Renjie Butalid

TEDxWaterloo – February 25, 2010

Posted by renjie On January - 13 - 2010

Full disclosure: I am one of the lead organizers behind TEDxWaterloo, taking place on February 25, 2010.

If you are a big fan of TED and find yourself watching TEDTalks videos on a seemingly regular basis, why not come out to TEDxWaterloo on February 25, 2010 to experience a TED-like event in the company of like-minded, passionate individuals who believe in ideas worth spreading.

Applications to attend TEDxWaterloo are now open and you can apply to attend here

If you are not located in the Waterloo Region or surrounding area, you can still follow the proceedings of the day’s events on Feb 25 by watching the live webcast on our website www.tedxwaterloo.com

The theme for TEDxWaterloo is Tomorrow Started Yesterday, and will feature an amazing line-up of speakers discussing a broad range of topics and ideas touching on this theme. The speaker line-up for TEDxWaterloo will be announced in the coming weeks, stay tuned!

Why do I have to apply to attend TEDxWaterloo?

I have seen a number of comments to this effect on twitter as well as on facebook, following the announcement yesterday on the TEDxWaterloo twitter account and facebook fanpage. For the sake of openness and transparency, I wanted to clarify a few of the key issues that have been brought to our attention.

To provide a bit of background to the event itself, TEDxWaterloo is organized as an independently organized TED event.

From www.ted.com/tedx

TEDx was created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading.” The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level.

At TEDx events, unique talks given by live speakers combine with TEDTalks videos to spark deep conversation and connections. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis.

There are some guidelines as well as recommendations that TED provides to organizers to help re-create a TED-like experience at TEDx events. For example, TED encourages prospective TEDx attendees to fill out applications forms in order to showcase their commitment to attending the event.

From my own perspective as one of the organizers of TEDxWaterloo and discussions with other TEDx organizers, this approach also allows organizers to deeply and more meaningfully understand what motivates the audience members. Of course, there are also some practical considerations to this approach, such as capacity limitations of the venue (to be announced soon for TEDxWaterloo!) as well as budget considerations.

Taking the cue from the upcoming TED 2010 conference happening February 9-13, 2010 in Long Beach, CA, it seems to me the purpose of curating both the speakers roster as well as the audience members comes down to ensuring a rich and stimulating exchange of ideas among a diverse group of peers.

There are major differences between actual TED conferences (TED 2010, TEDGlobal 2010, TEDActive) and local TEDx events held in cities around the world. I would like to note that it is free to attend TEDxWaterloo and the application process is open to all, everyone is invited and encouraged to submit an application to attend. We look forward to seeing you there!

N.B. If you’re interested in reading more about this discussion, I would encourage you to check out this page on TED’s website, that addresses a number of probing questions including, ‘Is TED elitist?‘

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Renjie Butalid

I would agree with Jaclyn, and sincerely hope that both you (Simon) and Jesse reconsider and put in an application to attend TEDxWaterloo for the reasons that Jaclyn stated above. Also to note, members of the organizing committee as well as our volunteers are giving their time, energy and commitment towards making TEDxWaterloo a success, driven by a passion for TED and ideas worth spreading. All of us do have other full-time commitments, such as jobs, school, families, etc. so putting on TEDxWaterloo is a project driven by passion and our desire to connect more broadly with and across the Waterloo Region community. Our diverse range of speakers, many of whom are very well recognized and well respected in their fields, are also giving us their time and energy because they also believe in sharing their ideas and experiences with the community.

Simon Clark

I think I understand your reasoning, but I cannot agree with it. Trying to micromanage your audience for some vaguely perceived benefit is a mistake. Ignite had a wonderfully diverse crowd with no such machinations. You pick your crowd by how you choose to advertise the event.

Any selection process beyond first-come-first-serve or a random lottery is inherently biased and goes against the principles of openness and inclusion that I deeply believe in. You're welcome to hold such an event, but I will not be there.

Best of luck with the event.

jrodgers

I posted my thoughts here last week... guess my blog doesn't play nice with trackbacks. Anyway, here it is:

http://whoyoucallingajesse.com/past/2010/1/20/a...

Simon Clark

This whole 'applying to attend' thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The impression that has been given is that some board somewhere will decide who is worthy and who is not. If true, that makes the whole endeavour far less valuable to me, and is not something I want to be a part of.

Jaclyn Konzelmann

Hi Simon, I understand your concern and I want to assure you there is no board somewhere deciding upon a person worthiness for attendance. We want to make sure that the audience is diverse and passionate. Opening up registration to a first-come, first-serve basis typically results in the same networks being tapped and the same attendees at different events. We want to ensure that TED is attended by a diverse crowd that offer different perspectives. This is why the application period is open for a long period of time - to ensure we can reach out to a diverse crowd that may not be the type of people that hear about things the minute they come out. It is not a matter of being worthy or not, it is a matter of ensuring that we get passionate people out that want to be at TEDxWaterloo to learn and share. I sincerely hope that you applied because by the sounds of it, you are the type of passionate person that we are looking to get out to this event!

jrodgers

In the last 5 years of running and participating events locally I have seen the most diverse and passionate group of people come out to each and every event. I haven't witnessed the problem you seem to think applying to TEDx solves.

Probably the most amazing example of that was the Canada 3.0 conference that initially looked like an elite group of big company/government/education folks and instead was an incredibly diverse collection of brilliant people from across the country that left the event energized, connected with new people, and hungry for more.

You can't force that to happen, you can only encourage people, remove any barriers, and provide a location.

Jaclyn Konzelmann

Canada 3.0 had a lot more space to allow for more people to come out. Speaking personally, I had applied to volunteer for that event and was initially turned down. My other option was to pay a couple hundred dollars, which, as a student I did not have. I know a lot of people that wanted to make it out to that conference that were unable to attend because of these barriers. It is true that there was a diverse crowd, however, there were also a lot of people that would have loved to make it out but could not afford to.

TEDx is trying to eliminate the barrier of cost by providing this experience free of charge. The guidelines do ask for applications and this is something that we are in no way trying to associate with being elitist. I am truly sorry if this is the way you are interpreting it. As stated before, if you feel like you could contribute in any way to make this event as great as possible we would love to have your support and help.

jrodgers

Yes Canada 3.0 had its issues... and it needs to be free or low cost or sponsored spots for students next time. I am going to lobby hard for that.

All I ask with TEDx is that you are open about the criteria, the rationale, and the number of spots that there is in total. I think you are sort of doing that in this discussion and thanks for that. However, at this point I don't know enough to know if I can contribute in a meaningful way given the number of commitments I already have. Maybe next time.

Jaclyn Konzelmann

I appreciate that you will be lobbying for making Canada 3.0 more open to students and people that may not be able to afford the current ticket price. It was a great experience and I wish that more people had the opportunity to go, so I am very happy to hear that.

In terms of the process and spots for TEDxWaterloo, we want to make sure everyone that is passionate is able to make it out. That is part of the reason we choose the Gig over other venues - it has a larger capacity which means we can have even more people come out and enjoy the event. As for the criteria, we really want to get to know the people coming out. If they want to come out for the right reasons (ie. are passionate, excited, want to contribute) then we want them out, it is in everyone's best interest to get them out. If they want to come out simply because it is a free event which includes free food and entertainment then this may take away from the experience. At the end of the day we don't want to come off as being overly elitist. which is why we are trying to respond to everyone's concerns as well as the good things being said. I strongly urge you to make it out to the event this year and ask people what they thought of it after it is over. Then please get back to us and let us know if there is anything that we could have improved or if anything was done that did not live up to peoples expectations.

At the end of the day we want to make sure that we are bringing an amazing event to Waterloo, because as you mentioned in your blog post, Waterloo is an amazing community!

TEDx Lover

I think that those who don't want to "apply" are more than welcome to organize their own TEDx conference with no application process!

Don't worry, it's super easy to fundraise tens of thousands of dollars, bring in world class speakers and offer the whole event for free!!!

Jesse Rodgers

That is a silly comment to make... the fact you need "tens of thousands" of dollars is even sillier. You can do the same thing for a lot less money -- and getting sponsorship isn't hard. Maybe I will run my own unTEDx :p

Jaclyn Konzelmann

Great to see so much discussion going on! As one of the main organizers for this event, and a current Engineering Undergrad student I am very excited to be part of the team bringing TEDx to the Waterloo region. I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding the application process, and I think Renjie's post helps to clarify why that is in place. It is true that this event could be run for a lot less money - but it would not be as big or as amazing as the experience we are trying to create for the attendees and everyone who logs on to watch it live. Jesse, we would love your help raising sponsorship if you feel that this is not a hard task. We are always looking for enthusiastic people to help out and would welcome you to our team. :)

jrodgers

I understand your perspective but I disagree with what TEDx seems to encourage. Perhaps a more open process might make sense but I fairly certain "amazing experience" means something very different to me than it does to you. That isn't a bad thing. With BarCampWaterloo, StartupCampWaterloo, IgniteWaterloo, etc I have plenty of community events to help out with and I am excited to see students taking an interest in contributing to the community.

Best of luck with TEDxWaterloo and I do hope it is a great success.

Renjie Butalid

Thanks for your comments Vince, appreciate it. We're certainly excited about the caliber of speakers we have lined up for TEDxWaterloo and we're hoping that this is the first of many TEDxWaterloo events to come!

vincej

Interesting.
It's a fine line between elitist and open, and it would seem TEDx is balancing it JUST barely. The fact that explanations are needed is indication enough.
That said... there is something to be said for "gating" events, just as there is for gating online communities. Building commitment, collaboration, and engagement are very difficult.
Starting wide open brings eyeballs, but sometimes the hands and minds are left behind. I wish you the best of luck with this format. If the product is excellent, time will prove it's worth regardless of entry hurdles.
cheers.