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Since 1984, a conference has been held in the United States, bringing together scientists, politicians, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, engineers and many others on one stage. It is called TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design, which can be loosely translated into Russian as “Science, Art, Culture”.
The slogan of the conference - “Ideas worth spreading” - explains its main goal - to tell about interesting ideas as much as possible more of people.
website I have compiled for you a list of lectures that can inspire, motivate and even reveal the secrets of great success.
Why do I live in mortal fear
before public speaking
Megan Washington is one of Australia's foremost singer-songwriters. And she has stuttered since childhood. In this bold personal monologue, she explained how she copes with this speech impediment - this includes avoiding combinations of sounds "s" and "t" ("st"), and tricking her own brain when at the last minute one word is replaced by another, and singing, through which she can convey what she wanted to say, instead of saying it.
False Expectations
Dan Gilbert talks about his research into happiness and shares some surprising tests and experiments that you can try for yourself. Watch until the end for a fascinating Q&A session with some of the TED faces you may know.
The first 20 hours, or how to learn anything
Josh Kaufman is the author of the world bestseller “Your Own MBA. Self-education 100%" and the book "The First 20 Hours: Mastery is the Hardest Part of Learning Anything." Josh teaches people from all walks of life, helping them gain practical knowledge and skills. In his speech, he talks about how the birth of his daughter inspired him to create a completely new approach to learning.
The art of asking
"Don't make people pay for music," says Amanda Palmer. “Let them.” In her heartfelt speech, which begins with a recounting of her experiences working the streets of New York (“Give a dollar to a six-foot bride!”), she reflects on the new relationship between artist and fans.
Exciting potential
"sixth sense" technology
Pranav Mistry at the TEDIndia conference demonstrates several devices that can practically unite the physical and electronic worlds, including a “sixth sense” device, as well as a notebook on paper. In a Q&A session, Mistry says he will open source the Sixth Sense to open up its capabilities to everyone.
Andrew Stanton: How to create
exciting story
Director Andrew Stanton (Toy Story, WALL-E) shares ideas about storytelling and tells his personal story in reverse chronological order. (Video contains expressive language!)
Collective experience of the absurd
Charlie Todd orchestrates wacky, fun and unexpected public scenes: 70 synchronized dancers in the front windows of a building; Ghostbusters running through the New York Public Library and the annual No Pants Subway Ride. At TEDxBloomington, he shows how his group Improv Everywhere uses these performances to bring people together.
Having quit with extremely successful work in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth began teaching math to seventh graders in a New York City public school. She quickly realized that the difference between successful students and unsuccessful ones was not just their IQ level. In her talk, she explains her theory of grit as the key to success.
How to turn stress into a friend
Stress. It causes your heart to beat faster, your breathing to quicken, and sweat to appear on your forehead. While stress has turned into worst enemy health, new research says stress is not dangerous if you believe it. Psychologist Kelly McGonigal encourages us to change our attitude towards stress and offers a long-forgotten way to deal with stress - communication.
Having to present to investors or at an important conference can be a major challenge for an entrepreneur. Inc.com published a material in which it collected advice from 20 project speakers TED Talks about how to approach public speaking.
It's important to eat right
Dopamine and adrenaline are neurotransmitters that help regulate emotional condition person. Their synthesis requires tyrosine, an amino acid found in protein foods. This means that in order to feel the best way and be less nervous before a performance, you need to eat well.
It’s best to start following a protein diet a few days before an important speech—snacks at the last minute won’t help, says psychologist and TED Talks speaker Amy Cuddy.
Need to “burn” cortisol
The hormone cortisol is produced by the body in stressful situations. Its high content in the blood limits a person’s ability to perceive complex information. As a result, it becomes more difficult for the speaker to lead the presentation and respond to the behavior of the audience.
Exercise is an effective way to burn off cortisol. Entrepreneur Nilofer Merchant is an ardent fan of the “walking meetings” that Steve Jobs practiced. She spoke about this from the TED stage:
There must be two backup plans
Publicist Simon Sinek is convinced that successful entrepreneurs and leaders know how to make people feel secure. In relation to the art of public speaking, the speaker himself needs to feel safe. There are many things that can go wrong during a presentation - PowerPoint freezes, one of the audience starts interrupting, in the end, the speaker may simply forget the text.
Sinek advises choosing your two biggest fears related to public speaking, and develop an action plan in such situations - how to behave if for some reason the projector falls or the previous speakers “eat up” all the time, leaving only a couple of minutes to speak. The effort spent on such planning will not be wasted, because thinking about what could go wrong allows you to develop the ability to cope with the unexpected.
Develop a pre-show ritual
People often resort to omens to make their lives easier in situations where they are not at all sure of the successful outcome of a particular matter. A professional runner will not run faster because he is wearing “lucky” socks. However, they can help him feel more relaxed. Instead of following conventions, Wall Street Journal journalist and business author Dan Pink advises establishing a clear pre-show ritual.
Skim the slides, check the connection of the projector - small actions will help you concentrate, in addition, each time they will bring more and more satisfaction and peace of mind.
A backup target won't hurt.
The speaker does not always succeed in getting his way - investors, after listening to the presentation, may refuse to finance the startup, and potential clients may not sign a contract. It is usually possible to understand whether it will be possible to solve the task at hand during the speech, and many people, seeing that everything is not going as they would like, begin to either try too hard or give up altogether.
University of Houston professor Brené Brown is confident that in such a situation you should try to achieve at least something - if a contract cannot be concluded today, this does not mean that this is impossible in the future, so you should make the most favorable impression on the audience so that they remember the speaker and what he was talking about.
In any unclear situation, you need to take a break for 10 seconds
Famous entrepreneur and marketing expert Seth Godin uses a trick in his presentations - if he loses his rhythm or forgets what he wanted to say, he pauses for ten seconds.
In his opinion, a pause of two or three seconds immediately reveals the speaker’s problems; after five seconds, many begin to think that this is how it was intended, and after ten, the audience waits with bated breath for him to start speaking again.
Unanswerable questions can be helpful
Publicist Nigel Marsh resorts to another way of establishing contact with the audience - he asks them a question to which he himself does not know the answer (the people in the audience certainly must not know). He then admits that he also cannot say anything on this topic, but instead offers to talk about what he knows well. Marsh says presenters usually have all the answers, which causes boredom among audience members.
Admitting the limitations of one's knowledge allows the speaker to show his humanity and gain sympathy from the audience, who will then listen more carefully.
Unexpected facts and analogies attract attention
No one will remember a high-quality Gantt chart that they saw in a presentation, but no one will be able to quickly forget some unusual fact, sounded in it (“did you know that when a person blushes, his stomach turns red?”), says former negotiation consultant and current writer Susan Cain.
No need to sell anything to the audience
Most entrepreneurs feel they have to make the most of their appearances—to attract new clients, advertise their products or services, or build a network of contacts. Basecamp (formerly 37signals) founder Jason Fried is convinced that this is not the way to do things. In his opinion, there is no need to think about speaking in sales terms, as this creates higher expectations from him and, as a result, more pressure and stress.
Instead, the entrepreneur advises focusing on communicating to the audience the benefits that they will receive by listening to the presentation (and, subsequently, using the product). Fried says that people don’t need to sell anything, they just need to help them make their personal and professional lives better, then they themselves will buy such a useful product.
No apology
Often people who speak in front of an audience begin their speech with an apology - “I didn’t have much time to prepare” or “I’m certainly not an expert in this, but I was asked.”
This won't help create an emotional connection with viewers, says Autodesk employee and publicist Tom Wujec. Instead, people will begin to ask themselves why a person who is not very ready for this, who is wasting everyone’s time, came on stage.
No need to check equipment on stage
All preparatory work before the presentation must be done before it begins. You can’t go on stage and start fiddling with the projector and checking the volume of the microphone, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is convinced.
If something goes wrong during the performance, you cannot stop and try to fix it, you should smile and continue the performance as if nothing had happened.
You can't put off answering questions
If one of the audience has a question right during the presentation, this means that people are listening to the speaker. This is great luck, which you need to use, and not say something like “let me finish and then answer all the questions,” says the famous journalist and writer Malcolm Gladwell.
He believes that if the answer to a question is contained in one of the subsequent slides, there is nothing wrong with “scrolling” the presentation to the right point. A good presentation is a dialogue, not a monologue, so you should never try to limit the audience's desire to communicate.
No need to overload your slides
Bishop William Lawrence University Professor Michael Porter enjoys in a simple way definitions optimal size font on slides - according to the scientist, the font size should be twice as large as average age intended audience.
Most often, this means that the size will be in the range from 60 to 80 points. Porter believes that if all the necessary words in this case do not fit on the slide, this means that the message is not concise enough and can be shortened.
Can't read slides
Slides should be understandable without having to read what is written on them. If it is impossible to understand the content without reading, the audience will most likely not be interested in such a presentation. Moreover, the speaker should not read his own slides - they should be auxiliary during the presentation, but the speech itself should not be built around them.
This is precisely the approach that scientist and psychologist Kelly McGonigal takes in her speeches.
Attention must be earned
The difficulty speakers have in getting the audience's attention isn't because someone forgets to turn off mobile phone and he calls during the presentation. If the performance is interesting and the presentation is designed in a way that makes it interesting to watch, the sound of a door slamming or a phone ringing will not prevent people from listening carefully to what is being said from the stage.
The audience in the hall is not obliged to listen to the presentation, but the speaker is obliged to win their attention - this was the philosophy adhered to by Steve Jobs, who devoted a lot of time and effort to preparing his speeches.
It is important to repeat key ideas
Spectators in the hall often cannot hear everything that is said from the stage - this forces them to figure out what the speaker wanted to say on their own. Therefore, it is necessary to structure the presentation in such a way that key ideas are repeated several times. Besides, no one will be able to remember everything that was said during a speech, and repeating the main points will allow the audience to assimilate them.
TED speaker Richard St. John often uses this technique in his presentations.
TED is a conference that has been inviting talented and smart people onto its stage for more than twenty years who are ready to share their experiences.
This selection of videos from TED conferences is a kind of first aid kit for a teacher. All of us experience creative crises, apathy caused by accumulated fatigue, and attacks of self-doubt. When words of encouragement and approval from family and friends do not work, you need a portion of an antidepressant from the outside, and it is better to do without alcohol and medications. And guess what? Inspirational, crushing, critical, but full of faith in the best speeches from colleagues from all over the world are an excellent means of combating despondency.
We deliberately left the performances for English language with Russian subtitles. Dubbing still takes away some of the speaker’s charisma.
Bringing back the love for teaching
Ken Robinson: How schools stifle creativity
Children who entered school this year will retire in 2070. It is believed that the school has an obligation to prepare its students for the future. There is a deep irony in this, because we cannot predict the development of our world even for the next five years. But we must give students skills that meet our expectations of the future (which we don’t have!). Sir Ken Robinson believes that there is no point in guessing what will happen next, because children know it much better than us thanks to their ability to create. A brilliant and witty speech from a true Briton and international adviser on developing creative thinking.
Geoffrey Canada: Our schools are lousy
Geoffrey Canada 56 years ago studied in a frankly bad school in a poor area of New York, which always had a large percentage of underperforming students. More than half a century has passed, and the situation remains the same. An educational approach is not like a wine that gets better with age. So why do schools that, in practice, year after year feel that their approach is not working, continue down the same path year after year? Who came up with these school programs that don't care about the end result? Jeffrey, an honorary doctorate from three universities and the founder of a charity center in Harlem, gives an impetuous speech about the problems of modern schools.
Den Meyer: This is absolutely not how we teach math
Dan Meyer is an American high school mathematics teacher, and he believes that mathematics is currently taught in schools worse than ever. If you were to give each of you a final algebra test now, hardly a quarter of you would pass it with at least a C. And this is the fault of the entire teaching system. We instill in students a dislike for difficult tasks; we teach them to use ready-made formulas and solutions; We prioritize speed over thoughtful reasoning. This is a problem, because the students we are teaching now will be running the country in 40 years.
In the article, Keith Devlin also criticizes the existing paradigm of mathematics education.
Rita Pearson: Children won't learn anything from those who don't love them
“I don’t get paid to love children. I get paid to teach classes. I teach, they teach. That’s enough,” one of her colleagues once told Rita Pearson. To which Rita replied: “They won’t learn anything from you, and your work will always be hard and painful.” This is true. A real teacher teaches not only his subject discipline, but also the ability to build relationships, find relationships, and, most importantly, self-confidence. Rita worked in difficult classes with low achievement and talks about how to help those children whose life teaches them to be adults too early to love school.
Restoring faith in the future of the school
Daphne Koller: What online education teaches us
Daphne is the daughter of two professors, a member of the lucky minority who was lucky enough to be born into a family that values quality education and has enough desire and opportunity to instill in their children the same love of science. Largely thanks to her parents, Daphne received a scientific degree, became a professor of computer science and one of the leading researchers in artificial intelligence. However, not everyone in this world is as lucky as she is. That's why Daphne co-founded Coursera, and that's why she sees online learning as an open window to knowledge for every person on Earth.
Salman Khan: Let's change the approach to education with online lessons
Salman Khan - Founder largest resource online education Khan Academy, whose lessons are viewed daily by more than a million students. Khan explains why video tutorials are much more important for many people. dearer to my heart than traditional face-to-face lessons, and how great it is that in a video lesson the teacher does not have to ask his students the sacramental question: “Well, does everyone understand everything?” A frank story about how it all began and how teachers began to use Khan Academy video lessons in their classes.
Peter Norvig: When there are 100,000 students in a class
Our technology is so modern and our teaching technology is still the same as it was in the 18th century. All the same books, notebooks, teacher front row and a student falling asleep at the back desk. Peter Norvig, a leading American computer scientist and the idol of many programmers, speaks about this. In 2011 he conducted an interactive course on artificial intelligence at Stanford University, which was visited online by about 100 thousand people. Peter explains why standard teaching approaches cannot be applied to a classroom of this size.
Restoring faith in children
Alison Gopnik: Babies and young children are an institute for the study of humanity
Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and philosophy at the University of California. She argues that children from a very young age learn things that we could not even imagine. For example, the idea of empathy. The period of childhood is the only period of a person’s life in which he feels protected; any new knowledge is absorbed by the brain in a calm state, and not in a state of stress (to which adults are especially susceptible); this is one of the reasons why childhood is a key period for acquiring knowledge about this world.
This article goes into a little more detail about why it's so hard to remember anything when you're being chased by a saber-toothed tiger or when you're trying to fill out an annual report.
Shane Coiszan: What it's like to be a kid and be different
Remember what it was like for you when you were 8–10–14 years old. Remember the school cafeteria, the crush, the laughter of peers at the awkward fat fifth-grader, questions from parents “So how? Everything is fine?" and your insincere answers. Remember your childhood, which is not always colored bright colors. You've been asked what you want to be, only to be told you made a bad choice. They asked you to decide on your future, but they did it for you. You are now an adult; and still, when you meet an outsider child, you lower your eyes. Just like then, twenty years ago, in that dining room. A poignant backstory and poetry by multimedia poet Shane Coiszan, accompanied by beautiful music and animation.
The last video should have made you cry. If not, immediately run to the doctor for pills.
The truth has long been known that everything smart people they think alike. However, every happy bearer of intelligence experiences an irresistible desire to hear someone like themselves. TEDx conferences are designed to help with this. Every person who considers himself a member of the intelligentsia must know what this is.
TED Conference at a Glance
In 1984, American architect and graphic designer Richard Wurman set out to bring together prominent figures in the new information industry under one roof. Less than a few years later, the initiative grew into something more ‒ T echnology E entertainment D design:
- From a highly specialized get-together of computer geniuses, the TED conference has become a gathering of bright personalities of various profiles: scientists, philosophers, musicians, philanthropists, businessmen, etc.;
- The event is a series of reports where each speaker has 18 minutes to convey his message to the assembled audience;
- TED has never positioned itself as an organization for the poor. The annual membership fee is $8,500. For this money, the participant receives not only the right to attend events, but also membership in the mailing club, access to online tools and DVDs;
- Numerous sponsors also provide money for events, including almost all corporations from the 500 largest in the world (Coca-Cola, Google, AOL, General Electric...);
- Such famous people as Bill Gates, David Cameron, Larry Page and many Nobel Prize laureates managed to make their mark on the site.
Worldwide franchise
Tectonic shifts in the area information technologies happen not only in America. However, the staff of TED itself does not exceed 140 people and cannot serve the needs of the billions of people on Earth. That is why in 2009, the curators of the foundation came up with the idea of licensing the conference format around the world.
The franchise was named TEDx :
- Anyone can obtain a temporary rental license trademark and concepts are completely free - only subject to the principles and general philosophy of TED;
- On-site conference organizers may attract sponsors, but waive all copyrights in content created by speakers. It becomes the property of the parent company;
- As of the mid-2010s, the library of video performances consisted of several tens of thousands of videos from more than 130 countries;
- The main language of the reports is English, but the videos, as a rule, are accompanied by subtitles in various world languages, including Russian;
- In 2010, 531 events were carried out, by 2017 their number increased to 1860;
- The main goal pursued by the foundation is to initiate socially important discussions in a specific region of the world.
Types of events
The TEDx license allows you to organize one of the following types of events:
- Standard. Free format event;
- University. Held within the walls of the higher educational institution on the initiative of university administration employees, a separate faculty or ordinary students;
- Youth. Has a specific topic, covering the problems of modern schoolchildren, children or students;
- Educational. Faculty, students, or administrators discuss future trends in education;
- TEDxLive- online broadcast of a session from the global TED event;
- « Women's» ( TEDxWomen). The main issue follows from the title: the socialization of women in modern world and gender themes;
- Entrepreneurial. A platform for business discussions, which is expected to create a fertile environment for innovation and the exchange of business experience;
- Library. No different from the standard one, except for the venue;
- Second level event. A license to conduct it is issued only to program participants with at least two years of experience.
Conferences in Russia
Here are the main facts and figures that relate to this event in our country:
- Despite the popularity of such rallies in the West, in Russia they are just beginning to become fashionable. The total number of organizers does not exceed fifty;
- There is a “TED Embassy” in the country, representing the interests of the organization promoting its philosophy. As of 2017, the duties of the ambassador are performed by the founder of the Skolkovo Open University, Andrey Egorov;
- The largest event of this format held in the Russian-speaking space is TEDxMoscow. It is usually carried out in coworking spaces;
- Among the “specifically Russian” topics: the development of the Russian North, problems of relations with migrants, gay rights, security on the World Wide Web and the clash between “physicists and lyricists.” All performances are available online;
- The Moscow cell has a relatively small team (about 12 people).
Rules for organizers
All of the following rules apply to “Standard” type events, but apply to all others:
- A license to own a trademark is issued for a period of 12 months and is applicable only for one event;
- The name of the conference should reflect the location: city, district or even street (TEDxSydney, TEDxPokrovkaSt);
- It is recommended to select speakers from the specific region where the event is taking place. Thus, professors from St. Petersburg will be unwelcome guests at TEDxMoskow and vice versa. Locality is the main slogan of this format;
- As a rule, the audience cannot exceed one hundred people. More numerous events can only be created by those who have at least once attended the global TED conference;
- The duration is not particularly standardized. Depending on the capabilities of speakers and listeners, performances can last from a couple of hours to a day;
- Ticket prices are limited to $100 (5,700 rubles at the current exchange rate). Placing higher price tags may result in a fine or even revocation of the license. This requirement only applies to developing countries, where local residents do not have the opportunity to spend significant funds on cultural leisure.
The third technological revolution, which swept California in the second half of the 20th century, brought to life a new fusion of knowledge at the intersection of technology, entertainment and design. These three pillars are at the core of the philosophy of the TEDx conference. What it is is gradually being learned in Russia, although much later than in developed countries.
A round red rug decorates the small stage of the cozy cinema hall of the Tretyakov Gallery on Lavrushinsky Lane. On the screen there is a chessboard - this is the graphic design of the current TEDx Moscow conference, which is about to begin. Under the “chess” there are the signature red letters TEDx combined with modest gray Moscow ones, so that no one doubts that they have come to exactly the right place.
Over the course of seven hours, 15 speakers will perform here, music will sound (Evgeny Grinko will play the piano, and Yaroslav Timofeev will play the bells), and the aroma will rise fresh bread(a surprise from sourdough bread baker Anton Kornyshov), applause will be heard repeatedly.
flickr.com/photos/tedxmoscow
During the intermission, guests will wander around the entertainment venues to paint a picture using Kazimir Malevich’s technique, but wearing augmented reality glasses, become part of the actor’s performance and see the “innovative cultural space” with their own eyes. Just drink coffee and discuss what you heard in the hall under the “chess” screen.
We meet with the organizer of Russian TEDx conferences, Andrei Egorov, to find out how a system based on trust exists.
Andrey Egorov (organizer, curator)
flickr.com/photos/tedxmoscow
Sorry, but what is TED?
The TEDx brand emerged in 2009, with the advent of the so-called TED license, which could be obtained by anyone wishing to organize a conference in this format. The “x” in this case means that this is a separate event from the “big” conference that takes place in Vancouver every year and can only be purchased a year in advance for $10,000.
A system based on trust has been built over decades. In 1984, TED (without the "x") was a hangout for Los Angeles engineers, designers and entertainment industry workers. It was created by graphic designer Richard Soul Warman. At the first conference, CDs from Philips and Sony and the Macintosh computer from Apple were presented. Presentations were made by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and influential members of the computer industry elite (digerati) Nicholas Negroponte and Stuart Brand. Although the pioneering conference was successful, six years passed before a second one was organized. Behind it came the third, and TED “got on stream.”
Richard Soul Warman
Despite the fact that the format has been in existence for 34 years and lectures are published online, caring volunteers skillfully translate speeches from foreign speakers, and all the videos are easy to find on YouTube, not many people still know about TED.
“In Moscow, not a large percentage of citizens living an active life know about the format: those who are interested in city events attend exhibitions, theaters, and festivals. Many people are not aware. Brand awareness is quite low. Sometimes you can hear: “What is TED?”,” comments Egorov.
The second mystery is TEDx: “We immediately try to convey to speakers and listeners that we are not a Vancouver event. We are trying to follow the format for the sake of the idea of making a conference. We have to attract the audience through word of mouth, with the help of PR specialists who work with us on a volunteer basis.”
Only someone who has attended large TED conferences in America, Europe or Canada can hold events for several hundred participants. Egorov currently has a TEDx license for 500 people. It is possible that soon it will be possible to gather twice as many people.
flickr.com/photos/tedxmoscow
Rules of the game
When was the last time you broke a rule? It is difficult to answer this question instantly; you have to think seriously. What can be considered a rule? Am I breaking them at all? Do I perceive them as rules?
One question leads to another, unless you are a hothead and a fan of running red lights. The TEDx Moscow conference this year raised this topic, making us think about how our attitude towards taboos, traditions and the rules themselves are changing.
“When we were young, we all watched the wonderful TV series Friends. A study was recently conducted that showed that modern young people found sexism, racism, harassment, homophobia, body shaming and other phenomena that we are acutely aware of now in this sitcom. And we think: how can such a sweet and kind series be so terrible? This is the case in other areas as well. We wanted to explore how the way we look at familiar things has changed. Even in jurisprudence, for example, the law remains almost unchanged, although within the framework of its rules there are interpretations and one can act in different ways. But these tricks still do not exempt from responsibility if the law is still violated,” says Andrei Egorov.
Yuri Saprykin (Russian journalist and cultural scientist)
flickr.com/photos/tedxmoscow
The view of traditions, rules and prohibitions transforms over time, and this applies not only cultural phenomena. What happens to the forgotten and abandoned, like baking sourdough bread, are we worthy of a “quality old age”, why do we need to study tax legislation, how is psychiatry developing, where is the line between unacceptable and acceptable in education, art and religion. The speakers at the 2018 TEDx Moscow conference tried to answer these questions.
The rules of the conference, however, are unbreakable: “Only individual may organize the conference. In addition, TEDx is a volunteer event; the organizers have no right to receive money for it. The amount collected from ticket sales goes towards the new TEDx, logistics, venue rental, catering, photography, website design and advertising on social networks. This is an ideological movement, a non-profit volunteer project based on trust. Everyone on our team is an employee of a company or individual entrepreneur. We do TEDx in our free time and have no right to make a profit from it,” says Andrey Egorov.
There are several dozen TEDx organizers working in Russia, and everyone follows the basic rules. “We don't send accounting reports to Vancouver. This is self-regulation, and it is visible at the community level in every country. I am the TEDx ambassador in Russia and am responsible for ensuring that the rules are not broken. I invite all new members to a closed group on Facebook, and if problems or questions arise, everyone can see it. Relatively speaking, you will not violate anything in front of other organizers. You can immediately feel and see who is using the format for an idea, and who is using it for their own benefit,” explains Andrey.
Birth of a speaker
“You can’t just go on stage and start saying something. The preparation of speakers takes different periods of time - from six months to several weeks. Sometimes organizers can even cancel a speech at the last minute if the speaker can’t cope with the theatrical production, which is what the TED format is, says Egorov. “You can’t go out to the public unprepared.” Usually our speakers say: “Have I never spoken at conferences or given lectures?” The task is not just to speak, but to prepare a “skeleton”, then a script and build a lecture so that the idea gets into the audience.”
The speakers are trained by members of the TEDx Moscow team and curators. Each speech is practiced from start to finish: dramatic and comedic accents are placed, since this is, after all, a theatrical show, constructions that are difficult to perceive by ear are eliminated. In 15-20 minutes, a physicist must give a complex lecture, and do it in such a way that the audience enjoys it and is able to grasp the idea.
“A fairly famous scientist once said that he knew what to say. We did not insist, and he simply spoke. And then he scolded us for not forcing him to rehearse. This is a different format. You want to say a lot, and all this needs to be done in a short period of time, cut off all unnecessary things and convey one idea to the public, so that people go home with this idea,” emphasizes Andrey Egorov.
The process of selecting speakers is lengthy: “We select those whom we have heard of before, and consult with experts. Then we select participants from the longlist. No one can come and say: let me become your sponsor, and you will give me the opportunity to speak. Although there have been cases, we refuse. This goes against the TED message."
We can learn to put on a show. The main thing is not to present emptiness
For those new to TEDx, rehearsals are a completely unexpected experience. As Alexey Sidnev, the main owner and general director of the Senior Group, which unites five boarding houses for elderly people in the Moscow region, admits, he has never participated in such conferences, and rehearsals have become a special part of them. Sidnev formed a trusting relationship with curator Maria Privalova: training cannot be effective if this important factor is missing.
For psychotherapist Natalya Rivkina, the rehearsals did not relieve her of slight anxiety on the eve of the performance, but in the end everything went well.
Alexey Sidnev (social entrepreneur)
flickr.com/photos/tedxmoscow
Both top managers and students
To a big conference because high cost top officials of large companies come with tickets. Of course, these are no longer students. “In terms of networking, the big TED is the best place for useful contacts,” notes Andrey.
At the same time, in “tedix” each organizer adheres to “his own artery”: in some places the audience is very young, in others – middle-aged. A lot of people come to the conference in Moscow different people: “We try to be heard by top managers, students, and people of art.”
The TEDx Moscow team includes people who were in one way or another connected with each other, worked together or overlapped in their activities. They are interested in creating something together, mastering the volunteer format and, among other things, popularizing it. TEDx receives all the elements necessary for the organization - platforms, service and promotion - from volunteers from various areas of business.
All you have to do to become a part of TEDx is find some free time. Many team members have been finding it for eight years in a row.
Vera Martynova (artist and director)
flickr.com/photos/tedxmoscow
What distinguished TEDx in Russia
The “big” TED is a big event. About a hundred performances take place over five days. “You come for a week to listen to speakers from nine in the morning until seven in the evening and communicate with them during breaks. For five days you are in a mode of continuous receipt of information. The head is charged for a year in advance. But not all performances are successful - I would call about 15% average. And at least 5% are so unsuccessful that they don’t even make it onto the Internet. True, most of them are really cool.”
The conferences that are held in our country - not only in Moscow, but also in Perm, Kazan, Yekaterinburg - are also outstanding.
“In 2015, we managed to come to an agreement with Roscosmos, and we extended communication with the ISS, then Elena Serova flew there. We broadcast live from space for the first time in TED history! Cosmonauts also spoke at the big conference, but either recorded from on board the station or having already arrived,” says the TEDx ambassador.
One of the most memorable is the speech of Ilya Sachkov, co-owner of the Russian private company in the field of computer security Group-IB: “He had been nurturing the speech for a long time, and in the end it turned out to be a whole story that was interesting to reveal, with a simple and clear idea about cybersecurity.”
In 2014, Ivan Konstantinov was among the speakers; he “visualized the world of bacteria and viruses on stage, showed what we cannot see.” Another impressive lecture was given by theater director Vasily Barkhatov - he talked about innovative opera, brought a whole orchestra, explained what modern opera is and how to understand it, Andrey recalls.
“Big” TED and presentation culture
“Firstly, the scale is different. People come to conferences in the USA and Canada Sergey Brin , Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. There they present their projects that concern the whole world, the future, and technology. These people are in the front row at the global level. There are great speakers in Russia too, but we must understand that this is a different level. Also, Parisian or Shanghai speakers are representatives of the local level,” says Egorov. — Secondly, a large team of screenwriters, directors, and production managers works to ensure that you and I see the perfect picture. Every detail is important there. And we are just enthusiasts on a volunteer basis.”
In addition, there is a difference in the culture of presentations: “At school we were not taught the art of presentation, as they do in the West with primary classes. Yes, we can give a lecture, but if the lecturer is asked if he can tell in five sentences what his speech is about, the person often breaks down. In two hours he can explain everything, but in minutes he can formulate a message - that’s already a problem.”
The curators are trying to eliminate the problem of presentation, but it concerns not only lectures, Andrey clarifies. “For example, complex technical developments that were carried out in Russia were turned into the iPhone in the West. They coped more successfully with the commercialization of science - they translated developments into a socially useful product. In our country, when complex technology appears, it is for some reason impossible to make an “iPhone” out of it. Rarely is the question asked what good can be gained from this scientific research", he adds.
But speakers and technologies still have potential. The art of presentations in the USA sometimes takes on bizarre forms: “If we have difficulties with the simple, then they, starting from the simple, may never arrive at the complex and slide into banality. We can learn to put on a show. The main thing is not to present emptiness.”
Video recordings of TEDx Moscow 2018 lectures will appear on the website and on YouTube- channel TEDx Talks in the coming months.