TEDxSalem

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A photo retrospective on TEDxSalem IV: Revolutions

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As we embark on our new TEDx event, we invite you to look back on our pho­to ret­ro­spec­tive of the last great adven­ture we shared with Salem and beyond: “Rev­o­lu­tions.” It was an event mem­o­rable for, among oth­er things, the dri­ving snow­storm that greet­ed folks at the exits after­ward.


But while the weath­er out­side was fright­ful, the “inspire” was so delight­ful! From the ambi­tious and breath­tak­ing stage piece by Kathryn Cel­leri­ni Moore, to excit­ing and pas­sion­ate speak­ers like Kelsey Juliana, there was enough warmth and fel­low­ship to brave the cold. There was danc­ing; There was rock ’n’ roll; There was even yoga for all to begin the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Check out the sights of the day on Flickr.

And remem­ber, advance tick­ets for our upcom­ing event, “Through the Look­ing Glass,” go on sale Sept. 1!

Tickets to Salem’s revolution on sale

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 Photo by Johan DoornenbalThe rev­o­lu­tion begins now. Do you have your tick­et?

TEDxSalem released its dis­count­ed ear­ly-bird tick­ets this week and will offer them through Sept. 7 or until they’re gone. That’s $10 in sav­ings for a day of mind-bend­ing expe­ri­ences Jan. 7 at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter.

The tick­et price cov­ers talks and per­for­mances on ideas worth spread­ing, refresh­ments, a deli­cious catered buf­fet lunch, recess­es designed to expand your mind and a swag bag of TEDxSalem good­ies.

This year’s TEDxSalem promis­es to be one of the best yet with speak­ers that include an Olympic ath­lete, a prodi­gy, a punk rock chemist, a Bud­dhist teacher and many more. Talks and demon­stra­tions cen­ter on the theme “Rev­o­lu­tions,” which ranges from polit­i­cal upris­ings dur­ing the last days of the Sovi­et Union to the efforts of Don’tShoot Port­land. It also includes fight­ing to main­tain mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships in a dig­i­tal world.

Join us for a rev­o­lu­tion­ary day. Buy your tick­ets at https://tedxsalem.eventbrite.com

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem 2017

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

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!

 

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.”

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.

 

Early bird tickets on sale June 3

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Snapshot from TEDxSalem 2013
Snap­shot from TEDxSalem 2013

Guess what! Ear­ly bird tick­ets for TEDxSalem 2015 go on sale tomor­row.

Ear­ly bird tick­et sales begin at 9 a.m. Wednes­day, June 3.

What’s an ear­ly bird tick­et? It gives you every­thing you get with a stan­dard tick­et (admis­sion to the full day of talks by our speak­ers, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day, a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies) but includes a $10 dis­count.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are avail­able in a lim­it­ed quan­ti­ty for a lim­it­ed time. Sales end at 9 a.m. on June 18 or when sold out, whichev­er comes first.

But don’t wor­ry, if you miss ear­ly bird tick­ets, stan­dard tick­et sales begin June 18 and run until Octo­ber 2 or until sold out.

Have you heard about our theme? It’s “Fear­less.” Learn why and how we picked it here.

Have you met our on stage host? It’s 2013 alum­nus Kei­th Seck­el. Learn about him here.

Have you seen our speak­er line­up? Check them out here.

So what are you wait­ing for?  See you at TEDxSalem on Octo­ber 3 at the Salem Con­fer­ence Cen­ter.

Tick­ets are avail­able online at https://tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Ear­ly bird tick­ets are $40 and avail­able until 9 a.m, June 18. Stan­dard tick­ets are $50. Stu­dent tick­ets are $40.

Ques­tions? Feel free to email info@tedxsalem.us