By Michael Rust, Co-Founder of TEDxOshkosh 

What is TEDFest? TEDFest 2016 was the first-of-its-kind event put on by the TED organization to bring together 500 TEDx organizers from around the world to watch portions of the TED Conference and to network and learn from each other. Pretty straightforward description, but it was really about the experience.

To start my story, I must tell you that I was in Vancouver, BC for my brother’s wedding. Vancouver is the home of the TED Conference each spring. I actually drove past the convention center and saw the huge TED logo hanging from the windows! Alas, the morning after the wedding, I had to get to the airport before sunrise in order to make my cross continent trek to Brooklyn, NY for TEDFest. I flew 3,000 miles to watch something happening where I left. It was totally worth it. (At this point, I must insert a shout out to my amazing wife for allowing me to change my flight to do this – leaving her with an international flight with 3 children to get home and then to single parent for the week – she’s a rock star!)

I was lucky enough to receive a free roundtrip (to Chicago) ticket to TEDFest on JetBlue Airlines (thanks JetBlue!). Upon arriving at JFK Airport, I hopped an Uber to my hotel in Brooklyn, just in time for a midnight snack and crash. On Monday, I did not have any scheduled events in the morning, so I did some touristy things. I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhattan and to Ground Zero. Because I had the time, I decided to take in the 9/11 Memorial Museum. That was a powerful and well-done monument. 

I then walked up into the Tribeca Neighborhood, towards the mothership – the TED Headquarters. That was an experience. A beautiful space: complete with two-story auditorium, red circle carpet, and TED logoed stage – one I recognized from several TED videos. As I waited for my official TED swag bag, I marveled at the daily TED video view count rolling upwards – over 712,000 and it was just after noon!

It was here that I met my first group of TEDx organizers that would become my companions on that day’s and that week’s journeys. A group of 8 of us decided to do some more sightseeing before our welcome party that night. 8 organizers from 7 countries (US, Argentina, Canada, UK, Slovenia, Ireland, and Spain) toured NYC visiting the Charging Bull & Defiant Girl, Central Station, and the Public Library before grabbing a bite to eat.

We went far too far out of our way for food – but after all, it was the Impossible Burger. Yes, a vegetarian burger that bleeds. Weird in concept, extremely good in taste. Then we went on to the Opening Night Party. Beautiful venue, lots of people to meet, lots of fun. (I haven’t even gotten to the conference yet!)

The next morning 500 of us converged on St. Ann’s Warehouse, a converted spice milling factory, nearly underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. For the next 4 days this was our home. It was here that we heard from TEDx’s Executive Director Jay Herratti and Deputy Director Salome Heusel who talked about TEDx’s role in the TED organization and ways that we could improve our speaker and topic selection, organization, and event experience. We were also able to see what was going on back in Vancouver – including talks by the likes of Tim Ferriss, Atul Gawande, Garry Kasparov, OK Go, Serena Williams, and the surprise guest, Pope Francis.

The official TED videos have been coming out relatively quickly from the conference, so rather than focusing on what I saw, I want to talk about what I did. I made friends with TEDx organizers from Hong Kong and Sydney to Vienna and Amsterdam. Buying another organizer a cerveza at the bar because he was tired of American beer, to a long talk with an organizer who has been involved with 3 different TEDx events on 2 continents! Discussing sponsor/partner relations with people from South Carolina and Minnesota; sharing strategies for generating themes with people from Austria and Canada.

I took along some TEDxOshkosh swag to exchange and returned home with t-shirts from TEDx events in Norway and South Carolina, buttons and stickers from across the globe, and numerous other goodies from events near and far. There was also an International Beer Exchange – so beers from Fox River Brewing Company came with me and were exchanged for ones from Mexico, France, and the UK. I also came back with a larger license – my attendance at TEDFest qualified TEDxOshkosh for a larger license – no more 100-person cap for us! But what I really came back with were the friendships with other organizers.

Yes, that sounded cliché, because it was, and for good reason. In the month since TEDFest, I have interacted with dozens of other organizers online and have even driven 4 hours each way to TEDxZumbroRiver in Rochester, MN to support two friends/organizers. (Great job guys!)

TED is all about Ideas Worth Spreading. TEDx is about finding those local ideas and helping them to spread. TEDFest was about the ideas each of us have found in our local TEDx and making those spread further.

I am proud to be a TEDster. I am proud to be a TEDx Organizer. I am proud to be a part of TEDxOshkosh. #TEDxOshkosh 2017 will be amazing!

By: Bethany Lerch, TEDxOshkosh '16 Speaker 

The invitation to speak at TEDxOshkosh came in early May 2016, when I was still working in Kabul. As an Oshkosh native and TED/TEDx talk admirer (Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Your elusive creative genius” is a favorite), I was happily surprised my city would host its very own TED-like event. Teeming with love of home, I accepted. Yes, I would be there. And I’d fly back from Afghanistan if needed.

The process to choose a topic began soon after. What did I know enough about to fill 18 minutes? Most remarkable about TED and TEDx talks is the speakers’ ability to go on at length and without notes. That I would have to do the same was an intimidating thought at first, but then I began to see it a bit differently. Speakers for TED and TEDx are eloquent because they care deeply about their topic. This changed the question from “What do I know?” to “What do I care about?”

 Always a woman of lists, I folded a piece of blank paper in half. One column was “Passion,” the other “Knowledge.” There were multiple items below each, two of which overlapped. They were “Afghanistan” and “Palestine.”

My professional background is something my father calls “inconsistent” (and I would agree), but for that it is rich in challenge and diversity. In Afghanistan I had been a Military Advisor and Gender Integration trainer for a time; in Palestine I had been an English teacher for young girls. In both places, I was seen as a change agent. “Change” would be my theme, I decided, namely how to make it and how not to make it.

Afghanistan and Palestine made for two possible contexts. While passionate about both, I opted for just one. Eighteen minutes is a long time to keep an audience’s attention. It would be important to keep my message coherent and easy to follow right to the end. Since my most recent stint had been in Kabul, and because it had been very in-depth, Afghanistan became my backdrop.

As a former writing instructor, I structured my speech like an academic essay. With my thesis statement mostly finalized and the “scene” decided, all that was left were three supporting arguments. I made another list, this time of lasting impressions and lessons learned from those 16 months in Kabul. I chose three that could be easily applicable in other places: Bigger is not better; change is restricted when change is forced; and change goals come with cultural limits.

In one of my favorite 90s movies, Never Been Kissed, Drew Barrymore remarks, “To write well, you have to write about what you know.” I figured the same applied to speaking gigs: To speak well, you have to speak about what you know. Each section of my talk, including the introduction and conclusion, had an element of personal narrative—from how I was hired, how I had to slow my hope for gender integration, and how I finally came to understand that, actually, there are wrong ways to help.

Although the writing process was tricky, TEDxOshkosh organizers were ready and willing to adjust and polish my thoughts. For positive feedback like, “You’re on the right track,” to constructive feedback like, “Have you thought about it this way…” I was always able to ask a question, send an email, even sit down over coffee to hash it all out on paper. Their guidance helped enormously.

Fall approached and the weeks leading up to 29 October came quickly. By then my assignment in Afghanistan had ended. To decompress and ease the transition back to the West, I went for a long walk across Spain’s Camino de Santiago. Each day for more than a month I walked and talked to myself, rehearsing from beginning to end. Some days I repeated a section until I had it memorized. Other days, and nights, I revised and rewrote entire paragraphs to make them clearer or more engaging. My journal was thin and fit nicely into the netting between my back and pack. Mechanical pencils I kept in my ponytail and plucked out as needed, stepping aside to mark time and make notes as other walkers passed by.

My return from Madrid, mere days before “show time,” meant I had to contend as much with jet lag as nerves. But, in some respects, jet lag helped. After six weeks in Europe, my body’s clock was seven hours ahead, so I was awake between four and five o’clock each morning. I paced in my family’s basement while my parents still slept, rehearsing to myself aloud, just as I had the month before.

There was one final piece of my preparation, a tactic from Amy Cuddy’s talk—the power pose. Backstage at Oshkosh’s Grand Opera House awaiting my cue, I put my hands on my hips or all the way into the air, as if in victory. Cuddy’s research shows that miming power can boost confidence. 

And it does. Despite the brilliance and warmth of the spotlights, when I stepped on stage, each word and sentence was there, intact. So were the pauses in between them!

Eighteen minutes later and behind the curtain again I shook with self-realization. The lists and the drafts and the goofy moments of talking to myself had all been worth it. TEDxOshkosh gave me a profound sense of achievement, and counts as one of the finer moments of my life.

We are looking for new voices and new ideas to add to the TEDxOshkosh community. Do you or person you know have an "idea worth spreading?" If you do, we want to hear from you. 

Propose a Talk: Deadline April 28, 2017

Learn more about speaking at TEDxOshkosh, and propose a talk for our 2017 event. If you know someone with a great idea who could be a speaker for TEDxOshkosh, please share the link with them.

We are thrilled to announce that TEDxOshkosh is back and will take place on Saturday, November 4th, 2017 at the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh, WI.

In our inaugural year in 2016, due to a standard license restriction imposed by TED, we were only allowed to seat 100 people. This year, that limit will be removed, and we are looking forward to sharing the experience with even more people.

Get it on your calendar now, because you’ll definitely want to be part of this years’ experience. We can’t wait to share all of it with you. Get ready! More information will be announced soon.

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