An Ode to TEDxBeaconStreet Rehearsals
by Henry Lieberman
I always wanted to present a TEDx talk. I’ve felt that way ever since I attended one of the early TED conferences in the 1990s in Kobe, Japan. Then, as now, it was really difficult to even get in. I only got in because I went with my mentor, MIT Professor Muriel Cooper, a speaker, and a longtime colleague of TED founder Richard Saul Wurman. The attendees were an impressive crowd, over half CEOs. One of the
highlights I remember is meeting one of my musical heroes, Herbie Hancock.
I remember, also, that one of the rules that Ricky had, was that each talk had to be something that the speaker had never before presented in public. That way, he prevented the bigshots from giving their canned stump speeches. Another rule was that each talk had to be 17 minutes. If he had said 15 or 20, people would have treated the time
as approximate, but with 17, people had to plan out the speech to hit
the target time.
Everybody presented passionate and heartfelt talks. A number of them
were from speakers who had some kind of unconventional analysis about
what was wrong with the world, and a radical idea for how to fix it.
I wanted to be one of those save-the-world guys.
Fast forward to 2017. I was just completing a book with my colleague, Christopher Fry, entitled Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? It’s a “big think” book about the future of technology and society. We wrote it out of concern for the directions society was going in, and we
wanted to help people understand the potential of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and personal manufacturing. We wrote
it to counteract some of the pessimistic fear-mongering you see in the news, warning about the dangers of technology. We felt like people were so scared of the dangers that they were overlooking the
possibility of transforming our society in much more positive
directions. We make some pretty radical proposals for how we might
redesign the economy and government for the 21st century. It’s a
highly optimistic book, aimed at making the world a more cooperative
place.
One of my MIT Media Lab colleagues is the director of TEDxBeaconStreet, one of the most prestigious and popular of the
geographically based TEDx franchise series. He put out a call for
speakers to audition. I thought, perfect! We’ve got an unconventional
analysis what’s wrong with the world. We’ve got some radical, maybe
even crazy, prescriptions for fixing it. It goes against a lot of the
conventional wisdom. We had never talked about it to a public audience
before. Hey, if you can’t present your crazy idea for saving the world
at TEDx, where can you?
Although a lot of the TEDx talks look informal and conversational when
you see them, you can’t just stroll up on stage and give one. At least
with TEDxBeaconStreet, there’s a pretty rigorous schedule of
qualifying auditions and rehearsals that extends for months before the
day of the event. You get a book of guidelines and advice about how to
structure the talk. You spend a lot of time watching TEDx talks for
inspiration. At the rehearsals, your audience includes the event
organizers, your fellow speakers, and anyone from anywhere who wants to watch; they’re open to the public.
TEDxBeaconStreet presents three full days of events, so there are a lot of
speakers. By definition, each of them has a fascinating story to
tell, so they’re a great group, and over the months, it becomes a
community. And nobody’s shy about saying what they think.
I wasn’t sure how people were going to take the content of the talk,
but one thing I was absolutely sure about, was my own ability as a
speaker. As an academic researcher and teacher, I do public speaking
for a living. I can do everything from a one-minute elevator pitch, to
a full semester course. Humility aside, people tell me I’m a good
speaker. Just wind me up.
We were at one of the early rehearsals. My co-author, Fry, is an equal
partner in the work leading to the book, so we decide to tag-team the
talk, each of us presenting a part. I carefully prepared the slides.
Because we are trying to squeeze a 400 page book of enormous scope
into a 12-minute talk, I wanted to make sure that all the important
points appeared in text on the slides, so that the audience wouldn’t
lose track.
The big pitch day arrived, and…
The talk didn’t tank, exactly. But it did cause a stir, both because
of the content and because of the form. The talk was immediately
followed by a loud chorus of “What about…”s. People posed pointed
questions about glib statements or outrageous claims that we had made
quickly, without much explanation. People raised objections to what
seemed like extreme opinions, which we had expressed without detailed
justification.
That much we expected. So much so, in fact, that our book ends with a
chapter of Frequently Asked Questions. Most of the questions people
asked were already in our FAQ. So we weren’t surprised. We tried as
best we could to give short answers, but couldn’t go on at length or
provide much background. I took the audience reaction as a positive
indication that our talk was thought-provoking.
Since there were many rehearsal talks going on simultaneously, the
TEDx organizers flitted about from one room to another to hear the
talks. One of the organizers arrived just as the “What about…” session
started to get heated. She piped up with some substantial “What
about”s of her own, and didn’t look very happy. Later, it occurred to
me that perhaps she didn’t like the talk, or that she took all the
questions and objections as an indication that the audience did not
like the talk.
Further, we got some negative feedback on how we presented it.
“Too academic.” (I’m an academic, whaddya expect?)
“Too much stuff on the slides.”
“TEDx talks are given by a single person, not two.”
OK, fair points, all. Back to the drawing board.
I tried to simplify the slides. I boiled it down to a set of seven
bullet points. A surprise partnership with Prezi made the slides a great improvement on what we started with. Fry graciously agreed to let me give the presentation solo.
Still, while I was happy myself with the presentation, I wasn’t
absolutely sure we were getting traction from the audience and from
the organizers. In one of the subsequent rehearsals, I got a piece of
feedback that really struck me: “Make it more personal.” Some of the
other talks were indeed intensely personal, emotionally wrenching
stories of people struggling with deadly illnesses, wartime
conditions, or other crises. We, of course, didn’t have that kind of
story. But, thinking it over, I realized that it was indeed possible
to make the talk more personal.
While we didn’t have a story about a struggle with a personal crisis,
we were indeed talking about a crisis in the direction of society, one
that many people, including ourselves, struggle with understanding and
dealing with. I could tell the story, in the first person, about how I
came to recognize the problems and figure out the solutions. And I
could use personal stories, my own, and those of others, to drive home
the points.
So, again, back to the drawing board. I completely rewrote the talk.
Forget about the slides entirely. Forget about the bullet points. Just
look at the audience and talk. I started with a personal story. It was
about how frightened I was as a 10-year-old child during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, and how it got me to thinking about the craziness and
absurdity of the adult world. And I talked about the wisdom of the
quote from the Rodney King story that we reference in the title. I
traced the thread of the development of ideas in the book from
mathematics and evolutionary theory to artificial intelligence, and my
collaboration with my co-author on proposals for the economy and for
government.
As we were nearing a few weeks til show time, I got a call from the
TEDx director. “You guys have a great talk here, but it’s a complex
subject, and maybe would be better if you had a little more time to
make sure it would have the maximum possible impact. There’s always
next year…”
Uh-oh.
“Hey — are you saying you want to cancel my talk?! Now??”
“Look, I know we’ve had some mixed reaction. I know you’re managing a lot of talks and may not have had the time to hear the talk all the
way through. And don’t mistake people getting excited after the talk,
even if they have objections, for them not liking it. It’s that
they’re hearing stuff new to them and they’re getting engaged. Plus
I’ve completely rewritten the talk from scratch and you haven’t heard
the latest.Tell you what — give me one last chance to present the talk to you,
personally. If you still want to cancel it, then, fine.”“Well… I’m really busy and I’m not sure I can make the time to…”
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m at Boston City Hall Plaza, at the Hubfest arts festival.”
“Don’t move!”
Fifteen minutes later, we sat down on a concrete bench, on a windswept
plaza with festival crowds all around. Interrupted occasionally by
panhandlers, and the sirens of ambulances heading to nearby Mass.
General Hospital, I gave him the talk. I closely watched his face for
a reaction.
“You’re in. You were never out.”
“Thanks!!! I won’t let you down.”
Day of the talk. I’m pretty nervous waiting to get on stage. As I
said, I’m an experienced public speaker, so I don’t usually get
nervous before talks. But this one posed some special challenges. The
talk was so tightly organized that I couldn’t leave out even a few
sentences, or the audience might not be able to to follow the flow of
topics. I couldn’t let myself digress on any topic or I’d blow out the
time limit. At the same time, I didn’t want to memorize it
word-for-word. For the first time in years, I had to give a talk
without any visual support. I couldn’t have any slides the audience
couldn’t also see. I wasn’t allowed to refer to notes or index cards
while on stage. Actually, I cheated. I printed out a list of topics in
the smallest readable font, and taped the piece of paper to the inside
of my wrist. But luckily, I never actually needed to refer to it.
(If you haven’t seen Henry’s talk yet, watch it here!)
The audience was great. As I was getting off the stage, waiting was
the organizer who had originally given us the critical what-abouts.
She gave me a hug. “Henry, you crushed it!”
So, you got a crazy idea about how to save the world?
Some radical solutions? Personal struggle? Unusual viewpoint? Stuff the world needs to hear? By all means, give a TEDx talk. But no matter how
experienced a speaker you are, don’t just spit out your standard stump
speech or academic conference talk. Make it personal.
TED’s motto is: “Ideas Worth Spreading.” But, before you spread your
ideas to the entire world, first spread them to a group of people
that’ll really make you think, even if it takes you months and many
rewrites: TEDx organizers and your fellow TEDx speakers.
