TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

announcement

TEDxSalem 2015 host announcement: 2013 alumnus Keith Seckel

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Kei­th Seck­el is not flashy and he does­n’t demand your atten­tion. He has his own way of draw­ing you in, with a qui­et and under­stat­ed sin­cer­i­ty that makes you want to cling on to his every word.

His gen­tle pres­ence is what made him one of the most mem­o­rable speak­ers of the inau­gur­al TEDxSalem in 2013, with his touch­ing talk on death — and ulti­mate­ly — life.

Keith Seckel
Kei­th Seck­el

These qual­i­ties are what make co-cura­tors Bri­an Hart and Car­lee Wright so excit­ed about hav­ing Kei­th host TEDxSalem at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter this fall.

There are many deci­sion that go into plan­ning a TEDx event, and find­ing the right host is up there with select­ing speak­ers. The job of a host involves many respon­si­bil­i­ties than might be read­i­ly vis­i­ble to the audi­ence.

“You are not only the guide for the audi­ence, explain­ing the flow of the event, but you are also the even­t’s ambas­sador,” Bri­an says. “Being the face of the event, they have to wear many hats, they are respon­si­ble for intro­duc­tions of the speak­ers, giv­ing the audi­ence the per­fect tease of what is about to come, but at the same time nev­er telling the audi­ence how to feel. They are also in charge of time-keep­ing, trou­bleshoot­ing, announce­ments, con­nec­tions and audi­ence engage­ment.”

Phew! Good thing this year’s event theme is “fear­less.” Kei­th has ful­ly embraced this big role.

He says he hopes to be effec­tive and invis­i­ble — to help the event run smooth­ly and com­fort­ably, but then get­ting out of the way to let the speak­ers shine.

“In oth­er words, through­out the day I want to be the semi-colon; the punc­tu­a­tion that gen­tly guides peo­ple from one space to anoth­er,” Kei­th said. “And at the end of the event as peo­ple think back on their expe­ri­ence, I want them to remem­ber the speak­ers and the break­out ses­sions — and sort of for­get about me.”

Please join us in wel­com­ing Kei­th back on the TEDxSalem stage.

Salem Convention Center set as next TEDxSalem venue

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SCC Front 1

At TEDxSalem, we put a lot of thought in our venue. It’s not just about a phys­i­cal space, you see. It needs to fos­ter and facil­i­tate the vibe we are look­ing for, which is an invig­o­rat­ing, excit­ing and stim­u­lat­ing expe­ri­ence for all our speak­ers and par­tic­i­pants.

This is why we are so excit­ed to announce the venue for this year’s TEDxSalem: Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

Square in down­town, Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter is a state-of-the-art, Earth­wise facil­i­ty that has the space for us to grow. It will be able to accom­mo­date our talks as well as our break­out ses­sions and lunch recess.

It will also be the host of our after par­ty direct­ly fol­low­ing the event.

We have always hoped to give our guests the per­fect mix of a TEDx and Salem event. The Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter allows us to pro­vide that.

So save the date for Oct. 3. And get ready to be fear­less!

TEDxSalem launches Artist in Residence program

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TEDxSalem has just launched an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.

This pro­gram pro­vides sup­port for an artist to cre­ate an art instal­la­tion that will help set the tone for our event, com­mu­ni­cate the event theme and con­vey an ‘idea worth spread­ing.’

The Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram is a TEDx Incu­ba­tor Project that was start­ed by TEDxMt­Hood (for­merly TEDx­Con­cor­diaU­Port­land), which was the first large-scale event to have an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram where local artists work in con­junc­tion with the main event. TEDxSalem is one of the first events to launch an Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram under the men­tor­ship of TEDxMt­Hood.

It is a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty for an artist to share their work with a new audi­ence and in a new, dynam­ic way.

Are you an artist? Click here to learn more about the TEDxSalem Artist in Res­i­dence pro­gram.

Happy New Year…Save the Date!

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TEDxSalem Buttons
TEDxSalem But­tons

Hap­py New Year!

A great deal of thought is put into every aspect of TEDxSalem, from the speak­ers to the loca­tion, the recess activ­i­ties to the food served. One of the most excit­ing aspects of plan­ning our event each year is pick­ing a theme. But sur­pris­ing­ly, it is not always as easy as it sounds.

The con­cept of theme is some­thing in the back of our minds all year round. We want an idea that is focused but open, unique but under­stand­able. When get­ting down to busi­ness for select­ing this year’s theme, we talked about it for days. Back and forth, a few ideas here and there. A thought ran­dom­ly in a mes­sage. A note scrib­bled in the mid­dle of the night.

TEDxSalem theme graphics by Von Glitschka
Past TEDxSalem theme graph­ics by Von Glitsch­ka www.vonglitschka.com

As my co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart will tell you, the themes for our first two events seemed to come to us pret­ty easy, but this year it was hard to find the right word for TEDxSalem 2015.

“We want some­thing that push­es bound­aries, some­thing that doesn’t sound too com­mon, but is instant­ly rec­og­niz­able and gets you in the right mind­set,” he said.

Sit­ting at the Gov Cup, where the mag­ic hap­pens, bounc­ing ideas off one anoth­er. The con­cept of courage was brought up, but courage just did­n’t have the right ‘oompfh.’

Then we start­ing brain­storm­ing. It went some­thing like this…

Car­lee: brave, brav­ery, courage, fear­less, adven­tur­ous…

Bri­an: That’s it! FEARLESS!!

After the ini­tial excite­ment sub­sided, we thought about it fur­ther to make sure it was indeed the right word — the right theme.

“It passed every test,” said Bri­an. “I imme­di­ate­ly thought the ques­tion: ‘What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?’ I think about this ques­tion often and I try to live life as if I could not fail at any­thing I want­ed to accom­plish. Way back, when we were cave­men and women, our fight or flight instincts saved our lives, but now a lot of our fear is hold­ing us back from our true poten­tial. I thought about how fear­less our speak­ers are for get­ting on stage and shar­ing their idea worth spread­ing, how our plan­ning team and all of our vol­un­teers are fear­less, and how our atten­dees are fear­less leav­ing their inhi­bi­tions at the door and look­ing for­ward to what the day will bring.”

It takes courage to be fear­less, but being fear­less holds some­thing a lit­tle more than just courage. It is that extra step, that abil­i­ty to face any­thing, to take on the most dif­fi­cult sub­ject or task with a cer­tain ener­gy.

Be fear­less.

And mark your cal­en­dar. We look for­ward to see­ing you on Octo­ber 3 at TEDxSalem 2015.