I had the opportunity to speak on the mini-stage at the TEDx Summit. The prompt was “what are the lessons worth sharing from either a success or failure from hosting a TEDx local event.” I thought this was intriguing; lessons from failures… that’s where all the juicy info lives. But I’ll admit it, I don’t like to a talk about when things go wrong. But it’s a dis-service to this community to pretend that everything always goes according to our perfectly designed plans.
One of the biggest lessons I learned from my week in Qatar for the TEDxSummit, is to share the stories, especially when things don’t turn out exactly as planned. I talk about Sharing the Love Before You Need It. Basically how the people in my network saved the day, when I needed it most. You’re welcome to watch the 3 minute video (click on the photo above) or read the transcript below.
Here’s the full transcript from my 3 minute talk:
“Ojai’s had more attention in the last few days, more than it’s had ever.
So I want to share my story about Failure Gone Rights; and the idea we are spreading that I have is, Share the love before you need it. So I hosted the TEDxOjaiWomen in December 1, 2011 with Darina and I found out about 2 weeks prior to the event. So we were on super drive. I was announcing and promoti
ng and tweeting and sharing and blogging before I had a venue, as soon we got the license I made the call.
I had a great women’s network and so they rallied and volunteered with me. We found a venue, we got a video crew, we got volunteers to do the lighting and the sound. It was this amazing miracle was automagically happening.
And I decided to host a dinner at my house the night before the event for all the speakers because we know it would be really nice if we had community and knew one another and saw how nervous each of us was because thought that would help make us less nervous as it was how universal that is.
And so I went to Facebook, I was writing a post and tagging everybody’s names on the community to see who was coming to the house. While I was on Facebook I noticed that the volunteer that had said they would bring the lighting canceled. That was all they were telling me the night before the event, that there’d be no lighting.
Our event was in a movie theater so there’s no natural lighting, there’s basically a dark room. So here I was trying to prepare dinner for 10 the night before an event which is a really bad idea you know, that’s not the idea we’re sharing. Hire a caterer, ordered pizza, do something because this is not an opportunity to share great culinary gifts in the world. Live and learn..
Thank you.
PS Save the Date: December 1, 2012 for the next TEDxOjaiWomen event. More details soon!
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