on the attendee experience.
Phil is well known to the TEDx community, from his work in Google Hangouts for organizers, to frequent blog posts about TEDx and as a contributor since the beginning of the TEDxHUB.
He and Mark talked about mentoring, workshops, and something he calls Puzzled Wonderment. Phil's upcoming event in Seattle will be for more than 2,500 people, and he's finding his role as a member of the core-team, rather than lead organizer is a perfect fit. His focus now is on Salons and smaller events.
Hannu Jaakkola, is the organizer of TEDxOtaniemi in Finland, near Helsinki. This town is known as the largest tech center and the startup-centric area in the country.
When you mention Hannu in a group of TEDx organizers, everyone smiles. He's got a great personality and is very easy to be around. This is an essential trait to be a TEDx organizer.
His first taste of TEDx was at a Youth event in Helsinki, and he was hooked. He said, "I can do this as well." That's usually all it takes to get hooked on producing your TEDx event.
Ralph Talmont is the organizer for TEDxWarsaw, an Australian with Polish roots who has built one of the flagship TEDx events in Europe. In 2009, three groups applied independently for a TEDx license for Warsaw. When NYC saw this, they suggested that the three combine to create one event. Since that time, a group of people built around that initial team of six TEDxWarsaw organizers has been doing Salons, the Main Event, Youth, and Women shows.
Ralph says that their first event was one of the first outside of the US – #59, but who’s counting? Now, eight years and some 25 events later, their main event is just as popular as when they began, plus the community is being served with regular smaller events. They have experimented with different audience sizes, from 300 to 1,400 and Ralph says that they could easily fill the largest venue in the city for the main event, but they don’t want to lose the intimacy that smaller venues provide.
Steve Garguilo runs the Office of Creative Engagement at J&J (Johnson and Johnson), one of the first corporate TEDx events. Learn how this program went from 60 people in a bar after work to one of the most successful TEDx programs in the Fortune 500. He is also the co-author of Surge: Your Guide to Put Any Idea into Action.
Steve has a degree in Humanitarian Engineering and helped launch TEDxPSU as an alumnus (more of the story here). He, like Daniel at TEDxKL, was inspired in the beginning by Lara Stein, of TED.
Now that there is a TEDxJNJ somewhere in the world, every week, and a team of employees who help produce, he's focused on a bigger vision of finding hidden voices and talents in the Company. He says that where they've ended up is not what they originally conceived of and that they didn't start with a grand vision.
Steve is well known to the TEDx community and can be found on the TEDx stage helping other organizers create live-changing events.
Kat Haber is a force of nature. No wonder she chooses to spend part time in Vail, Palm Springs and Homer, Alaska, enjoying nature at it's finest in each locale. She also produces a TEDx in Vail and has done several in Homer.
Kat is an activist and connector. If you've been paying attention, you've seen her at Global, at Active, at Summits, on the Hub and Facebook and maybe in-person at your event. She's been known to come to Santa Barbara too.
Kat's particular passion is her love of our upcoming generations. Her son ran all the tech for her first TEDx in 2009 when he was 14. She continues to mentor and guide young people wherever she happens to be at the time, and if there's snow, she'll be on the slopes.
Sarah Spang is a first-time TEDx organizer. Her team is working hard for an event that will happen in August of 2017. Her Taste of TEDx story begins with a visit from TEDxFargo's organizer, Greg Tehven.
She visited TEDxOshkosh in 2016 with a few friends from the community and met others from Fond Du Lac at the event. This coincidence encouraged her to take the plunge and apply for a license to produce a TEDx in her town. She's a community organizer, full-time student, and holds down a day job as well. What's that cliche that suggests if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. That's Sarah.
Her exuberant spirit and attitude are clearly evident in this conversation. She's in love with her town, and the mission to bring TEDx to the community is a driving force that helps her get things done.
Daniel Cerventus is a long time TEDx organizer and the founding curator of TEDxKL. Daniel is also the TEDx ambassador for SouthEast Asia. He started in 2009 with 50 people and has produced events every year. He's a bundle of energy and has a long-term vision for TEDx in the region.
As an Ambassador, he's part of a much large team of organizers that help each other be successful and share best practices. One of the keys to success is how well you build partnerships outside your community - these relationships help you as you assist them with their events
When he visited TEDxTaipai, run by Jason, he was inspired and came back to Kuala Lumpur knowing that they had to up their game. Since then his inspiration has come from India, Tokyo, Singapore and early conversations with Lara Stein, the original head of TEDx.
DK and Hannah Wignall jointly run TEDxWellington and do they have a story to tell. This event has been going for five years, and in 2016 they decided to see how much their community trusted them. This strategy was rewarded when the tickets sold out in less than 2 minutes. Seriously.
The story of the 2016 TEDxWellington event is captivating. What the team did to make manifest the Trust theme is a compelling story. How they wove the elements together is intriguing and will give you many ideas. Imagine what you would do if an impossible-to-book venue were suddenly made available to you.
Look at the short reel they've put together to announce their 2017 show, Perspectives, and you'll get a sense of how this team looks at things differently.
Greg Tehven, the Curator of TEDxFargo, has an infectious enthusiasm for his town and community. He loves finding ways to make the Speaker experience world-class. He's mantra: Build the Community You Want to Live In.
There's a lot to learn from Greg and his approach to his event. His emphasis is how to have the most impactful use of tome and money while creating a compelling event.
His origin story included rallying the town to fight a flood and was introduced to the world of TED with the Malcolm Gladwell TED Talk about spaghetti.
Listen as he recalls three stories about Speakers who launched ideas on the stage and what's become of them since their Talk was delivered. These stories clearly illustrate what can happen when everything comes together to propel an idea into the Universe.
Kevin Rabinovich has been working with TEDx since 2011 when he was 13. His story of how he's united 50 high schools in the state of South Carolina is inspiring. He started watching talks in the 4th grade and is now a mentor at 19.
He's the very example of on the job training, having worked on six TEDx events and being the organizer for the past four years. He believes that producing an event by youth, and for youth, provides a unique opportunity for time-stressed students to share ideas. He says that there's not a venue for idea-sharing for this age group. We love their concept of IDEA GRANTS.
When I asked Kevin about his superpower, he wasn't keen on admitting one, rather he said, "I'm accidentally good at a lot of what it takes I guess." Right. Another organizer that makes me feel like a slacker. I asked him what impact the TEDx experience has had on his life, "I now realize how important ideas are to society, and it's gotten me to look at many different career options that I'd never have considered before."
Herbert is a longtime TEDster and the original licensee of TEDxPSU at Pennsylvania State University. They are one of the first 100 TEDx's and annually produce an event for 800 with 2,000 viewing online.
Herbert is a Creative Director at the University and works as the Faculty Advisor with a revolving door of students on the team. Over the years they've developed a technique of interviewing, shadowing and mentoring that has the effect of providing continuity across years.
One of the benefits of working on this TEDx is that the entire team travels to TEDxMidAtlantic three months before their event to be inspired and study from a TEDx that is acknowledged as being one of the best.
This episode features Michelle Serna, the organizer of TEDxSalinas. Her passion for her hometown is evident in how she's approached TEDxSalinas. She gave her first TEDx talk at 16, her second at 17 and executive produced her first TEDx at 18. Slacker.
On June 9th she graduated from high school and left the ceremony early to catch a plane to TEDxDonauinsel in Austria, where she spoke. She decided to stay for a month, solo and attended 2 TEDx events (Greece and London) based on people she met. I love her wanderlust spirit. You will too.
Michelle is in love with her hometown and thinks that there's a significant opportunity to feature TEDx talks about agriculture. She told me that Salinas grows a lot of the world's food, and 30% of the world's lettuce. Maybe her TEDx will provide 50% of the world's ideas about agriculture.
Katy Yam is well known in the TEDx Universe. You'll see her and her team at any number of East Coast TEDx events, learning and soaking in the ideas from her peers. She is wildly passionate about 'her' town, Montreal and sees TEDx as a way to celebrate the diversity of people and ideas.
After some health issues sidelined her in 2007, she found that TED Talks, just new to the internet, could boost her morale. She decided then that she wanted to move to NYC and work for TED. Instead, she found TEDxMontreal and volunteered. Look, she's now running the show with an amazing team of people.
When asked about how she motivates the team she said, "We pay people with Passion." Epic.
Jennifer Wold, a New Hampshire native, and expat living in the picturesque town of Trondheim, Norway has a unique point of view on running her TEDx. She's a classically trained French Chef, and it's clear when you listen to her that she loves order and a mise-en-place. She's thrilled to be living with her husband in a community that's 80% students.
What's different about her approach to organizing is that she doesn't consider the team volunteers, she sees them as Staff and treats them as such. There's a Head of HR on the team, job interviews, and expectations for participation. When I talked to her recently, she'd just come out of two interviews with Malaysian students who will work on the 2017 event.
Jennifer said that Trondheim is the next Silicon Valley and they have a wealth of potential speakers in Tech, Science, Medicine as a result of their being a large University in town. She calls her group the Wild Tribe, they're seven teams, and each team is a tribe in and of itself. their motto: Tribe first.
Aaron Sylvan, the Organizer of TEDxFultonStreet, has a unique perspective on his event. He's been in the startup world for most of his career and loves building who build things, like companies and ideas. He extends the slogan of TEDx to Ideas worth spreading and people worth knowing.
His event is located in the Financial District of New York City which has a growing community of entrepreneurs. His philosophy about who gets on the stage is they need to be local and have made something that's interesting - and be interesting themselves.
Retired Green Beret, Scott Mann gave a talk, Rooftop Leadership at TEDxSantaBarbara. Here's a behind-the-scenes discussion from someone inside the event, but outside the production. A unique point of view that helps you understand what your Speakers are going through as they make their road to the red circle.
Scott is a storyteller. Since he left active duty, he continues to work on leadership development with incoming soldiers with his Mann Camp project. Scott understands the power of storytelling and makes a convincing case about how important high-stakes communications are. In fact, he felt that his TEDtalk was one of the scarier things he's done in life. Really? I'd rather be in the red circle than circling in a helicopter waiting to parachute down, that's for sure.
Gordon Garb has worked with TED since 2001. He volunteered to help the IT desk at the conference in Monterey. Since then he's attended 80 TEDx events. His take on what a TEDx should be about has led him on a fascinating journey.
Gordon believes that the attendees should have an active role in the event and chooses to have no speakers on his stage. Rather, he shows TEDTalk videos and then leads discussions about them.
His favorite thing about the TED ecosystem is the variety of speakers, topics and ideas and of course, as important, the diversity of the audience.
Mark Lovett has a lot of passion for producing TEDx events. He actively works on three, including one in prison. His story about that experience and what it took to build the first TEDx that was in two countries at the same time is fascinating.
Mark loves the effect that a TEDx event has on the audience. His personal version of the TED motto is, Ideas Worth Doing Something About.
His recounting of the way his main event, TEDxSanDiego made its way to the Symphony Hall and what it was like to orchestrate a massive presence is downtown is an inspiration to all of us.
TEDxSanDiego - TEDxMonumento258 - TEDxDonovanCorrectional
"I'm good at pulling threads out of people's souls."
Heather Brunold has a great story to tell about how she was drafted to run TEDxPasadenaWomen last year. As a teacher, mom and consummate networker, you'll learn how she's structured the organization to meet the needs of her Community.
Heather is one of those women you meet in the TEDx world that can balance a lot of priorities. I was thrilled to have this conversation with her as I'd done a little mentoring with her last year. She did the event at one of my favorite places, The Huntington Library in Pasadena.
As with our other guests, you'll gain insight into yet another way of framing the TEDx experience, for your crew and your audience.
Denis, a presentation coach from Quebec, said, If I can't go to TED, TED will come to me. He'd been trying to get to the main event and finally produced a TEDx, to bring the TEDx experience to his community. He really loves creating TEDx Salons, for their intimacy.
He appreciates putting the light on ideas and speakers found in Quebec City. His approach to managing all of the stress around producing an event is to focus on staying calm.
He reminds us that the core energy of a TEDx event is the people.
TEDxQuebec
Cameron, a senior at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, California, decided that 100 people for his first event wouldn't be enough. So, he went to the TEDSummit in Banff, which was a qualifying event, allowing him to remove the population cap. The event last year was sold out to 1,200 people from the Community.
He and his co-organizer volunteered to produce the second TEDx at Cal Poly after working with the team in 2015. He felt that there was so much potential and that it was a miracle he was able to find a way to Banff.
He believes in the Power of Community and attributes all of the kudos for the event to his hack, which was not pretending to know everything. Be transparent about not knowing all the answers, and be relentlessly resourceful.
TEDxCalPoly
Randy Bretz, the Organizer for TEDxLincoln, suggests that the secret to managing a TEDx is that he doesn't feel like you have to do everything, yourself. He's very comfortable asking for help. For anything and everything.
Tell us a bit about your background and your TEDx origin story.
Randy has a long history in the TV production business, which makes producing a TEDx easy for him. He started his first TEDx in 2011. A friend of his mentioned that TEDx licenses were available and he saw this as an opportunity to marry his production expertise with high-quality content.
How many TEDx events have you produced or worked with?
Randy's done six main events, 2 TEDxWomen, 2 TEDxYouth, 4 TEDxLive - viewing parties and 10 Salons.
What makes your TEDx unique?
High-quality video production with a locally oriented feel that mirrors what happens in the community of Lincoln, Nebraska
What's your superpower?
Producing
What was the biggest surprise for you while working on your event?
That there was much more to it than he thought.
Every event has its challenges, what was the biggest dragon you had to overcome?
Getting discouraged. There's so much to do; he looks for inspiration to find the energy to get through the to-do list.
What's one piece of advice you have for veteran organizers? For first-timers?
Don't do it all by yourself. Learn how to step away.
Looking forward to your next event, what excites you the most?
TEDxLincolnYouth in August 2017 and getting to work with the kids.
What's a TEDx event that you'd like to attend?
TEDxWashingtonDC
Finally, the show is called Hacking the Red Circle, so what's your best hack?
Don't be afraid to ask people to help you, or be on stage, or partner, or give you funding. Just ask.