TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

TEDxSalem

TEDxSalem Call to Speakers Now Open!

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Photo by Johan Doornenbal
Pho­to by Johan Door­nen­bal

TEDxSalem’s call to speak­ers for its 2017 event is now open!

The TEDxSalem speak­er com­mit­tee is look­ing for experts in a vari­ety of fields who have new and dynam­ic ideas worth spread­ing.

“Our theme is ‘Rev­o­lu­tions,’” said co-cura­tor Car­lee Wright, “play­ing off the idea of New Year’s res­o­lu­tions since TEDxSalem is tak­ing place at the begin­ning of the year.”

“We are look­ing for speak­ers that have an idea for a rev­o­lu­tion they want to start in our com­mu­ni­ty and beyond,” said co-cura­tor Bri­an Hart, “A rev­o­lu­tion can be any­thing… a more walk­a­ble city, pas­sive hous­ing, eco­log­ic farm­ing, big data, inter­net of things, inter­net secu­ri­ty, pub­lic art, hybrid elec­tric trains, advances in brain sci­ence…”

“We are aim­ing for a diverse selec­tion of speak­ers and top­ics high­light­ing the fla­vor of the Pacif­ic North­west and encour­age any­one with an ‘idea worth spread­ing’ to fill out our online appli­ca­tion,” Hart added. “We want to hear from our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers about the issues and sub­jects of which they are pas­sion­ate. We are look­ing for speak­ers with mes­sages that are inno­v­a­tive, inspir­ing and chal­leng­ing.”

The TEDxSalem 2016 speak­er appli­ca­tion is avail­able online at http://tedxsalem.us/call-to-speakers/. The appli­ca­tion clos­es Mon­day, April 18, 2016.

 

Save the Date: TEDxSalem will takes place Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Dis­count­ed advance tick­ets go on sale Sun­day, Aug. 7, 2016. Reg­u­lar tick­et prices begin Aug. 21.

 

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.”

 

ALSO RECOMMENDED:

 

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!

 

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.

Maya Kaup: Stepping Up to Stop Food Waste

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From music lessons to sports like gym­nas­tics and track, to vol­un­teer­ing with the Girl Scouts, Maya Kaup, 20, was raised to explore every oppor­tu­ni­ty, and to stay busy. Maya KaupTo find a niche. To get involved. It was only nat­ur­al, then, dur­ing her fresh­man year at Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty that a Face­book video on food waste and com­mu­ni­ty hunger spurred her to action. Why not bring food recov­ery to her school?

Why not here? Why not me?

“Some­one had to do it,” the biol­o­gy major said. “I see it as a moral oblig­a­tion.”

For her TED talk, Kaup will share her expe­ri­ences found­ing the Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty chap­ter of the Food Recov­ery Net­work, a nation­al non-prof­it that focus­es on fight­ing food waste and hunger. Accord­ing to FRN sta­tis­tics, 17.5 mil­lion fam­i­lies nation­wide are “food-inse­cure,” not sure where their next meal will come from. In Ore­gon, 15 per­cent of fam­i­lies are food-inse­cure; the pover­ty rate in Mar­i­on Coun­ty is 19.5 per­cent. Mean­while, Amer­i­cans dis­card 35 mil­lion tons of food per year, or rough­ly 40 per­cent of all food pro­duced in the coun­try.

In 2014, Kaup along with 20 vol­un­teers helped the uni­ver­si­ty block 8,000 pounds of sur­plus, unsold food from the garbage to feed the home­less. 635521005049941726-SAL1123-Causes-FoodRecovery-ar-01Not only is good food not thrown away, but nutri­tious fruits and veg­eta­bles are saved for those who can’t often have them, Kaup said.

“It’s a win-win,” she said.

When Kaup isn’t man­ag­ing the FRN, she takes a full course load at school, and also helps care for orphaned ani­mals at the Tur­tle Ridge Wildlife Cen­ter. See­ing the suc­cess­es of her efforts moti­vates her to do even more, she said.

It “fuels my fire,” she said. “It makes me real­ize I can make a dif­fer­ence.”

To see Maya Kaup and oth­er TEDx Salem 2015 speak­ers, buy tick­ets here.

Rhea Stadick: Bringing Humanity to Software Development

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Some­times the only thing stand­ing in the way of suc­cess is doubt, accord­ing to Rhea Stadick, soft­ware devel­op­er and orga­ni­za­tion­al coach at Intel. “Just assump­tions that it can’t hap­pen, it won’t hap­pen, or there’s a rule against it,” she says.

There’s a lot less in your way than you think, she says, if you just have the courage to try some­thing new.

For her TED talk, Stadick will dis­cuss her efforts to bring a new man­age­ment approach to soft­ware, one that focus­es more on col­lab­o­ra­tion, adapt­abil­i­ty and inno­va­tion rather than con­for­mi­ty, dead­lines and “deliv­er­ables.” One that encour­ages “out-of-the-box” think­ing. It’s called Agile Devel­op­ment, and it promis­es not only bet­ter pro­grams for end users, but a bet­ter life for pro­gram­mers.

“It’s about bring­ing human­i­ty to the work­place,” says Stadick, sit­ting in her team room at Intel’s Jones Farm cam­pus, where she over­sees the company’s efforts to imple­ment Agile man­age­ment strate­gies. It seems espe­cial­ly odd to see robots posi­tioned around her as she says this. But those robots – in essence stands with mon­i­tor screens – help to mim­ic face-to-face meet­ings with pro­gram­mers who may be in oth­er coun­tries, part of Agile’s empha­sis on direct com­mu­ni­ca­tion. In and around the room there is a 3‑D print­er, couch­es, and a large white­board with var­i­ous Post-It notes on it, and ideas scrib­bled across its sur­face. A large wall-size win­dow opens to trees, leaves wav­ing in the wind.

It’s a breath of fresh air for pro­gram­mers, to have such an open space that encour­ages indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and cre­ative prob­lem-solv­ing.

And it’s a stark con­trast to the tra­di­tion­al­ly heavy-hand­ed, bureau­crat­ic and par­ti­tioned approach to soft­ware that defined the indus­try in the past, an approach infa­mous­ly por­trayed in the 1999 movie Office Space. Think exas­per­at­ed engi­neers — “I am good at deal­ing with peo­ple!! Can’t you under­stand that?!” – sep­a­rat­ing devel­op­ers from the company’s clients. Think Bill Lum­bergh, hand­ing out week­end work and enforc­ing cov­er sheets for TPS reports. Think Peter Gib­bons, drown­ing in a sea of cubi­cles every morn­ing, doing just enough work to not get has­sled.The Old Way

“Six-by-six cubi­cles are not nec­es­sar­i­ly what humans are designed to do,” Stadick says.

As a new soft­ware hire 10 years ago, she saw first­hand the frus­tra­tions of just cor­rect­ing defects instead of pre­vent­ing them, and spend­ing “crazy hours” on the job and at home, just to achieve the same aver­age suc­cess rate, nev­er bet­ter.

“I saw how painful some of the ways we ran projects and teams were for peo­ple,” she says.

Today, with Agile Devel­op­ment, Stadick is hop­ing to dri­ve change not just at Intel, but across the indus­try.  Her suc­cess could not only rev­o­lu­tion­ize the way we lead our projects, but also the way we lead our lives.

There are still some obsta­cles, she con­cedes, not sur­pris­ing when try­ing to uproot an assem­bly-line man­age­ment strat­e­gy that hear­kens back to the Model‑T. But Stadick has faith in her team.

“We work with the some of the most intel­li­gent peo­ple in the world,” she says.

“We can do pret­ty amaz­ing things; there’s not a lot of things hold­ing us back.”

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]

20130507-100317

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.