My pathway to TED is different to most. Rather than a direct discovery of the TED brand, mine was through the opportunity to partner with TEDxCanberra 2010 . I was working at the National Library of Australia, in the events team, and realised TED was a good fit for the NLA. I didn’t know about TED videos initially, and was thrilled to be introduced to them via the Canberra event. The first TED talks I watched were those delivered in the Theatre on 23 October.
My life is seriously busy on the home front. In the last ten years, I’ve only been to the movies ten times, and three of those were part of the Toy Story trilogy. This means that watching TED talks is pure luxury for me. I wish there could be a TED talk by Aristotle, as his exploration of philosophy
and humanity would surely have been a perfect fit for TED.
The content of an event has always intrigued me. How, to quote Aristotle, ‘the whole is more than the sum of the parts’. Balancing different perspectives and personalities, creating a fantastic experience, adding the final touches and details and bringing these various parts together to engage audiences is great fun, and a great challenge. When I learnt what TEDxCanberra was hoping to achieve last year, I wanted to be involved.
From my event management perspective, TED and TEDx uses a great model, focusing on sharing ideas through compelling stories. TED events strive to bring speakers and audience together, so those lunch time conversations are a key part of the mix, and really help to make the event ‘more than the sum of its parts’.
As I mentioned, I don’t get the opportunity to watch TED videos very often. But I can recommend this talk by Ken Robinson, which I think illustrates one of my favourite quotes from Aristotle: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”.