TEDxKraków blog

We all know that feeling: your head is in the clouds, ideas rushing through your mind at the speed of light. Nothing seems impossible anymore. You’re inspired and can’t wait to learn more! No, you haven’t just left a TEDTalk (though we certainly hope you feel this way after our monthly TEDxKrakówCinema meetings) – you’ve been energized by a particularly thought-provoking lecture at your university!

Every college has a professor (or a dozen, if you’re lucky) known for their captivating way of bringing whatever topic they teach to life. Perhaps it’s a visiting lecturer who normally spends his or her days inventing things (or ideas) that make life better. Perhaps he or she is an unparalleled expert in their field, and is able to explain their work in a way that excites students and makes them hungry for more knowledge. Perhaps it’s even a young graduate student waiting to be discovered by the world outside of the ivory towers of academia. If any of these descriptions ring true for someone you know, we want you to nominate them to speak at TEDxKraków 2012!

But what’s in it for you? Well, if the person your nominate is chosen as a speaker (and if you’re the first one to nominate that person), you will automatically be invited to attend TEDxKraków 2012, which means you will be rubbing elbows with the best and brightest in the spheres of technology, entertainment, design, education and politics from Kraków and beyond. You will also have the satisfaction of knowing that this lecturer you look up to will not only inspire future generations of students, but he or she will have a powerful platform to educate and galvanize a global audience – just ask TEDxKraków speaker Tal Golesworthy, whose 2011 talk has been viewed over 300,000 times on TED.com!

So what are you waiting for? Nominate a speaker today!

We’re thrilled to finally confirm that this year’s TEDxKraków will take place on Friday 21 September – a little earlier than in previous years as we hope to take advantage of the better weather! But apart from that, the format is going to stay pretty much the same.

So… drum&roll… this year’s theme is “Secret Lives”.
We’re asking our speakers to show us what goes on behind the scenes as there’s always more to things than meets the eye. At TEDxKrakow 2012 we’ll look behind the curtain of the apparently mundane and everyday to get a glimpse of some of the unexpected, fascinating, worrying, intricate (and maybe even repulsive) aspects of life that are usually invisible to us.

We’re already hard at work talking to potential speakers, dreaming up ideas to keep you occupied during the day and searching for sponsors. If you’d like to help us with any of this – please let us know! In any case, please put 21 September in your diaries. And before you ask, we will be letting you know at the end of July about how the registration process is going to work…

TEDxSummit (fot. James Duncan Davidson)

In mid April, while Kraków was still shaking off winter, our marketing and PR manager Kasia Triantafelo and curator Ewa Spohn travelled to Doha to take part in the first ever TEDxSummit. The TEDx programme has only been going for 3 years and in this time, around 3000 events have been held. Given that the TED team thought that there would only be a few events a year, the growth of the programme has been extraordinary.

So the purpose of the TEDxSummit was to bring together this diverse group of change agents from around the world and to get them to meet, talk and exchange ideas, as well as to discuss the future of the TEDx programme.

It was a full week! We started off with some pre-event tours to some of the most interesting things happening in Qatar. From E.M. Pei’s Museum of Islamic Art, to the Shell R&D facility where they are turning natural gas into liquid that remains liquid at atmospheric temperature and pressure and F1 Williams’ facility, where one lucky member of the TEDxWrocław team got to try out the simulator used to train the Williams’ F1 drivers.

The Summit itself was no less interesting. With over 800 TEDx organisers to meet and talk to, two TED sessions at the beginning and end (including a talk by the much-loved Hans Rosling) and a day in the desert where we discussed regional collaboration in Eastern Europe and Russia, self-organised an unconference on over 30 different TEDx-related subjects and swam in the Persian Gulf. It was a rollercoster.

We had the opportunity to learn from the TED staff about the practicalities of organising an event (yes, even Chris Anderson and Bruno Giussani sometimes struggle to get speakers to prepare) and each other about what works and what doesn’t (thanks in particular to TEDxAthens for a great session on using social media).

We also did a bit of future planning, so watch out for the turning-ideas-into-action website, regional lens for finding TEDx events and talks from your region and how-to-TEDx videos. It’s quite amazing what we managed to achieve in just a few days and it made us realise how powerful we are when we act together, not alone.

We came back to Krakow refreshed and recharged, with lots of ideas for how to organise our event and build our community. We can’t wait to see you next week at TEDxKrakowCinema and over the next few months!

See you on Tuesday!

Well, we’re back from the week-long TEDxSummit which brought together over 800 TEDx organisers from around the world to Doha in Qatar. It was an amazing week of discussion, connection and general mayhem, but somehow it all worke. The opportunity to connect the TEDx community was valuable: we all know that we’re doing amazing things in our community but this was the first chance we had to come together as a community in our own right. We saw that many of the things we’re dealing with are common to us all, and we also found many new ideas for how to do things better. Here are my top 10 lessons as a TEDx curator. Have a look at the Polish version of our blog to see what Kasia Triantafelo learnt (in Polish).

So my top 10 lessons were:

1. There is a big tension within the TEDx organiser community between spreading ideas and putting ideas into action and that’s OK – we have a plan! In fact, we have several plans: watch out for Ideas Worth Doing, regional lenses, how-to-TEDx videos and many more.
2. When choosing your speakers and deciding if theirs is an idea worth spreading, ask yourself “is this a wiser model that makes a valid contribution?” and “is this a future we can aspire to?”.
3. For speakers who are artists, designers and architects: don’t try to sound intellectual. Be confident. Share your work and let it do the talking.
4. There is no formula for TED Talks. The best speakers are those who give the talk that they, and only they can give.
5. A TED Talk is 18 minutes OR LESS.
6. As a TEDx organiser, if you remember that you are managing with limited control you will have so much more fun.
7. Forget about the mass media – too much effort for too uncertain a result. Use your social media to create a tribe of friends and provide them with value (no pointless posts about the weather, happy holidays etc).
8. It’s all about storytelling. Learn how to tell a story. And learn how to spot bad science.
9. If you need to say “no” to a sponsor, speaker or anyone else who is insisting that they won’t cooperate unless you do what you want, blame Lara.
10. 24% of TED Talks are viewed with subtitles. The revolution will probably not be televised in your language.

Big news, TEDxers! Our very own Ewa Spohn has been invited to tell the City of Kraków’s Committee on Development and Innovation to tell them about TEDxKraków. The Committee is looking at how the city can encourage the promotion of entrepreneurship and what it can do to become a major centre of entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe.

So at this point we’re sure you’re asking: What does all of this have to do with TEDxKraków, and how can I help? Well, we want your ideas for the best TED Talk to show the members of the committee to make sure they get what TED (and TEDxKraków) is all about! Which talks have opened your mind and shown you the potential of TED, or made you think that TEDxKraków is doing something worthwhile here Tell us in the comments below or on our Facebook page before the 12th of April!

Have you got the third TEDxKrakówCinema of 2012 marked in your diaries? Well, we’re here to remind you! We’ll be meeting at our usual location, Kino 18 (ul. Floriańska 18) on Tuesday 3 April at 7 pm. This month’s theme is “games and gamification” and it will be a continuation of Wojtek Ozimek’s fascinating talk from TEDxKraków 2011, which you can watch here.

Are you coming? We hope so! Of course you can just show up (and feel free to bring a friend or five), but we would really love it if you could let us know on our Facebook event here.

Our friends up north are hosting their own TEDx today, TEDxWarsaw, whose theme this year is “inspiration”. You can read about the speakers here, and then watch the live stream and get inspired beginning at 9:30AM GMT+1 on 22 March by following this link: TEDxWarsaw Live Stream.

If you’ve ever been curious about just what goes into the making of an event like TEDxKraków 2011, and what our speakers and attendees have to say about last year’s event, you’re in luck. Our amazing film team has put together a short video called TEDxKraków: The Making Of, which you can watch by clicking below: