MY Concerns

[mohammed zuber]

Hi Guys,

  I am Zuber here I was part of last year TEDxChennai’s   speaker committee and registration committee. I also attended first two meetings of current year TEDx organizing committees...and I couldn’t attend further as I was moved to Rajasthan.

Coming to point why I am writing to this group now... is that the selection of speakers is the main task of organizing any TEDx event... we should have list of prospective speakers on which we have to choose who will speak rather that the process which we are following now … Individuals selecting speakers directly rather than nominating and choosing best among them.. I can also throw some light on what process which we followed last year...

 

·         TEDxChennai volunteers will nominate speaker of their choice.

·         Speaker committee will decide who will speak on the event.

·         Selected speakers are informed

·         Two members of speaker committee will go tell him what is TED and how your talk should be and we will ask him when we can record his talk.

·         We  video shoot his talk and give comments on his improvement so that audience will find it interesting.

·         Selected speaker is called to the venue one day before the event to rehears his speech and presentation.

·         Presentations of the last year speakers were done by professionally by a company named Effectworks so that audience will find it attractive and interesting.

In spite of do all this things we got a feedback that talk of two speakers a not up to the TEDx Mark. 

While I completely agree we have a very short duration but that does not mean we can deviate from the standards we set. I still believe the time in hand is good enough for you people to sit, discuss and select the best of speakers. We had set some benchmarks earlier and we only need to improve on them.

It’s not just about running this year TEDx event its about leaving a good legacy so that subsequent TEDxChennai Organizers can feel proud and improve upon it...

 

Mohammed Zuber

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[Sarathy]

Hi Zuber,

Thanks for the post. Yes, we cannot compromise on the quality. However, as you have also pointed out, time is running short, and if we delay contacting speakers by even a couple of days, we might lose out on them. 

What has been decided is that we'll try and get hold of as many speakers as possible within two days (by Wednesday evening), and we'll then sit together to evaluate the quality. If someone is not up to the mark, and has to be removed as a speaker, then yes, it will not give off a negative image, but we will try and offset it by 1. sincerely apologizing and inviting them to attend as "Stars", 2. treating them as if they were a speaker i.e. arranging their transportation and accommodation as if they were a speaker, etc. and 3. making sure we have bloody amazing speakers/ performers

Keep posting your thoughts Zuber. Much needed, and much appreciated.

Btw, how did you get access to internet? :)

Thanks.

Sarathy

[Ram]

Totally agree with you Zuber.
I share the same concerns you have about the process that is being
adopted.
I hope people are just checking the availability of speakers on the
dates and not confirming them.
There are hell lot of work to be done even before we can contact
speakers and confirm them.

Regards
Ram

[Ranjith Kumar]

Hi Zuber,

    Sure we`re carefully picking, we will follow your suggestion. Thanks for sharing.

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For more information, pls visit
http://groups.google.com/group/tedxchennai

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Cheers,
Ranjith Kumar K,

Chennai.

http://ranjithtenz.wordpress.com

[Srini @ srini.me]

Are we still open to take nominations of speakers from the volunteers?

If yes, we can still get some more choices, but on the other side am afraid of damping the speed of the speaker committee.

What say friends? Should we go ??

 

regds

srini

 

 

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For more information, pls visit
http://groups.google.com/group/tedxchennai

--
Regards

Srini

http://srini.me
http://startupstory.in
http://twitter.com/srinidotme
http://facebook.com/srinidotme

[Ranjith Kumar]

Please go ahead and nominate the speakers, but we need to finalize the whole speakers list by tomorrow and send out mail to the speaker and meet them by person if it possible.

Thank you Srini