4 Invaluable Things You Learn while Tangling Yourself with TED and TEDx
I’ve been involved in TEDx for some years now. It all started when we applied for the TEDxAlmendraMedieval license back in 2013. Today, having organized three events so far, we are starting to slowly move the wheel again for TEDxVitoriaGasteiz 2017. Today, after having gone to a TEDGlobal in December 2015 and to a TED Summit in June 2016, I can’t conceive my life outside the TED and TEDx communities. It’s not just the events. It’s a lot more. If I look back to our first event, and the things I said I learned while organizing it, I’m overcome with a wave of nostalgia.
Today, the main thing I’ve learned while organizing TEDx events–and attending TED conferences–is that organizing a TEDx event is pretty much like managing a small company. No exaggeration here — you’ll see.
So let’s revisit some of the things I’ve learned over these last couple of years.
Project Management
This is, in my opinion, the most valuable skill you acquire after you’ve organized a couple of TEDxs.
Project management is the ring to rule them all. It has to do with timing, but also with people and resources.
First and foremost, you need to sort out the tasks derived from your event. Once you know the tasks, and more or less the time required to complete them, you assign these to the people who are going to do them and provide them with the resources, and that’s it. It’s not as simple as this sentence makes it seem because there are hundreds of tasks with different timings, tasks that need to be done simultaneously by two different teams, tasks that don’t require to be completed before starting the next step, …
Time Management
Secondly, you need to manage time. Depending on the size of your event you need to sort some things out many months in advance. The speakers’ schedule might become complicated if you wait until the last minute to ask them.
Fundraising takes a lot of time. A. lot. Consider the mailings, the calls, the meetings, and so on and so forth before you come to an agreement with a sponsor. Multiply this by the number of sponsors you want to partner with for your event.
Everything takes time–design and web development take time, gathering all speakers takes time, promotion takes time…–and it’s you who has to consider timing.
Also (and this is for X-Day) you have to take into account that moving a mass of people from one place to another takes time. And 100 people applauding is not the same thing as 500 people applauding. The bigger the audience, the longer it takes to quiet them if they start laughing or applauding.
Team Management
Who is going to do what? You will learn a lot about delegating. Listen carefully: if you don’t delegate, you’re dead. As simple as that.
A TEDx event requires a team working together. In our case, we are 5 people in the core team, and a cohort of 30 volunteers (mainly for X-Day minus 1 and X-Day.) We more or less divide the tasks taking our own tastes and wishes into account, which is not always possible.
You’ll learn everything about team building and how to keep motivation up. Remember that keeping it fun is the key point to motivation when everything is done for free. And to TEDx volunteers, almost the only reward is having a good time. Keep it fun!
Resources Management
Or, in other words, fundraising and logistics.
You need money to produce your event and the fundraising is a critical part of any TEDx. Therefore, you’ll become the best salesperson of your event.
You’ll have to sell them on the advantages of becoming a partner: what you’re able to do for them, what you did in your last events, what you plan to do in your next one…. That’s more or less what you’ll need to repeat again and again in the meetings with possible partners. But you’ll learn a lot from them. And once you’ve met a couple of times, you’ll know what to expect in every situation.
And, finally, logistics; everything that has to do with the venue, the food, the wellbeing of the speakers and attendees. You might be surprised by the end to learn that you actually do have only two hands.
There are hundreds of other little things that you will also learn on your way. The learning process is very personal, and what has been a discovery for me might not be as new in your case. It’s obviously not the same thing organizing an event as it is attending one. And it’s not the same coordinating an area as it is coordinating the whole thing. But regardless of the situation, you can take a lot from it. In fact, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. Challenging, isn’t it?
