TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2015 TEDxSalem

Meet us at Salem Sunday Streets

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TED volunteersA main moti­va­tor behind the work our vol­un­teers do is to make Salem bet­ter. So it’s a no-brain­er that we will be at Salem Sun­day Streets from noon to 4 p.m. on Aug. 30.

The Mox­ie Ini­tia­tive, the non­prof­it behind TEDxSalem and many oth­er local projects, will have a booth staffed with vol­un­teers to pro­mote the Oct. 3 event and to inter­view par­tic­i­pants on cam­era about our theme, fear­less.

We would love for you to drop by, share your thoughts on fear­less­ness and what you’re look­ing for­ward to expe­ri­enc­ing at TEDxSalem — or just come say hel­lo!

If you’re not famil­iar with Salem Sun­day Streets, it’s an annu­al event in down­town Salem that opens up the streets sur­round­ing the Capi­tol to bik­ers, skaters, run­ners and walk­ers. There will be food, drinks, enter­tain­ment and booths from local busi­ness­es and orga­ni­za­tions. You can see a map of the event here.

And of course, tick­ets to the third annu­al TEDxSalem on Oct. 3 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter are avail­able at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Pamela Wible — A TEDx Salem alum looks back

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It’s been quite a ride for Dr. Pamela Wible since she last took our stage.

It was two years ago that Wible stood before a TEDx Salem crowd as founder of the Ide­al Med­ical Care move­ment to talk about the impor­tance of chang­ing the imper­son­al, assem­bly-line men­tal­i­ty that infects the Amer­i­can med­ical care indus­try, for the health not just of patients but of doc­tors them­selves.

Pamela WibleIt’s a quest that for her began over 10 years ago, in town hall meet­ings where she would stand up and, as she puts it, bare her soul to the very peo­ple who once stood naked before her, seek­ing her patients’ advice in how to devel­op a more inti­mate, more com­pas­sion­ate med­ical care expe­ri­ence.

Her talk was one of the most well received TEDx Salem talks ever, gen­er­at­ing well over 200,000 views since being post­ed on YouTube. Since then, Wible has gone on to spread her mes­sage in inter­views on CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR and else­where. Ear­li­er this year, she was award­ed the 2015 Women Lead­ers in Med­i­cine Award by the Amer­i­can Med­ical Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion. This Novem­ber, she will speak at TEDMED in Palm Springs, Cal­i­for­nia.

Accord­ing to Wible, all the suc­cess is a sign that her mes­sage is res­onat­ing.

“It’s time to talk,” she said, “about the taboo top­ics that are hold­ing us back as a cul­ture.”

Since her talk, more peo­ple are hav­ing “black and white dis­cus­sions,” she said. Patients are frus­trat­ed with their hos­pi­tal and clin­ic expe­ri­ences, and are also begin­ning to rec­og­nize how equal­ly frus­trat­ed doc­tors are, she said. And doc­tors are start­ing to see the toll that the profession’s tra­di­tion­al rig­ors are tak­ing on their own emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal well being.

Over 1 mil­lion peo­ple lose their doc­tor to sui­cide, a sta­tis­tic Wible often cites in her talks. Since speak­ing at TEDx Salem, doc­tors are becom­ing more recep­tive of her mes­sage, she said, and more will­ing to speak up about the pain they endure, a pain that has often been insti­tu­tion­al­ized from med­ical school onward.

“It’s inspir­ing med stu­dents to stand up and refuse to be vic­tim­ized,” she said.

“Peo­ple are will­ing to say it out loud,” she said, “the time has come for the truth.”

Wible cred­its TEDx Salem with help­ing to “break through the media glass ceil­ing,” as she calls it, ampli­fy­ing the thoughts of a female fam­i­ly doc­tor from Eugene, in a media land­scape so often focused on male spe­cial­ists work­ing on the East Coast. Her TEDx Salem talk and accom­pa­ny­ing op-ed was also pub­lished in the Wash­ing­ton Post last sum­mer.

“It brings peo­ple to me,” she said, “in want­i­ng to know more.”

And as she pre­pares for her TEDMED talk, Wible recalls her TEDx Salem expe­ri­ence fond­ly.

“I was on such an emo­tion­al high, I wasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly tak­ing it all in,” she said. “I was so proud to be a part of it.”

It real­ly shows you the “pow­er of one new idea,” she said.

 

- To get your tick­ets for TEDx Salem 2015, click here.

 

Your FEARLESS back-to-school reading list

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There are only a few weeks left in sum­mer, and TEDx Salem 2015 is less than two months away! If you’re look­ing for some read­ing sug­ges­tions for that last camp­ing trip, road trip, or lazy stay-in-bed week­end before school starts, look no fur­ther!

Here are some staff-rec­om­mend­ed picks that are sure to please. In keep­ing with this year’s theme, these books explore what “fear­less” means to each of us…

 

Thin-Air-Jon-Krakauer

Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer

Saerom Yoo: “[The book] is about the dead­liest ascent to Mt. Ever­est [before the 2014 climb­ing sea­son] and tells the sto­ry of peo­ple who pur­sued a dream, risk­ing their lives. Read­ing it puts you on the edge of your seat and puts you right in the shoes of the climbers, who some­times can­not think straight due to their ambi­tions and delir­i­um. You don’t think, WHY DIDN’T THEY TURN BACK? You get it because you feel empa­thy for the char­ac­ters, even if you’re not a dare­dev­il at all.”

Stephanie Knowl­ton: “I think it shows the some­times thin line between fear­less and reck­less.”

 

daringgreatly_final525-resized-600

Dar­ing Great­ly: How the Courage to Be Vul­ner­a­ble Trans­forms the Way We Live, Love, Par­ent, and Lead – Brené Brown

Deb  Vaugh­an: “As the par­ent of a three year old, the con­cept of being vul­ner­a­ble with feel­ings in our house is a pow­er­ful way to approach con­ver­sa­tions as she learns how to process and express big­ger and big­ger feel­ings. And the idea that I am enough – Tell me that wouldn’t change most people’s lives. The quote I have on my desk at work is: “Quick and dirty wins the race. Per­fec­tion is the ene­my of done. Good enough is pret­ty effin’ good!” I quote it to my cowork­ers all the time!!!”

 

Rise of superman

The Rise of Super­man: Decod­ing the Sci­ence of Ulti­mate Human Per­for­mance – Steven Kotler

Bri­an Hart: “This book fea­tures some of the most amaz­ing high adven­ture ath­letes in the world and how they have over­come fear to reach “flow” states on a reg­u­lar basis. One of the best parts of the book is also one of the dark­est, and explains the dan­gers of being fear­less. In short, their addic­tion to being in the flow state, which is sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven to fire the same trig­gers in the brain as cocaine, hero­in and pot com­bined, end up lit­er­al­ly killing many of them. They become fear­less of just about every­thing…”

 

Born to run

Born to Run: A Hid­den Tribe, Super Ath­letes, and the Great­est Race the World Has Nev­er Seen – Christo­pher McDougall

Saerom: “Born to Run is close to my heart because I’m one of those peo­ple who nev­er con­sid­ered her­self a run­ner. But this book is so inspir­ing because it looks at a tribe of fel­low humans in a remote part of our world, run­ning for DAYS with­out any of the fan­cy run­ning equip­ment and no injuries. It explores the his­to­ry and sci­ence behind humans’ rela­tion­ship with run­ning, and you real­ize that WE’RE ALL RUNNERS. I read it while train­ing for my first half marathon, which was a very scary goal for me. It left me inspired and feel­ing strong. I still think back to it from time to time, when I’m daunt­ed by the phys­i­cal chal­lenge of run­ning. Oh, and I total­ly rocked the marathon, by the way. :-)”

 

face-music-life-exposed

Face the Music: A Life Exposed – Paul Stan­ley

Jay Shenai: “A some­what sur­pris­ing­ly infor­ma­tive auto­bi­og­ra­phy, quite intro­spec­tive for an indi­vid­ual so strong­ly iden­ti­fied with aggres­sive self-pro­mo­tion and masked, macho rock-and-roll. Along with the glam­our and glitz of this “back­stage pass,” Stan­ley also shares the anx­i­ety and trau­ma of his chaot­ic upbring­ing in New York City before join­ing Gene Sim­mons to form the band KISS.

Putting the group’s own efforts at mythol­o­giz­ing aside – How did some­one born with an ear defor­mi­ty (micro­tia), ren­dered deaf in one ear from birth, decide he could and would make such an impact on music? My favorite image comes rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly on, when an awk­ward pre-teen Stan­ley Bert Eisen sits on a bench wait­ing for his appoint­ment with his ther­a­pist, and unwraps a Blimpie sand­wich to eat in the park, alone. I like how he describes the soli­tude and the sand­wich. Imag­ine the feel­ing, of being ready to take on the world despite all the evi­dence to the con­trary, and all the doubters; not sure how, but just wait­ing for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to come.”

 

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Harry Potter 6

The Har­ry Pot­ter series – J. K. Rowl­ing

Saerom: “Har­ry Pot­ter and his friends con­stant­ly face the risk of death fight­ing the evil Death Eaters and Volde­mort. Har­ry some­times does cross into reck­less ter­ri­to­ry, though. I’m read­ing it for the first time cur­rent­ly and I’m on book 6 (Har­ry Pot­ter and the Half-Blood Prince). I’m con­stant­ly amazed at the adult themes dis­cussed in the books.”

Edi­tor’s Note: If you see Saerom around, please don’t talk about the end­ing. We’re try­ing not to spoil it for her.

 

Center Cannot Hold

The Cen­ter Can­not Hold: My Jour­ney Through Mad­ness – Elyn R. Saks

Bri­an: “It’s an incred­i­ble auto­bi­og­ra­phy about how [the author] strug­gles to main­tain a ‘nor­mal’ life while strug­gling with schiz­o­phre­nia every day.”

 

Eyes Watching God

Their Eyes Were Watch­ing God – Zora Neale Hurston

Stephanie: “Both the author and main char­ac­ter were fear­less at a time when women had lit­tle if any voice.”

 

Viktor Frankl

Man’s Search for Mean­ing – Vik­tor E. Fran­kl

Bri­an: “…hands down one of the most inspir­ing books I have ever read.”

 

 

- To get your tick­ets to TEDx Salem 2015, click here!

 

Sukhsimranjit Singh: Resolving conflict across cultures

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SukhsimranSukhsim­ran­jit Singh has a super­pow­er, steeped in an art form, derived from social sci­ence.

He can nego­ti­ate.

Singh does­n’t use this pow­er for evil; he does­n’t bend oth­ers to his will, he does­n’t manip­u­late to get what he’s after. He uses it for good; find­ing com­mon ground, bridg­ing cul­tures, fos­ter­ing peace and har­mo­ny.

It sounds incred­i­bly sim­ple. Easy, almost. But one does­n’t need to look far to imag­ine the glob­al pos­si­bil­i­ties that open up with such a skill. Imag­ine how dif­fer­ent war might look, if only com­pro­mise could be reached. How an empa­thet­ic con­nec­tion could dis­man­tle racism, sex­ism, reli­gious intol­er­ance, fear and hatred.

“Love and com­pas­sion are the most pow­er­ful things with­in us,” Singh says. “But we sub­due them with hatred and judge­ment.”

Singh is the asso­ciate direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion with­in the law school at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty, which he joined in 2008. He’s also a full-time mem­ber of the law fac­ul­ty, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the Atkin­son Grad­u­ate School of Man­age­ment, has con­sult­ed for the city of Salem, states of Ore­gon and Cal­i­for­nia, and has worked in and taught medi­a­tion in 17 coun­tries across the globe.

Legal­ly, he explains, medi­a­tion is all about get­ting past a par­ty’s posi­tion — I’m right, you’re wrong — and get­ting at a par­ty’s inter­ests. As a pro­fes­sion­al medi­a­tor, he lis­tens to both sides to find a mutu­al­ly agree­able solu­tion.

To illus­trate his work, he tells a para­ble about two sis­ters who are fight­ing over an orange.

Both sis­ters want the orange for them­selves. The obvi­ous and fair solu­tion would be to cut the orange in half. But nei­ther sis­ter is sat­is­fied with this, and so the fight­ing resumes.

A medi­a­tor would ask each sis­ter why she wants the orange. One sis­ter says she wants the orange for cook­ing. The oth­er wants the orange for its juice.

So the first sis­ter gets the orange peel, for cook­ing. And the sec­ond sis­ter gets the peeled orange, for juic­ing. Each sis­ter gets their ‘whole’ of the orange.

Sukhsimran and his daughter, Apar.
Singh and his daugh­ter, Apar.

In his medi­a­tion work, Singh says he likes to take the cas­es that oth­ers find impos­si­ble to solve. To him, every prob­lem has a nego­tiable solu­tion.

“I grew up in a dif­fer­ent cul­ture,” he says (Singh was born in Pun­jab, India, and came to the Unit­ed States in 2004 to be clos­er to his sis­ter). “So I’m able to empathize with dif­fer­ent sto­ries and be flex­i­ble in my think­ing. I like to chal­lenge myself.”

For his TED talk, Singh says he’ll dis­cuss how peo­ple see each oth­er, and how that inter­feres with nego­ti­a­tions; he’ll explain how dif­fer­ent cul­tures inter­act with one anoth­er.

“It sort of gets at the ques­tion of what is cul­ture,” he says. “Cul­ture is omnipresent. It may be more attached to reli­gion or law or fam­i­ly, but cul­ture is an amal­ga­ma­tion. There are lay­ers of cul­ture, and cul­ture changes over time.”

Indeed, lis­ten­ing to Singh’s TED talk may even pro­vide par­tic­i­pants with their own super­pow­ers.

“The per­son you nego­ti­ate with most is your­self,” he says.

See Singh and 12 oth­ers speak at TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

The all-day event is $40 for stu­dents and $50 for the gen­er­al pub­lic and includes talks, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day (break­fast, coffee/tea/water, snacks and lunch), a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies. Find your tick­ets here.

What does fearless look like?

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Von_GlitschkaVon Glitsch­ka, cre­ative direc­tor and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, want­ed to cre­ate a logo as fear­less as this year’s TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

“The theme “Fear­less” made me think a lot. Fear is nat­ur­al, but it’s also a choice so if I’m going to brand an event that is declar­ing peo­ple should be fear­less,” he said, “I need to be authen­tic in my approach.”

Glitsch­ka designed the last two TEDxSalem logos, which he described as aes­thet­i­cal­ly clean. It’s a look that didn’t seem to fit this year’s theme, he said, so he tried some­thing new.

Fearless_ProcessHe grabbed some black paint and a few brush­es and began paint­ing all the let­ters he need­ed. Then he arranged them in Pho­to­shop. It looked good, but some­thing was miss­ing.

“That’s when I read the word dif­fer­ent­ly. I’d nev­er noticed that the word fear­less is actu­al­ly two words “fear” and “less,” he said. “I want­ed to play off of “fear less,” and put fear aside and all that it implies.”

Fearless_Type

 

He decid­ed to asso­ciate fear with dis­or­der and rearranged the word so its let­ters were back­wards.

“In con­text of design, fear is main­ly about the fear of fail­ure,” he said. He thought, “What if they don’t like it?”

 

 

Once he added the col­or red, he liked what he saw. And so do we. Thank you for being fear­less in your design Glitsch­ka. T‑shirts with this year’s logo will be on sale at TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

 

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Learn what it means to be fear­less at TEDxSalem Oct. 3

The all-day event is $40 for stu­dents and $50 for the gen­er­al pub­lic and includes talks, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day (break­fast, coffee/tea/water, snacks and lunch), a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies. Be fear­less and find your tick­ets here.

Von Glitsch­ka is the cre­ative direc­tor and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, a small bou­tique design firm in Salem. Its diverse range of illus­tra­tive designs have been used by some of the most respect­ed glob­al brands. The stu­dio cre­ative­ly col­lab­o­rates with ad agen­cies, design firms, cor­po­rate art depart­ments, and small busi­ness­es to pro­duce com­pelling illus­tra­tive design.

Michael Davis: What we get from “Sesame Street”

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Author of "Street Gang"Ask Michael Davis what his favorite Sesame Street sketch is, and one comes to mind right away: “Bert and Ernie Fish Call.” In it, the laid-back Ernie con­founds Bert with his unortho­dox yet wild­ly suc­cess­ful method for fish­ing. It’s a sophis­ti­cat­ed and pret­ty fun­ny gag for such a sim­ple con­ceit: two Mup­pets in a boat, dodg­ing fish.

“I think they’re one of the great com­e­dy teams of all time,” said Davis, author of the New York Times Best­seller Street Gang: The Com­plete His­to­ry of Sesame Street, and speak­er at this year’s TEDx Salem.

Fun fact – Accord­ing to Davis, in Bert and Ernie you can see sub­tle hints of the real-life cre­ative ten­sion between the straight-laced Frank Oz, and the more mis­chie­vous Jim Hen­son, one that helped dri­ve the show for years.

You can also see how a sketch that first aired in 1982 endures to this day, and still appeals to view­ers both younger and old­er. Cur­rent­ly the clip has over 3 mil­lion views on YouTube.

“That’s the mag­ic, that they’ve been able to keep [the show’s suc­cess] rolling for so many years,” he said.

 

For his TED talk Davis will share how the show has evolved to main­tain its pop­u­lar­i­ty with mil­lions of chil­dren in its over 45-year his­to­ry. He will also dis­cuss how the show’s pro­duc­ers con­tin­ue to par­lay that pow­er into pos­i­tive social change both in the US and around the world. Accord­ing to Davis they are cur­rent­ly work­ing to bring aware­ness of san­i­ta­tion and hygiene to audi­ences in India and Pak­istan. In South Africa, the first-ever HIV-pos­i­tive Mup­pet, Kami, has helped bring AIDS aware­ness to a coun­try that has strug­gled to face the cri­sis. The Queen of Jor­dan Rania Al Abdul­lah also has cred­it­ed the show (Hikay­at Sim­sim) for empow­er­ing women in her coun­try.

It’s one of the key mis­sions of the Sesame Work­shop, the non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion behind Sesame Street: to use the show’s con­cepts in hotspots around the globe, from North­ern Ire­land to the Balka­ns to Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, Davis said.

Every­where it is seen, the show serves to “help chil­dren cope, and to teach Street Gang Coverthem about their soci­ety,” he said.

Through a com­bi­na­tion of com­e­dy and tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing tech­niques, Sesame Street has impact­ed gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren world­wide, Davis said, expos­ing them to some­times tough lessons through intel­li­gence and wit — even if some­times the lessons and occa­sion­al­ly even the wit are beyond the grasp of the show’s core demo­graph­ic of 2- to 4‑year-olds.

Sesame Street has had the stay­ing pow­er and the patience to wait for them.

“When chil­dren get old­er and more sophis­ti­cat­ed, a light goes on,” Davis said. “They under­stand that some­body a long time ago taught them.”

Some­thing to think about, the next time you come across a fish­er­man out on a lake yelling, “Heeere fishy-fishy-fishy!”

– To see Michael Davis and oth­er TEDx Salem 2015 speak­ers, get your tick­ets here.