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What A Difference a Year Makes

This years TEDx Lansing was completely different from last years.  It seemed as though they tried to do everything they could fit in last year, but this years event stream lined it down to just the bare necessities. I feel as though this saved them from having too much to handle and spending the whole day running around like a chicken with its head cut off. This way the organizers and volunteers could enjoy it too!

What is TEDx?

For those of you who do not know what TEDx is, it is a spin off of the annual TED Conference that happens every year in Long Beach California. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a week long conference where intelligent, experienced and insightful people speak about their career, life experience, or cause, for 18 minutes at a time. The invitations are limited and they are very selective in who thet choose to invite. With a price tag of $50,000 dollars per ticket only a select few are benefiting from the TED talks in person, while the rest of us can watch them on You Tube. After all the years of TED gaining popularity on You Tube, people who wanted to attend but weren’t wealthy enough to, decided to start TEDx events. The “x” stands for an independently organized TED event. There are TEDx events all over the world now and in 30+ languages. TEDx usually includes local speakers that can educate and inspire. These aren’t your usual “stuffy” conferences but instead are thought provoking, rich, intelligent talks. They are a lot of fun, you will always get a lot out of them and they make you grow a little as a person.

Social Media Helping People

• The TEDx Lansing, 2010, speakers all seemed to share one common theme: social media. I wondered if the 2011 speakers would do the same. Theresa Bernardo brought up an interesting aspect of social media that I had never thought about before: how social media can help people during worst case scenarios (such as natural disasters) and how technology is helping us respond to them.

After the London bombing in 2005, it only took 18 minutes for it to show up on Wikipedia and over 2,500 people visited Wikipedia for information by the end of the day.

When Hurricane Katrina took place, people were turning to online forums and websites to find loved ones. A group of people then went through those forums, extracting the key information and created a database called People Finder.

After the earthquake in Haiti, texting was a huge way to find people in the rubble, but it came in different languages so they gathered interpreters to translate each text.

One hour after Japan’s most recent earthquake, Google used it’s ‘Person Finder’ technology to help search for missing  people.

With all the access to technology citizens have, we have become the reporters, activists, and scientists because we now have the tools to record it, enter the data, and map it. It was very interesting for me to hear the ways social media has changed and how it is not solely for personal amusement anymore. Social media outlets are there to help people.

The Man Who Needs No Introduction, Apparently

The first speaker, Tim Bograkos, was introduced by Tom Izzo, Michigan State University’s Head Basketball coach.  I thought it was funny that there was a little introduction for Tom Izzo but no one said, “And here is Tom Izzo.” If you didn’t recognize him up close and not on TV, then you just had to assume that was him on stage. People must assume he is so famous in the area that he needs no introduction, (but I think he does because if he is not standing on the sidelines of a basketball court I will not realize him).

Bograkos was coached by Izzo and explained what it was like being coached by such a living legend. Bograkos told us that when he first started with Izzo, he was trying to do to much at once on the court and Izzo had yelled at him, “Don’t act like a Fart in a Skillet!” The point of this statement? Sometimes you have to stop seeing things from 30,000 feet in the sky and just see the inch in front of you. I think the best piece of advice Bograkos gave me was that if anyone ever asks you “Do you not care or are you just stupid?” Always pick stupid.  You never want someone to think you don’t care.

Living a life of Excess

The speaker I could relate to the most this year was Jake Pechtel. He told us that used to live in a 1,400 sq ft loft and would get a new car every 18 months. Getting a new car every 18 months doesn’t really make sense because his daily commute in the morning was from his bedroom, through the kitchen grabbing breakfast on his way to his second bedroom (which he made into his home office). He was living a life of excess and was most likely coming across as selfish from his amount of waste.

When I moved to St. Louis for a year all I took with me on the train were two suitcases ( and I had my bike shipped there). Since I only had two suite cases I didn’t want to collect a lot while living in St. Louis because, well, I would have no way to bring it back to Michigan when I returned! This type of lifestyle really showed me what I could live without and how most people are really living in extreme excess and they may not realize it. I am sure it seemed funny to my St. Louis friends, when they came over to my sky rise apartment with a door man and a Forest Park view, to see two lawn chairs and an entertainment center I made out of plywood from the Home Depot in my living room. That was all I needed and I was content.

Pechtel came to a similar revelation and moved into a 700 sq ft house. He said that he learned from an old, wise, Jazz musician that “You should eat only half of your food.” He didn’t mean that literally, of course, but that whatever you get in life you only need half of and to cut down on the excess.

Social Made Privileges

Another interesting speaker I was excited to hear was Anne Hornak and her speech, “Identifying as White.” I went to high school next door to the old Ku Klux Klan capitol of Michigan so this topic has interested me ever since I found that out. Hornak discussed how being white gives us socially made privileges…and she is right. Society said hundreds of years ago that it is better to be white in most areas of the world than to be any other race. Because of that, many people take these privileges without notice because we don’t even see how white our society is anymore.

She also went on to explain that diversity is not picking a bunch of different races to work with but picking different things to work with that we are not used to. Those things could be anything such as age, culture, or sexuality, not just race.

How Schools Have Changed

One fear of mine about having children is that they may already be behind when they start elementary school. What if  I don’t teach them enough before they get there? David Hornak, a Holt Public School Elementary teacher, addressed my fears. What was once taught in first grade is now taught in kindergarten. Hornak said that in order to help your children be at the point they should be at when starting school, they need to be read to from birth to five years of age. Then from five years old to eighteen, parents should read with their children and ask them comprehension questions. He also urged that you put the closed captioning on your TV and make your children read the story. I thought that was an ingenious idea! That little tidbit alone made it worth coming to TEDxLansing 2011!

Lunch Problem Solved

The only complaint I had at last year TEDx event was addressed this year: the lunch situation. A lot of people go to these events looking to meet other like minded people and want to talk with them during the lunch break. Last year they broke us up across different local restaurants and no one really had the opportunity to talk to each another. This year we had the option to eat at the Gallery at Snyder-Phillips and talk to a variety of people attending the event. I definitely liked that set up and we could easily walk there instead of driving to a restaurant for lunch. I vote that they do this again in 2012!

TEDx Lansing, 2011, was a lot different than 2010.  Instead of 17 presenters this year there were 10, no free parking, no gift bags, and the talks were broken up by other entertainment. Even with all these changes I still enjoyed myself and learned a lot from the presenters. My brain could have handled more knowledge but I think last year people walked out overloaded. I am excited for the next TEDx Lansing. Maybe they will bring back some of the things from 2010 that I enjoyed so much.

TEDx is my new yearly tradition in Lansing.

To read my review of TEDxLansing 2010 click here “I got INSPIRED! My review of TEDxLansing”

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