By Joyce Carroll
Special to Delaware Business Times
In many ways, a TEDx event is the gift that keeps on giving. Established three decades ago as a means of sharing ideas in technology, entertainment, and design, TED talks are short presentations intent upon inspiring positive change.
On May 8, six speakers with diverse backgrounds shared their personal experiences with 100 individuals at a TEDx event at Wilmington University in New Castle. Through the eyes of the presenters, attendees learned everything from breaking down barriers in a gender-defined industry to empathizing with the human condition by not judging others.
Patrice Banks, owner of Girls Auto Clinic, delivered the former presentation, while Dr. Francine Edwards, an organization development consultant and associate professor at Delaware State University, delivered the latter.
David Bullock, Dr. Monikah Ogando, Dr. Andrew Hartnett, and Kate Cottle joined Banks and Edwards onstage, each engaging the audience with thought-provoking insights, with Hartnett and Cottle being the familiar faces – both teach at Wilmington University. Hartnett is the assistant chair of MBA programs, while Cottle is chair of humanities and literature. As part of the TEDx protocol, a TED video or two must be shown in addition to the live presentations.
Attendees listened to Brené Brown speak on “The Power of Vulnerability” and Sugata Mitra on how to “Build a School in the Cloud,” both via video. Spencer Graves of WSTW’s morning crew served as the moderator.
Predominantly a commuter school, Wilmington University seems like the perfect venue for holding a TEDx event because of the occasion’s ability to build up and connect the transient school community, said Dan Young, an assistant professor in the business administration department, and a member of the DBT40 Class of 2014.
Young was largely responsible for bringing last year’s inaugural TEDx event to the campus. Motivated by one of last year’s speakers, Young didn’t take long to begin planning a second event – a ten-month-long endeavor.
“I was originally inspired to do it because of a professor who spoke at last year’s event. Scott Shaw talked about gamification. He gamifies all things in his household,” Young said.
This year’s TEDx program was the final activity of Wilmington University’s Tech Week known as East Coast Reboot. “Engaging Excellence Everywhere” was the global theme for the program and evident in everything from the flight attendant uniforms worn by staff to the cultural competency activities held as breaks between speakers.
“We had a very creative marketing team (and worked to) make things more fun for the students,” Young said. Students comprised 70 percent of the audience, with faculty making up the remainder.
While Wilmington University faculty was largely responsible for the planning, Young said the now annual event would have a more diverse planning team moving forward.
“One of the great things we did this time was focus on a long-term game plan for TED.
The voice of the students is paramount,” he said.
Paradigm shifting
With “Ideas Worth Spreading” as the catchphrase behind TED Talks, speakers at the Wilmington University event did not need to espouse the latest research on a given subject or explain quantum physics theories. They only needed to speak from the heart.
By sharing their personal experiences, presenters hoped to create a connection with attendees that would leave those in the audience with a new perspective. As the morning’s first speaker, Edwards knew she needed to be spot-on. She shared a racial slur hurled at her by a disgruntled shopper in a consignment store and how it forced her, spontaneously, to change her mind-set about the human condition while responding to negative or hurtful situations.
“I had been called that before “¦ I knew there had to be another way to deal with that. I was in a decent frame of mind. I looked at her and where she was from. I’m in a consignment store because it’s fun,” she said, adding that her verbal attacker was likely shopping there out of need.
“We all have our set of biases that we’re raised with. It’s not OK to embrace that mentality,” she said in a post-event interview, adding that instead of lashing out at her attacker, she responded calmly and with grace.
“If we want people to look at us from the inside out, we have to look at others from the inside out,” she told her TEDx audience. She closed by offering a challenge: “(We need to be) swift to love, slow to judge, and quick to de-escalate.”
For Dr. Andrew Hartnett, it was the eventual acceptance of needing glasses that forced him not only to correct his diminishing eyesight but also to examine more closely the vision it takes to accept change, embrace others’ viewpoints, and address personal shortcomings.
“You can have vision without sight, but you can’t have sight without vision,” he told his audience, referring to the insight of a man blinded as a result of being hit in the head with a baseball bat whom Hartnett had encountered while working in the trauma unit of a hospital.
While Kate Cottle’s presentation was not as peppered with personal anecdotes, she nonetheless made a compelling case as to how studying the humanities impacts our view of the world.
“We study the humanities to become better humans,” she said, adding that by examining literature and the arts, we develop workplace skills and life skills while better understanding the beauty and history behind human achievements. Elaborating, she told her audience, “People who read fifty pages a week show the greatest gains in critical thinking.”
Presenters acknowledged that the pressures of a TEDx talk differed from previous speaking engagements at conferences or their more everyday roles in the classroom. Edwards and Hartnett consulted a coach.
“It’s a different type of presentation. Even if you’re a conference presenter, it’s normally implied that you’re going to teach something. (In this case) you hope your story creates that aha moment,” Hartnett said, adding that there are also TED videos on how to give TED talks.
Founded in 1984, TED is a global phenomenon now operated by the Sapling Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered in NYC. While TED events draw audiences from large metropolitan areas, TEDx events are small, locally organized functions attended by no more than 100 people. Smaller still are TED salon events. Young is already planning his next TED-related event for the fall – one he believes will be the first of its kind in the Northeast – a salon for the blind and visually impaired. For more information about TED, visit www.ted.com. ♦
