TEDxSantaBarbara – Behind the Scenes

In 805conversations by Mark Sylvester

“They delivered the Talk of their Lives”

Mark Sylvester, host of this show and Executive Producer of TEDxSantaBarbara did a quick recap with Patrick about the recent TEDx event in Santa Barbara. Note: This is the second show that Mark and Patrick have talked about TEDxSantaBarbara. The first one was several weeks before the event. This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:
  • -It’s a 6-month effort that took a core team and 60 day-of volunteers to produce.
  • -The importance of the User Experience on the overall planning of the event
  • -An anecdote about the Speaker Mixer held the night before the event – you can only imagine the speaker’s nerves, 12 hours before the event started
  • -Why a Speaker Coach is so critical to the success of the event. Our coach is also the Co-Producer and wife of Mark.  Kymberlee Weil from Strategic Samurai has coached over 120 talks to date.
  • -When talking about how challenging it is to find a unique point of view on a familiar topic, Patrick gave a perfect analogy of how artists have approached singing the National Anthem.
  • -A couple of Kymberlee’s tricks for speakers are revealed.
  • -All of the Talks are now available – Watch them here
  • -What is the narrative arc of the event and how is that crafted by the producers
  • -The Magic of TEDx and how it gets you thinking about topics you have not paid attention to
  • -Why the breaks between sessions are so important
  • -Tastes of TEDx – how artisanal snacks made the breaks even more aligned with the overall user experience
  • -The role of Music at TEDxSantaBarbara – putting more E into our TEDx
  • -The show ends with a discussion of how improv played an important part to a few key elements in the day.
Note: Mark thanks sponsors at the beginning and end of the podcast. These are the podcast sponsors, not sponsors of TEDxSantaBarbara. You can see all of the event partners here.
The invisible hand of the editor.” – Patrick remarks on the importance of editing and coaching
Links to the Talks, photos of Rehearsal, The Event, The 805CameraBus at the After Party and fun shots from one of our Volunteers are also on TEDxSantaBarbara’s site.