From tech to all round support, My TEDxperience
First time i heard about TEDx was when Margie ma’am came to class and told her idea, it was before we got the licence — maybe in the month of October or November. I got very excited, as it had been a more than a year of being a part of an event. My previous event was college’s annual science and technology festival. My role there was to get the capital for the event by getting sponsors, and the journey that I had, is one of the best if not the best thing that has happened to me in during my Bachelor’s. So i wanted to feel that all again, that success, that satisfaction, that urge to get the best results.
Firstly the theme had to be decided. At that time the discussion about the development of the infrastructure of Gujarat was trending, maybe because of the upcoming state election. And my friends and I were talking about it for long time over the necessity of Ahmedabad- Mumbai bullet train and Ahmedabad Metro project, So I had an idea to keep development as a focus for event. Ma’am and I had a discussion on that and somehow it didn’t look that much interesting to keep it as a theme. During our application process, TED had repeatedly asked us to include a diverse range of topics. Or did i fail to justify development as a theme?. After that, a meeting for theme discussion was called and that time I was out of town. From what I heard around, 2–3 hours of brainstorming session had led to “Netrutva- An eternal Journey” as our theme. Netrutva- the word in english means leadership. It has been a topic of discussion and debate, thinking and practice, aspiration and inspiration from the time since the mankind came into existence. Being a leader, what all MBA students aspire and also India — being a democratic country is full of leaders. Yet there are ideas and possibilities which remain to be shared with the public. We have business tycoons like the Ambanis, Birla and Tata but on the local side, in Ahmedabad, businesses like Havmor, Balaji Wafers, and Wagh Bakri also have very good success in terms of leading. Their ideas and stories would interest a person like me. So, from my side, I really liked the idea. Perhaps, not being in that brainstorming session is one of the regrets that I have.
Once the idea was developed, teams were also decided, and when I returned to Ahmedabad after the weekend, I felt too much backout from the event which was the only thing i didn’t want. So, i went to Ma’am and discussed my ideas for the event website, blog, newsletter and stuff, and from that time I officially became part of the team. Managing an event in the early stage is much like a sprouting plant. Even if my background was Engineering, I found myself involved in matters like sourcing T-shirts, to setting up handles and platforms, thinking of posters, selling of tickets, and so much more.
During my Bachelor’s, I had worked on the sponsorship team for my college event. Although that being a pleasant experience, I didn’t get the chance to properly enjoy the feeling of the event as i was busy handling the sponsors at that time. So, i wanted to work on the different side this time. That’s why I chose to focus on website, blog and social media marketing — to begin with.
Being an Electrical Engineer and not an IT Engineer, the only thing I knew was how to make a website through Wordpress, so I first made a sample on Wordpress which was not satisfactory. So I searched some open, customisable Wordpress theme and in that process I found Tedxtoronto theme. But once I applied it, it just didn’t look that great. So after many iterations and some 5–6 days of disappointment, i asked my friend Divyaraj and Chirag to help me in this matter. They helped me creating the website using html and taught me how to edit the content. But it wasn’t enough. Also, there were some compatibility issues with the wbesite. We were back to nowhere. It’s interesting how solutions can be just nearby when you think you have failed. Vatsal and Utasvi from my batch joined the work and we made the website from scratch. This time it seemed we had what we wanted.
The website issue was barely tackled and the next thing was to make blog. If your TEDx event has a small license, everything is difficult — getting the sponsors, for example. One way to engage the local community was to communicate with them through different platforms. I was not just populating content on our website and blog, but also the Facebook page, and other accounts like Twitter and Instagram. Again, I tried to make our Blog using Wordpress at first., It was satisfactory but didn’t look that good. Medium is one of the blogging platform which has many uses. Its UI (User Interface) is very intuitive, it is easy to setup, and such. What I really like is that it provides a different section to make a publication. It puts all the blog posts in one place and the readers can see it on their medium timeline. It’s easy for the users to read, and Medium also comes first in Google search. So, after all pros and cons discussion I suggested to keep Medium as our blogging platform. First it didn’t look that promising as it has less customization than Wordpress — especially if someone is familiar with Wordpress but not with Medium. Anyway, our Medium blog had all the utilities we wanted and a lot of time has already been spent on it and website, so we decided to go with Medium.
I haven’t worked on the Search committee, but there was one instance, when we had a seminar on Corporate Governance, where one of the speakers was an Alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, Mr. Nayan Parikh. He had a lot of interesting ideas and government reforms to talk about, which i really liked a lot. So, i asked Margie Ma’am and Sanjana if we could have a slot for him. After a discussion with Mr. Parikh and TEDx team, we finally had a speaker where I had a little contribution. XD
The next thing i worked on was selling of the tickets, I proposed the idea of selling the tickets online. As it is easier to buy tickets online, it is effortless. The transactions can be stored electronically and having a ticket available on online platform creates additional traction too. But after getting quotation from Hubilio, Meraevents, Bookeo and Insider, the selling of tickets online seemed expensive. Finally, after I received a quotation from Allevents, it sounded promising. And we decided to sell tickets exclusively through Allevents.
Some little social handles changes have also been a part of my contribution (wherein I also made some big mistakes XD), some designing ideas of posters and tickets. I made a design of the sponsor strip which would later become part of our email signature, the footer of all blog posts, posters, and tickets. Oh, and there was also a Newsletter which wasn’t that good — who would know all about designing poster in my line? For the event promotion I had an idea to keep a contest where people have to guess the speaker based on speaker qualities and in return they get some TEDx merchandise. After discussion we decided to have that kind of contest where we get to release speaker names one by one and people also know it by participating in the contest. Same as the contest, the idea of having a brand ambassador from every colleges also had been discussed and the team really liked it. For all this promotion activities, Vatsal Kundaliya and Dhrumil Shah from Dhruvats helped a lot — from designing of the contest posters to finding out the brand ambassador. They became our digital media partners.
The world of a volunteer to events is interesting / Such is the world of a volunteer to college events. Many mistakes were made but I had also given a lot of interesting ideas. Well, it is not like business where errors or delays could be expensive. There were many arguments and discussions. Working with this amazing team and getting the chance to pitch my ideas to them is the only thing I wanted and that what makes my TEDx journey a satisfaction for me. I have learned a lot about communication and even a lot on the technical side too. The things that I missed during my previous event are not missed now. I am thankful to my team for all the chance and support they have given. To those people I am an overall support guy. Although Tech is what I am better at, when I look at my work for TEDxGujaratUniversity, it is much more diverse in nature and scope. May be not everything came off right at the first time — but we are not done yet!
And the best method of learning is learning from failure. And finally the quote that i’ll never forget.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”
-Winston Churchill
P.S. The first iteration of this article had many grammatical and structural mistakes. I am heartly thankful to Margie ma’am and Laxhmi for all the beautiful edits suggestion.
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