TEDxSalem

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TEDxSalem speaker has big ideas for small houses

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Photo courtesy of Eugene Weekly
Pho­to cour­tesy of Todd Cooper/Eugene Week­ly

The Rev. Dan Bryant didn’t set out to rev­o­lu­tion­ize hous­ing for the home­less, it just sort of hap­pened.

Bryant is one of 13 speak­ers at this year’s TEDxSalem Oct. 3. His home base is First Chris­t­ian Church in Eugene where home­less and low-income res­i­dents go for help, meals and an empa­thet­ic ear down­town. So when Eugene strug­gled with an influx of home­less res­i­dents in 2011, the city invit­ed Bryant, along with many oth­ers, to brain­storm solu­tions.

“A place to be” topped the list of needs.

Then in walked Andy Heben, a guy who spent his sum­mer vis­it­ing home­less tent cities around the coun­try to under­stand what works and what doesn’t. Bryant hired Heben and togeth­er they per­suad­ed the city to let them pilot a home­less com­mu­ni­ty on one acre of unused city land in 2013.

That’s the gen­e­sis of Oppor­tu­ni­ty Vil­lage Eugene, the city’s first suc­cess­ful self-gov­erned home­less com­mu­ni­ty.  As many as 35 res­i­dents and five dogs call the vil­lage home at any one time.

“This isn’t some­thing I set out to do,” Bryant said. “I was more of a peace and social jus­tice guy work­ing on glob­al issues.”

Now he describes him­self as an acci­den­tal hous­ing wonk, and he has big ideas for the next evo­lu­tion of hous­ing for the home­less: Micro Hous­ing.

Cur­rent­ly there are few afford­able hous­ing options for home­less res­i­dents ready to strike out on their own. There is a five-year wait­ing list for sin­gles and cou­ples to get Sec­tion 8 Hous­ing, a fed­er­al hous­ing pro­gram for low-income res­i­dents.

But Bryant hopes to pilot a solu­tion this year that involves 1.2 acres, tiny homes and big ideas that pick up where Oppor­tu­ni­ty Vil­lage Eugene leaves off.

“It’s a game chang­er in many ways,” Bryant said, “They have their tiny ver­sion of the Amer­i­can dream.”

To hear how Bryant plans to rev­o­lu­tion­ize hous­ing for the home­less and to lis­ten to oth­er TEDx Salem speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.

Unraveling the meaning behind TEDx, one letter at a time

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TED is a non­prof­it devot­ed to spread­ing ideas, usu­al­ly in the form of short, pow­er­ful talks. But what does the acronym TED, and its spin-off TEDx, stand for? We explore the phi­los­o­phy, the mean­ing and the spir­it behind the TED con­fer­ences, one let­ter at a time.

—

T is for …

tech­nol­o­gy noun tech·nol·o·gy \tek-ˈnä-lə-jē\ : the use of sci­ence in indus­try, engi­neer­ing, etc., to invent use­ful things or to solve prob­lems

“Any suf­fi­cient­ly advanced tech­nol­o­gy is indis­tin­guish­able from mag­ic.”
―Arthur C. Clarke

daniel-bell-technology

“Tech­nol­o­gy is the camp­fire around which we tell our sto­ries.”
―Lau­rie Ander­son

“The art chal­lenges the tech­nol­o­gy, and the tech­nol­o­gy inspires the art.”
―John Las­seter

For some­thing name-checked so wide­ly through­out our soci­ety, the pre­cise mean­ing of the word tech­nol­o­gy is not that well-known. Tech­nol­o­gy is so fre­quent­ly placed in con­junc­tion with the word sci­ence that many think of the two as the same. Some equate tech­nol­o­gy pure­ly with gad­getry while oth­ers think some­what hazi­ly of all the things that make the present dif­fer­ent from the past.
[source: www.esa.int]

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What tech­no­log­i­cal break­throughs are we explor­ing here in Salem and our greater Ore­gon com­mu­ni­ty? Bring your ideas to TEDxSalem: Tick­ets are avail­able for $50 for gen­er­al admis­sion and $40 for stu­dents at https://tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com. One tick­et includes a full day of talks, enter­tain­ment, recess activ­i­ties, swag, snacks, lunch and an after-par­ty.

Vickie Hardin Woods: “Hi! Do you like pie?”

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Ac6-12-2015cord­ing to Vick­ie Hardin Woods, “if you’re going to give a gift, [a pie] is about the right gift.”

“If you give some­thing that is too valu­able, then the per­son feels oblig­ed to give some­thing back,” she said. “But you also want it to have enough effort and val­ue” to show that you care.

Two years ago Woods was inspired to per­fect the gift of giv­ing, one day at a time, with a lit­tle help from her oven. Over the course of a 365-day peri­od, begin­ning with a lemon meringue, she baked one fresh pie each day from scratch and deliv­ered it, unso­licit­ed, to friends, neigh­bors and even­tu­al­ly even com­plete strangers. She gained noto­ri­ety in local news by pho­tograph­ing each pie and its smil­ing, occa­sion­al­ly dis­ori­ent­ed recip­i­ent as part of her blog.

For her TEDx talk, Woods will dis­cuss how sur­pris­ing peo­ple with pie gave her both a deep­er under­stand­ing of com­mu­ni­ty, and insight into her own sense of pur­pose after retir­ing from a 30-year career in local gov­ern­ment.

A pie-a-day blog – Seems daunt­ing, but is it real­ly? Here are some key ingre­di­ents, and tips to make yours a smash hit at your next ran­dom encounter…

What you would need:

  • (137) dif­fer­ent pie recipes
  • Fresh, local, whole­some organ­ic ingre­di­ents
  • A Tum­blr blog
  • Be retired
  • Option­al: (5) grand­chil­dren to occa­sion­al­ly help deliv­er pies.

Break the ice. “That was on many days the hard­est thing I had to do,” she said, “to find some­body, and then approach them and give them the pie.” It’s impor­tant to estab­lish a con­nec­tion, even if it’s brief, she said.

“You can’t just walk up to a stranger and say, ‘Here’s a pie.’ You have to build some sort of rela­tion­ship, no mat­ter how short it is.”

Some were more recep­tive than oth­ers, she said. Some­times small talk would not be enough for a skep­ti­cal stranger; more often than not, though, Woods’ pie pitch would find a will­ing par­tic­i­pant.

“There’s some­thing about break­ing through that bar­ri­er,” she said. “I don’t know how many times I had peo­ple say to me, ‘This is the best thing that’s hap­pened to me today!”

Fail­ures hap­pen. “Usu­al­ly if [a pie] didn’t turn out, I fig­ured it was me, not the pie,” Woods said. She remem­bered a par­tic­u­lar pecan pie she tried to show off at a cook­ing class she was tak­ing at Carl’s Cui­sine on Chemeke­ta St. In a hur­ry, she had failed to give the pie enough time to set. “I opened up the car­ri­er and there’s this gooey mess all over the bot­tom.”

Blend until ingre­di­ents come togeth­er. Woods sees pie giv­ing as “less as grat­i­tude than just a gift, free of all encum­brances, grace,” she said. It took rough­ly a month to work up the nerve to approach her first stranger, she said. But the reward of mak­ing peo­ple hap­py made the chal­lenge worth­while for her.

“I got the sat­is­fac­tion of know­ing that I touched someone’s life,” she said.

For Woods, pie pro­vid­ed struc­ture to a life in tran­si­tion. It forced her to get out into the world. And in hand­ing home-baked good­ness to peo­ple some­times far from their home, she brought the world a lit­tle clos­er to hers.

“Each pie is its own jour­ney,” she said, from her kitchen to points unknown, and the sto­ries told and expe­ri­enced in between.

“That’s what life is about, our sto­ries.”

 

– To see Vick­ie Hardin Woods and oth­er TEDx Salem 2015 speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.

 

World domination one TEDxSalem at a time

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TEDxSalem 2013
Par­tic­i­pants did­n’t know what to expect dur­ing the first TEDxSalem, but they left feel­ing con­nect­ed, ener­gized.

Salem expe­ri­enced its first TEDx in 2013, when orga­niz­ers Car­lee Wright and Bri­an Hart launched the event with 14 talks, 100 par­tic­i­pants and a whole lot of faith.

“It was a first for us, and it was a first for all of them as well. They didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly know what to expect, and they came ready to expe­ri­ence it,” Wright said.

For her, that day was a blur of run­ning around and answer­ing ques­tions. Hart han­dled the flow back­stage, and he could hear laugh­ter from the auidence and feel the crowd’s ener­gy dur­ing the speak­ers and recess when audi­ence mem­bers became active par­tic­i­pants in the exchange of ideas.

“You can feel it when stuff is real­ly going well, and it’s kind of a mag­i­cal day,” he said.

“We were like, ‘This is exact­ly what we want­ed.’”

It wasn’t until Wright saw the pho­tos and videos from the event that she appre­ci­at­ed the scope of what they had accom­plished. She hoped that peo­ple would step out of their bub­ble and expe­ri­ence some­thing new. The pho­tos showed peo­ple engag­ing with one anoth­er and once strangers chat­ting away.

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In its sec­ond year, TEDxSalem grew to 300 par­tic­i­pants and includ­ed extras such as a spe­cial mes­sage record­ed by AJ Jacobs, known for the TED Talk “The world’s largest fam­i­ly reunion,” just for the Salem audi­ence.

 

Now the team behind TEDxSalem is ramp­ing up for its third event Sat­ur­day, Oct. 3, this time at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter with 13 speak­ers and pos­si­bly 500 or more par­tic­i­pants.

The first two events helped lay the foun­da­tion, and now orga­niz­ers have turned their focus to mak­ing it bet­ter and bet­ter. This year, they are part­ner­ing with Enlight­ened The­atrics, a Salem the­ater com­pa­ny, to offer a unique, hybrid per­for­mance as a lit­tle some­thing extra. Hart was mum on the details because he didn’t want to ruin the sur­prise.

Look­ing ahead, both Hart and Wright would love to bring more high-pro­file speak­ers to Salem. Wright said she wouldn’t mind hear­ing from author Neil Gaiman or fil­mak­er Tim Bur­ton if they hap­pen to be read­ing. Hart  wants the big game-chang­ers in a par­tic­u­lar field, such as the ones lead­ing devel­op­ments in brain sci­ence or tech­nol­o­gy.

At the same time, it’s essen­tial to keep spots for local speak­ers, too, he said. They also want to devel­op new ways to expe­ri­ence TEDx and share those ideas with oth­er com­mu­ni­ties.

The end goal? World dom­i­na­tion, of course.

“Our goal is not just to be one of the pre­miere events in Ore­gon,” Hart said, “but the world.”

Give it anoth­er three years. There is no telling where TEDxSalem might lead.

Don’t miss the ear­ly bird tick­et price for this year’s TEDxSalem:

Get $10 off the tick­et price if you order before June 18th at https://tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com. After that tick­ets are avail­able for $50 for gen­er­al admis­sion and $40 for stu­dents. One tick­et includes a full day of talks, enter­tain­ment, recess activ­i­ties, swag, snacks, lunch and an after-par­ty.

 

Meet Patrick Moreau, an Emmy-winning filmmaker

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Patrick More­au is a film­mak­er, a sto­ry­teller, an inno­va­tor and an Emmy-win­ner (five times over).

He had no inter­est in film, had nev­er even picked up a cam­era, but two years into a psy­chol­o­gy degree, some­thing changed.

“While in uni­ver­si­ty, I was learn­ing about all these cool, tough issues. I was real­ly inter­est­ed in explor­ing why and how…different ways of liv­ing, how peo­ple approach the world,” Patrick said. “That led me to film­mak­ing. I fell in love with the idea of telling a sto­ry and its impact on peo­ple.”

Out of the blue, Patrick got a call from a poten­tial client. They were look­ing for some­one who could tell a sto­ry dif­fer­ent­ly, with emo­tion.

“At the time, we were shoot­ing 30 to 40 wed­dings a year. One of our wed­dings went viral,” Patrick said.

That viral video helped Patrick’s com­pa­ny, Still­mo­tion, land the gig to cre­ate “A Game of Hon­or,” a TV and web series for NFL.com. It doc­u­ment­ed the NFL sea­son through episod­ic sto­ries.

His back­ground in psy­chol­o­gy com­pli­ments his sto­ry­telling abil­i­ty pro­vid­ing a deep­er under­stand­ing of char­ac­ter and the abil­i­ty to cap­ture that under­stand­ing on film.

“A Game of Hon­or” won three Emmys includ­ing Out­stand­ing Sports Doc­u­men­tary, Out­stand­ing New Approach to Sports Pro­gram­ming and Out­stand­ing Sports Pro­mo­tion­al Announce­ment.

Filmmaker Patrick Moreau

But that series was only the start, a jump­ing off point for Patrick and Still­mo­tion. Patrick was a fea­tured speak­er for the Social Inno­va­tion Sum­mit at the Unit­ed Nations. His team has gone on to chase cadets through the forests of Vir­ginia and explore child slav­ery through the eyes of a 9‑year-old girl sell­ing lemon­ade. His pas­sion for film­mak­ing has led him to ded­i­cate sev­en years devel­op­ing and teach­ing edu­ca­tion­al sto­ry­telling work­shops.

As he aims to make the unthink­able, approach­able, he speaks to the heart with his visu­al sto­ry­telling.

Come hear Patrick’s sto­ry on the TEDxSalem stage on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 3. Get your tick­ets here.

Fearless against failure: The story behind this year’s location

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SCC Front 1

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt any­thing?
— Vin­cent van Gogh

It’s espe­cial­ly mean­ing­ful that this year’s TEDxSalem con­fer­ence — the theme of which is “fear­less” — is being held at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

Why? Fear very near­ly pre­vent­ed a con­fer­ence cen­ter from com­ing to down­town Salem at all.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the fear that such a ven­ture would fail.

The con­ven­tion cen­ter opened with great fan­fare and a rib­bon-cut­ting in 2005.

But in the decades lead­ing up to that moment, devel­op­ers and city offi­cials alike had tried and failed and tried again to bring a hotel and con­ven­tion cen­ter to Salem’s down­town.

There was the pro­posed Hilton Hotel and con­ven­tion cen­ter in 1976 that would have cost an esti­mat­ed $21 mil­lion. But the devel­op­er strug­gled to find finan­cial back­ers and ulti­mate­ly cost the city hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. There was talk of a river­front con­ven­tion cen­ter, a down­town civic space and even a golf course. A devel­op­er in the 90’s pro­posed a $27.7 mil­lion con­fer­ence cen­ter and hotel, only to be reject­ed by the City Coun­cil.

It was­n’t until the ear­ly 2000s that city offi­cials began work­ing with the com­pa­ny behind the Phoenix Inn to bring a hotel and con­ven­tion cen­ter to the space. A $32 mil­lion cen­ter was approved in 2003 under May­or Janet Tay­lor.

But fears about the project — its size, scale, cost, what it promised the com­mu­ni­ty, even what it looked like — con­tin­ued to run ram­pant. Cit­i­zens were wor­ried about the size and the design. Busi­ness own­ers expressed con­cerns over its impact to the down­town econ­o­my. And some city offi­cials ago­nized over whether or not it was a wise invest­ment.

When the cen­ter opened in 2005, even its strongest sup­port­ers acknowl­edged it would like­ly lose mon­ey in its first few years.

Instead, the cen­ter host­ed 284 events and 45,000 peo­ple in its first 10 months alone.

Since then, the cen­ter has played host to elab­o­rate din­ners, ele­gant fundrais­ers, farewell par­ties for city dig­ni­taries, nation­al con­fer­ences and local high school reunions.

And this fall, we’re thrilled that the cen­ter will be host­ing TEDxSalem 2015.

It was a fear­less few who made the cen­ter a real­i­ty. This Octo­ber, let’s cel­e­brate that.