Hacking the Red Circle

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.