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MEETINGSNET.COM may 2011 / CORPORATE MEETINGS & INCENTIVES
 The core and content of every TED confer-
ence is simple: “Ideas worth spreading.” For
corporate meeting professionals, the idea most
worth spreading could be the idea of TED itself.
The annual conference, held at the Long Beach
Performing Arts Center, brings together diverse
speakers and listeners for four days of presentations
and networking. And it has one advantage that

1
corporate planners may never have: TED chooses
its audience. “Without an amazing audience, we While one hallmark of a
TED agenda is this cross-
couldn’t attract amazing speakers,” organizers say at cultural, cross-disciplinary,
TED.com. “Our speakers aren’t paid—they attend cross-pollinated mashup of
because of the audience.” art, science, research, and
That’s not the only meeting tenet flipped on theory, another is its simple
its head by TED. The conference is driven toward format. As the TEDx guide-
lines put it: “No panels. No
complexity on one hand—its attendees represent breakout sessions. Usually:
a broad swath of disciplines, its topics a world of No podium. You may not pay

CURATE
ideas—and toward simplicity on the other—there
is but one thing on the agenda: presentations,
none more than 18 minutes long.
In TED-speak, meeting plan-
You may have seen some of those presenta- ners are curators. Or should
tions, in fact. They’re now known as TEDTalks, be. Point number one in the
and most are on YouTube, where they’ve garnered TEDx organizer guidelines:
hundreds of millions of views. Expanding its “More than anything else,
audience is another thing TED does well. Three the content is what defines
a TED event.” If you choose
years after it began posting talks, TED posted, in presentations that “provoke
a way, its secret sauce. June 2009 saw the launch conversations that matter,”
of the TEDx brand—local TED-like events that you’ve done your job.
follow strict guidelines. (See www.ted.com/pages/ “Just as a museum cura-
tedx_rules) In less than two years, more than tor handpicks works to make
up a complete and meaningful
1,500 TEDx events have been held worldwide. exhibition, I work with our
“We created TEDx in the spirit of TED’s team to identify ideas worth
mission of ‘ideas worth spreading,’” says Chris spreading,” says TED Curator
Anderson, curator of TED and founder of the Chris Anderson. “We select
Sapling Foundation, which acquired the TED our speakers and talks based
on their relevance, newness,
Conference in 2001. “The program is designed to innovation, impact or potential
give communities, organizations, and individuals impact, and interestingness.”
the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through Avid TED watcher
TED-like experiences at the local level. Ruud Janssen, founder of
“With a license for a Corporate Event, corpora- Arlesheim, Switzerland–
based The New Objective
tions can organize private, employees-only [TEDx] Collective, which helps orga-
events ... to highlight ideas within corporations nizations craft live, digital,
and to foster a culture of passion, inspiration, and and hybrid event experi-
collaboration—to enable employees to step outside ences, has organized two
of their daily routine and be inspired.” TEDxBasel events. He sees
the content at TED as “bigger
A closer look at TED could inspire you to than life, with overarching
think outside your day job, too. Here are five [topics], and challenges that
big ideas that might help you think about your seem impossible.” But when
meetings in a new way: you put “different silos to
work on one thing,” as hap-
pens at TED, the impossible
starts to look doable.
your speakers to present.”
And there’s that time limit—18
minutes—which, more than
anything else sends the mes-
sage that you better have
your story straight and be
able to deliver it efficiently.
Why not think about your
entire meeting message in
those terms? “We often get
tied up in complicated meet-
ing objectives,” says Mark
Shearon, executive vice pres-
ident, engagement strategies,
at TBA Global in New York.
“TED’s mission is simple:
Ideas worth spreading. It’s so
understandable. Try to distill
what you want your event to
do. Don’t have 10 objectives.
You don’t have to reduce it to
one objective, but how about
three?”
In organizing the
TEDxBasel events, Janssen
got to that distillation by
answering one question.
“When we started talking
about ideas and themes,
ultimately we asked, ‘Do
we know what we really
care about?’ When you find
that, when you touch those
chords, that’s the magic.”

By Alison Hall

CORPORATE MEETINGS & INCENTIVES / may 2011 MEETINGSNET.COM 19

 2
Play with design
If there’s one prerequisite for TED attendance, it’s an open mind.
Corporate meeting planners could open their minds to the importance
of meeting design, believes Dianne Devitt, CMP, owner of DND Group,
New York. “You can’t take room setup lightly,” she says. “Décor gives
permission to forget the outside world. The goal is to capture people,
allowing them to focus so you can send your message.”
Devitt recently helped to design the room setup for a meeting of
the Westfield (Ct.) chapter of Meeting Professionals International.
Working with furniture sponsor CORT, she transformed “a long, rect-
angular, brown hotel meeting room” into something “unexpected.”
The front of the room contained “pods” of casual furniture including
sofas around small tables. In the middle was traditional theater-style
seating—using designer chairs. And at the back, she set rectangular
and triangular Lucite tables and chairs. “People came to a dead stop,”
Devitt recalls. “You could see them calculating what mood they were in
and where they wanted to sit. It was a very interesting dynamic. Their
senses were heightened. We surprised and stimulated them.”

3
No furniture sponsor? You can make an impact in small ways. Try
a theater-style setup but place the chairs in a crescent shape rather
than a straight line, Devitt suggests. “Or just add a couple of sofas. It
softens the room and makes people more at ease. Or put six-foot table
at the back, set at angle. Even if don’t have a budget, you can be cre-
ative with what you have. Look at things differently.”
And present differently, adds Mark Shearon, executive vice presi-
dent, engagement strategies, for TBA Global. “As soon as PowerPoint
pops up, people switch off. We are doing a lot more with other content
systems such as Montage and Pandora’s Box.” He also notes the wide-
screen stage setup as a continuing trend. “It signals a change. It’s not
the standard setup,” he says, adding that “cost has come down in the
production realm, so these things are doable for more groups.”
Produce it

Think of your event as a show.
That doesn’t mean glitz—
it means rehearsal. Kara
DeFrias was show director for
TEDxSanDiego, which drew
325 live and more than 27,000
virtual attendees in November
2010. “There was a conscious
decision to treat this as a
show, not just an event, and
that came through in the pro-
duction quality and execution,”
DeFrias says in a blog post
about her experience that is
well worth reading. (Find it at
http://bit.ly/howTEDx.) “We
put together a production staff
that included a show director,
tech director, talent relations
manager, stage manager, and
presentation manager, to name
a few.” And DeFrias drew from
her experience with TV awards
shows to take the agenda out-
line and flow it into a minute-
by-minute “show rundown.”
The other thing required
by a show, as opposed to a
meeting, is a complete tech
rehearsal. “We started off with
our tech load-in, then marked
all our speaker spots on stage,
followed by our emcees run-
ning their lines. Speakers
began showing up in the
afternoon, some running their
full talk, others just clicking
through and getting a feel for
the stage,” DeFrias explains.
The team held a speaker
orientation to review the
protocol for handing over the
stage from emcee to speaker
and vice versa, plus what
would happen if a speaker
ran beyond his or her allotted
time. (At 30 seconds over, the
emcee appears at the edge of
the stage; at one minute over,
the emcee approaches…)
Thoroughly working
through this kind of detail
ahead of time is non-
negotiable for a successful
show—and should become
just as routine for a corporate
meeting. Respect your audi-
ence and they will reward you
by participating fully. “TED
presenters are coached on
speaking and engaging the
audience,” Janssen notes.
“Part of the magic is how
speakers are trained.”
Many executives are
unaware of how de-motivating
their lackluster presentations
can be for employees. If you
have trouble getting executives
to rehearse, send them the
video “Behind the TED Talk,” in
which two speakers—a novice
and a true star of TED, whose
first TED talk is one of the
most viewed of all time—pre-
pare for their presentations.
And if you’re still stuck with
C-level egos, point out that the
rehearsal is not just for them,
says Mark Shearon of TBA
Global. “Execs may not realize
that everyone who is making
that presentation possible—
prompters, sound guy, video
guy, webcast guy—they all need
to rehearse the speech, too.”
Finally, look for hidden
gems in your own backyard.
“Do some research on your
internal talent pool,” suggests
DeFrias, who is now organizing
TEDxIntuit, planned for August.
“I’ve used employees who do
Toastmasters or participate
in local theater as emcees at
larger meetings.”

20 MEETINGSNET.COM may 2011 / CORPORATE MEETINGS & INCENTIVES

 MAKE IT
PERSONAL
Inspired by his attendance at
TEDActive2011, Andy Taylor,
CMP, director of the Intel
Fellows Office at Intel Labs in
Hillsboro, Ore., has held two
TEDxIntelLabs events. “The
idea of bringing TED back to
Intel was a little bit of a desire
to get the genie back into
the bottle,” he says. “Is there
a way to recapture some of
the magic that comes from
the cross-pollination at TED?
And how can I deliver it to an
audience that has at most a
few hours a month to spare?
“I’ve done two short
events, essentially introduc-
ing the Intel Labs audience
to the concept. Response
has been tremendous: 100
percent want it to continue,
and many want to volunteer
to help it succeed.”
One thing that particu-
larly attracted Taylor was how
TED presenters engaged the
audience. “One of my roles is
coach to senior technologists
on presenting,” he explains.
“TED has a powerful story-
telling method I think we can
learn from. The power of many
TED speakers comes because
you can relate to what they
are saying on a personal level.
As a technology company,
our default method of influ-
CORPORATE MEETINGS & INCENTIVES / may 2011 MEETINGSNET.COM 21
4
ence is with data and facts.
But few in an audience
remember most of that later.
It’s about breaking away
from PowerPoint and telling
a story rooted in personal
experience in 18 minutes.”
Mark Shearon of TBA
Global agrees. “Some of
the best TED talks are one
person speaking about
something they care about
and the audience gets it,” he
says. “The whizz-bang and
pizzazz is not necessary. Of
course, your brain needs a
break, so you do want a mix
of didactic and interactive,
entertainment and education,
but everything should have a
purpose. Many events are a
bag of stuff with no through-
line, no story. For me and for
TBA Global, telling a story is
incredibly important. People
have gathered to hear other
people tell stories forever.
It’s very natural to make a
meeting into that kind of
experience.”
5
EXPAND
TED is much more than a
single conference these
days. It is TEDTalks, the
archived presentations. It’s
TEDGlobal, a summer con-
ference in Edinburgh with
an international focus. It’s
TEDActive in Palm Springs,
which runs concurrently with
TED and emphasizes con-
nection and creativity. It’s
the TED Associates webcast,
which, for a reduced fee,
gives registrants a “virtual
front-row seat” to the entire
TED conference. And it is
the TED Open Translation
project, which at last count
had logged more than 17,000
translations of talks by vol-
unteers into more than 80
languages.
Your takeaway? Let
your meeting live on. Create
high-quality recordings of
presentations and archive
them for attendees and
non-attendees. Is it just the
salesforce that needs moti-
vating at the annual kickoff
meeting? Why not expand
that audience and unify the
efforts of employees in all
areas of the company?
Hybrid meetings—where
both live and virtual compo-
nents are held simultaneous-
ly—are growing. Are there
international divisions that
could virtually attend the
CEO’s keynote address?
One caveat: If you go the
hybrid route, pay as much
attention to your virtual
component as you do to the
live one. “It’s very important
that the live-streaming audi-
ence feel connected,” says
Ruud Janssen of The New
Objective Collective. “If you
are just watching another
meeting happen, it is like bad
public-access TV.” When
Janssen and his TEDxBasel
organizing team got together
to watch the live streaming
of the first day of TED2011,
he says, “TED came up with
idea of doing a shout-out to
those [watching] around the
globe. We were selected as
one of five locations to be
connected to the main stage
in Long Beach by Skype—by
a free, easy, camera setup.
It’s one little touchpoint, but
it allows people to see the
impact.” n