Assortment of talks and videos will highlight inaugural event
By Dana DuGan
How do we best communicate and circulate ideas? Despite social networking, the most influential way to share remains face to face. TED, a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, has become a global phenomenon since 1984.
Owned by a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation, TED started as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, but today covers almost all topics––from science to business to global issues––in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events held in communities, separate from the headquarters in Vancouver, B.C., help share ideas in communities around the world. There have been more than 18,000 of these events held to date.
And among the upcoming 1,307 events planned, Sun Valley will present its first TEDx, 12-7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 30 at the Sun Valley Opera House.
Each event must maintain the spirit of TED itself: multidisciplinary, focused on the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. TEDx events are not agenda or single-topic driven.
Organizer Aimee Christensen, the founder and executive director of the Sun Valley Institute for Resilience, has attended the main TED talks since 2009; first in Monterey, Calif., where it began, then in Long Beach, and, finally, in its present home in Vancouver, British Columbia. There is one main TED talk held each year, always a sold-out event.
“There were so many requests to bring it to other communities,” Christensen said. “They developed TEDx to address these requests. The idea is find the people and ideas in a community we can showcase, and get it out to the world. I thought it would be so wonderful to have it here.”
Christensen applied for the license, and brought in her friends, Andy and Kim Castellano, to help with organization and marketing.
“It’s really a team effort,” she said. “There are 10 of us working on this. And I am certain we can do this for years, discovering these people in our community.”
TedXSunValley will have three sessions broken up with long breaks, including a taco bar lunch in the Continental Room at the Sun Valley Inn, after the first session. As well, as part of the rules, TEDxSunValley will screen a different TED talk video after speakers in each session.
Most of the speakers are local but will deliver a brand new talk, of approximately 12 minutes, to the TEDxSunValley audience.
“There are people speaking we’ve known for years, like Muffy Davis. But she’s giving a whole new talk that’s very connected to place,” Christensen said. “There’s a specific way of doing a TED talk. It’s a different approach, not a wonky talk. There’s been everything from being a DJ and creating music to the guy who invents fonts.”
Davis’s talk is entitled, “The Blessing of Adversity––The Gifts of My Life-Changing Accident.”
Brad Cleveland, an expert in customer strategy and management, and omnichannel services, will address “Thriving in the Always-On World.”
“We’re always connected, checking in and staying tuned,” Cleveland said. “You can be a 14-year-old, a head of state, a CEO––‘always on’ is a cruel taskmaster. We have to focus and we have to manage it, not the other way around. It’s about simplicity and engaging with a purpose, and how you’re leveraging the opportunity.”
Vanessa Fry, currently a Ph.D. candidate at Boise State University, is interested in how we “balance social equity, the environment and economics.”
“I saw the opportunity, wondered if it was a good idea since my whole goal is to gain a greater skill set, and apply it in the real world,” she said.
Fry came to the Wood River Valley as an AmeriCorps volunteer for the Environmental Resource Center. She moved quickly through other positions, including a stint at the Snake River Alliance and as executive director for the now-defunct Citizens for Smart Growth. In 2007 she received her MBA in sustainable management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco, for whom she also taught economics and finance. She now lives and teaches in Boise.
The working title of her TEDx talk is “Capital Investment for Social Success.”
Jae Hill, the community development director for the City of Sun Valley, will give a talk that is close to home. It’s called “An Evolutionary Arms Race: How the Ski Industry Will Have to Adapt to Climate Change.”
A Seattle and Sun Valley-area resident, Dave Chase, a healthcare industry expert, does a fair amount of public speaking, writing, film production and book writing.
He will give a talk called “Healthcare Stole the American Dream. Here’s How We Get it Back.”
“Basically, the middle class has been in an economic depression for 20 years, and at least 95 percent of that is caused by healthcare,” Chase said. “It’s topical, considering the recent election.”
Chase said that blindly sticking with the status quo will create generations who are “indentured servants” to the system, and how some employers in the U.S. are reducing the amount spent on healthcare by providing a wide array of preventative measures, including education, daycare, and dieticians.
“The $3.4 trillion we spend on healthcare its mind-boggling,” Chase said.
Other talks will address the tech industry, education, the imagination, travel, dreaming and navigating home, the last being the title of athlete Rebecca Rusch’s talk.
The inclusion of New York City-based artist Murray Hidary at 3 p.m. will be a thoughtful departure from the talks. His “Mind Travel” is a musical performance piece created to bring a transporting and expansive experience to audiences worldwide.
For tickets, visit TEDxSunValley.org.