Thanks to Brenda Bethman, I received a last minute ticket to TEDxKC last Thursday at The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. Titled "What the World Needs Now," five speakers (four live, one on video) and a visual/musical/performance art group presented rapid-fire perspectives not really answering the title question - since it wasn't stated as a question - but more as persuasive speeches on innovative global strategies in a college communications class.
The Set-Up
That isn't to say TEDxKC wasn't thought-provoking; it was just never designed as an interactive dialogue on our collective future. Unless you call the audience mingling and getting to writ
e on a big poster what we think the world needs now after the event (all over 1 free drink) an interactive experience.
TEDxKC was certainly much anticipated (although not necessarily well-publicized) in town, with the original 300 free tickets for the Nelson Gallery auditorium being claimed in an hour. Another 500-600 people were ultimately accommodated via video feed in a separate Nelson viewing gallery.
Personal Resonance
Because of a client meeting, I never had an opportunity to vie for a TEDxKC ticket. Having known people who have attended TED and TEDx events, however, TEDxKC certainly felt like an innovation-rich event to attend. Looking back in light of my personal experience and the relevance of the innovation messages, a TEDxKC ticket materializing Thursday afternoon couldn't have been an accident.
The strategic, unifying thread for meat TEDxKC was the speakers articulating aspects of themes touched on and evolving within the Brainzooming and Aligning Your Life's Work blogs over several years.
As I've said, writing a blog, absent all the other human interactions which are vital to surround it, is a pretty isolated experience. With my professional situation changing so much in the past year(moving from a corporation to pursue The Brainzooming Group full-time), that's been even truer. The original target persona for the blog was me: someone in a not particularly innovative or creatively-oriented organization wanting to grow, develop, and have a bigger positive strategic impact on those around them.
As my life has changed, I've wondered whether my new perspectives resonate with all of you who are so generous to share your time in following Brainzooming. While new innovation-oriented themes have emerged for me professionally and found their way into the blog (thus all the social media and here's what The Brainzooming Group does content lately), it was tremendously helpful as TEDxKC put into a global context the core strategic themes which mean so much to me personally and professionally:
- The importance of broad, integrated, innovation-oriented strategic thinking for personal and organizational success
- The value of more and diverse people thinking strategically in their lives
- The advantages of rapid trial and improvement in thinking, innovation, planning, and implementation
- The changing nature of what prepares people to be successful personally and professionally
- Servant leadership's position at the core of personal success
- Searching for positivity amid life's challenges
The strategic innovation messages at TEDxKC really resonated, serving as catalysts for my thinking right now. Tomorrow, we'll recap the great TEDxKC speakers and the important innovation messages they shared. – Mike Brown
When it comes to conferences, high impact presentations, and live event social media content, The Brainzooming Group is expert at shaping the right strategy and implementation to create unique attendee experiences before, during, and after an event. Email us at brainzooming@gmail.com or call 816-509-5320 to learn how we can do the same for your event!
