Ever wonder what happens after TEDxColumbus? Did that idea work? That project gain momentum? Curious what that speaker is up to now? FOLLOW THIS answers these questions. Our core mission is to inform, engage and connect our vibrant and inquisitive community. To do so, we are sharing updates on past TEDxColumbus presenters, their passions and projects, and finding out what sparks (or fizzles) when ideas are shared. At FOLLOW THIS, we are also continually scouting out and sharing ideas worth spreading, in general, coming out of Columbus.
FOLLOW THIS is edited by Kendra Hovey. Authors are noted in the bylines. Suggestions for stories or requests to be a guest blogger should be directed to Ruth Milligan at tedxcolumbus@gmail.com. Sponsors interested in supporting the mission of FOLLOW THIS should also contact Ruth.
One minute speaker nomination videos: Your questions answered.
Choosing speakers for TEDxColumbus has gleefully become a difficult process. That means we get tons of ideas, nominations and submissions now – versus three years ago when we had to beg people to listen to our explanation of TED and TEDx.
As a result, this year we have changed the TEDxColumbus speaker nomination process. We would ideally like every nominated speaker to submit a one-minute video describing their idea, point of view and what gives them the license to talk about it. Of course, this has lead to many questions, such as: What do you want to hear? How do I film it? Does it need to be a high-quality video? What if it’s longer than one minute? Ruth Milligan, Curator of TEDxColumbus, hopes to answer all your questions in her one-minute video below.
The goal of the video submission is to help the TEDxColumbus curatorial team assess if your idea falls under the theme of “The Future Revealed” and does it fit the TED model: Do you have a strong point of view or compelling story? Do you have data to support your idea? Do you have mastery in your subject? Can you keep to a time limit?
Lastly, remember, the curatorial team will be choosing a handful from the nominations (which also need to fill out the brief nomination form), but we’ll also use these videos in the late summer to help identify folks to appear at the open forum on August 16 and/or be chosen by the attendees of the conference itself.
Please let us know if you still have questions!
To nominate a speaker, please click here.
All video submissions and questions can be sent to TEDxColumbus@gmail.com.
FOLLOW THIS: Alex Bandar
Convergence at the Columbus Idea Foundry: Values in Action
[by Kendra Hovey]
If you were at the last TEDxColumbus, you might remember Alex Bandar, the “visionary, metallurgist, connector” in the black jumpsuit determined to revive the lost art of making. In his talk, Bandar shared the big idea of the Columbus Idea Foundry (CIF) and his big dream to put it on wheels, park it at a high school and begin to transform American education and, along the way, American thinking, industry and innovation.
But the Idea Foundry is about more than a big idea. As the name suggests, lots of ideas come out of CIF, and in all sorts of sizes. One that Bandar had been bandying about—along with cohorts David and Carrie Chew—became a reality last March. A new conversation community with follow-up built-in, Convergence, as the realized idea is called, is a touch TEDx, but a bit more Kickstarter meets American Idol meets Royal Society of London (minus the wigs…sadly). The event is open to the public and due to repeat every three months or so. The purpose is to converge to examine “theories, struggles, and possibilities” for projects and then make those projects financially doable (by actually laying money on the table) and accountable, as well as, potentially continually supported (by following-up at the next Convergence).
There are some guidelines: The project must be “deemed bigger than a single person”; it should be “group-oriented so that members and potential members can learn beyond their expertise”; and the winner must report back on “how the project went, what worked, what didn’t, and what can be learned.”
The very first Convergence was held on March 1st at the Foundry—just off 5th Ave., where Corrugated Way meets Mobility. With the support of Turnstone and TEDxColumbus, the evening started and ended with tours, presentations, food and general socializing. In the middle, three Foundry members shared their projects. Then, the 100 or so in attendance had the opportunity to vote with their dollars. On the table that night: about $700 (an additional $600 or so was raised for the Cougar Robotics Team, a local high school robotics club).
Of the three projects presented…
- A plan by steam-engine enthusiast Chip Rosenblum to build a dual-gauge train track.
- A LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) upgrade for Ethan Dicks’ “tourbot” (a remote-controlled camera, microphone and monitor).
- And, from event co-founder and co-organizer David Chew, a kinetic blue tree sculpture to be made of various sized pipes, possibly with “flame effects,” and to be outfitted with tree-dwelling creatures that could be controlled with switches and bellows by the audience.
…the win goes to…the kinetic blue tree sculpture.
Kendra Hovey is editor and head writer at Follow This. On Twitter @KendraHovey, she blogs at kendrahovey.com
FOLLOW THIS: Barbara Fant
BICENTENNIAL CALLING
[by Kendra Hovey]
Barbara Fant is a performance poet. While this is true, as descriptions go, it’s a bit lacking; not quite capturing her rapid cascade of imagery, shrapnel-origami-kite-bee-hive-honey-lightning-Crayola, nor the swift and choppy flow of a line like, “It’s about be, it’s about be, it’s about bee, like honey, like gold, like glow, like sky.”
Both examples are from “Handfuls of Honey.” A poem which Fant performed at the last TEDxColumbus and one that speaks pretty effectively to what it is Fant does—from the personification of her words as “a nightmare at the back of my neck seeping through my throat” to the simple and clear-sighted offering: “I don’t know another way—to pray.”
Barbara Fant had been a last minute addition to the program. TEDxColumbus organizers (as every speaker forced to rehearse a million times over already knows) are not too keen on last minute anything, but having seen her a day earlier at TEDxYouth, they found five extra minutes plus 45 seconds. Fant made good use of the time; the audience gave her a standing ovation.
One of those impressed was Doug Kridler, CEO and president of The Columbus Foundation. Kridler commissioned Fant to create an original piece—with “no boundaries,” he says—for the Columbus Bicentennial. Fant read the poem at the Foundation as part of the city’s big birthday bash in February. Kridler calls it “an awe-inspiring and multi-hued articulation,” adding, “What an enduring gift she gave to everyone in our community through that poem.”
“Today Beginning Again,” as Fant titled her ode-of-sorts to the city, is part thank you note: “You geography-ed me,” “river-ed me;” “library-ed myself;” “honeyed me into reflection…” And, it’s part reminder card: “You can’t stop now.”
A video of her performance quickly made the social media rounds.
The 24-year-old Fant was asked to perform the poem again, this time by Mayor Coleman as part of the fanfare around his State of the City address. She can also be spotted in a couple of recent videos, “Voices of Columbus” and “Columbus Young Artists,” both sponsored by 200 Columbus (and various partners). Just last month she was a “feature” (invited guest) at a Poetry Slam in Detroit. Oddly, all this is happening at a time when the poet has been scaling back on performing. Her main focus these days is graduate school.
This may be news to many; a lot about Barbara Fant may be news. Added so late, her name didn’t make it onto the TEDxColumbus program, let alone her story. To fill things in, I caught up with Fant, finding her in Delaware, Ohio where she is nearing the end of her first year at the Methodist Theological School.
From “Handfuls of Honey” I know, to her, poetry is prayer, and when I ask how she would describe her work she calls it “poetic ministry,” so seminary school would seem to be a simple matter of connecting the dots, but when I ask, she quickly puts me straight. “Not at all, ” she says.
Growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, Fant felt the call to preach at a very young age, and she can’t even remember a time in her life when she wasn’t writing. Yet seminary and slams didn’t come into her life till much later, not until after she moved to Columbus for college. “I come from a church where pastors didn’t go to seminary,” she explains, “I didn’t know what it was!”
It was during her last year at Ohio Dominican (she graduated in 2010 with a degree in English) that she first considered seminary, and it was only a few years before that, when she was about 19, that she first performed her poetry. That night was important. It was an open mic, her first, and afterwards, she’d be at the mic three or four nights a week. But when I ask about when she became a poet, she doesn’t mention the mic, she answers by talking about her mom. “She passed away when I was 15,” Fant shares, “I was angry. I had a hard time talking to people…so I wrote.”
Fant wrote—put my pain on pages, as she says in “Handfuls of Honey”—but she didn’t share. While in Youngstown she learned about open mics, saw some on TV, and she knew that as soon as she could find one and get herself there, that’s when she would start sharing. From there, it was only a matter of months before she was competing.
Both as an individual and team member, she’s won a number of Grand Slams, and two years ago, at 22, she published her first book of poetry, Paint, Inside Out, which won the Cora Craig Author Award for Young Women. She’s slowed the pace a bit now that she is in grad school, but Fant still slams and runs the occasional workshop (she’s worked with Transit Arts and Columbus Collegiate Academy, among other organizations). Most recently, she’s been spending some time in the theater—yes, she also acts.
Her approach to writing poetry, Fant says, is to “paint pictures with words.” With “Today, Beginning Again,” for example, she was drawn to the idea of Columbus as a smart and open city, then starts to break that down: “I’ll ask, what does that look like? Open…bursting…firework…and it goes from there…I try to make it come alive.”
Asked, then, about coming from poetry to preaching and the interplay between the two, she sees some commonality, but also a clear divergence: “Both poems and sermons are journeys that the listener allows me to take them on…But I do not perform sermons. I teach and preach sermons. As I minister through poetry, I am able to give people more of me, my journey and my testimony. As a preacher, I surrender myself to being a minister of the Gospel and I allow only God’s word to shine through.”
Kendra Hovey is editor and head writer at Follow This. On Twitter @KendraHovey, she blogs at kendrahovey.com
FOLLOW THIS: Dr. Jennifer Shine Dyer
EndoGoddess Evolution
[by Kendra Hovey]
Meditate, laugh, spend time with friends, eat salmon, sit less, and get your Vitamin D. This prescription doesn’t sound so bad; it might even be fun. Yet, many of us struggle to follow even simple health habits. But what if doctor’s orders are not so fun—what if they’re, in fact, a big fat drag? And what if you’re a teenager, your friends aren’t having to do it, and slacking off may not get you into real trouble until the ancient age of 30?
For those who live with it, “#diabetes sucks.” At the very least, the lifelong daily regimen to stay healthy is challenging. Denial is tempting, more so for teenagers. Pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Jen Shine Dyer gets this. She also gets the very real consequences—disability, early death. So to help her patients follow doctor’s orders, she “met them where they’re at”—she texted them. And it worked.
Dyer shared her texting experiment at the 2010 TEDxColumbus, where she also unveiled her prototype EndoGoddess app that would enable other doctors to offer similar automated, yet personal, patient support with presumably similar positive results.
So a year and a half later, is her hypothesis true, “is texting good health?” The answer seems to be yes…and no. Dr. Dyer has learned a lot since then. Her idea has evolved. So has she.
So what has she learned? Small personal bursts of physician support get powerful results, but that power begins to dim after about three months. The text and the personal relationship behind it was a trigger, but for a sustained effect, two more things were needed: motivation and literacy. Her evolved version of the EndoGoddess app has all three. When users check blood sugar levels regularly, they get points (eventually to be used as credit at the iTunes Store). Along with this “gamefication” motivation, the app also includes educational and inspirational information and it connects users to online diabetes communities—an increasingly essential source of social support and “real-time empathy.”
Another change: this app is for the patient, not the doctor. “The patients are already looking,” she says, “they are ready for change.” The switch did come with a compromise. Instead of just being texting-capable, users now need a smartphone, or an iPod Touch—a popular device among teens.
Dyer’s original inspiration is not exactly lost; it just comes through the backdoor. Because it can be used to log every blood sugar check, the app functions as a manifest of the often unseen but difficult day-to-day work diabetes demands. This can be enlightening to family and friends, who then may become more supportive. Also as family and friends contribute to the user’s iTunes account, they can become more invested, connected and educated. Or, as Dyer puts it, “When Grandma puts in $5, she might be more likely to say ‘I’m proud of you.’”
Immediately following TEDxColumbus, Dyer was inundated with offers to develop the app. She ignored every one, but then, after six months, decided to partner with the Columbus start-up Duet Health. “We’re on the same page,” she says. Released last fall, the 99-cent app has been downloaded over 500 times, and has a 4+ rating.
And why, exactly, is it called the EndoGoddess? Patients typically refer to their endocrinologists as “my Endo.” One of Dyer’s, a young girl who approved of her doctor’s fashion sense, took to calling Dyer “my EndoGoddess.” The nickname is also Dyer’s online identity.
Asked if the name might be a barrier for some, Dyer shares that half of all users are male. Though she makes the point that they are, like her, early adopters: “As a group, we’re not the most usual bunch of people.”
The next major evolution for the EndoGoddess app will be the integration of a medical device—the glucometer. Likely, this won’t be available until 2013, as it will need FDA approval. For now, Dyer has a clinical trial to run. “I’m a numbers person,” she says, “the field of mobile health is exciting, but as a doctor what I care about is that it improves health care, and we need to have a measure of that.” The 3-month self-funded trial is set to begin this month. She hopes to also run a longer trial, but has bumped into the problem that perplexes many providers of mobile and online content: funding.
On hiatus from practicing medicine, Dyer’s been doing a lot of travelling and talking. At SXSW in March and a D.C. conference in April, in late May she is off to Paris to present at Doctors 2.0 (over the winter there was even a TV audition). A doctor when she spoke at TEDxColumbus, Dyer is now also a tech entrepreneur and mHealth pioneer. As such, she has a frontline perspective on new mobile health solutions. Follow This will continue to follow her, especially as new policies and patient-centered incentives are due to go into effect. It’s going to get interesting, she predicts, and exciting and, she says, “good for patients.”
Kendra Hovey is editor and head writer at Follow This. On Twitter @KendraHovey, she blogs at kendrahovey.com
Speaker Nominations Open for TEDxColumbus 2012: The Future Revealed.
TEDxColumbus: The Future Revealed- October 5, 2012
Wanted: Speakers who can inspire, predict, reflect, challenge, educate and/or resonate.
This year’s TEDxColumbus, anchoring the Columbus Bicentennial’s idUS week, aims to answer an aspirational call: showcase some of our best and brightest thinkers, doers and visionaries with ideas that will shatter bias, ignite creativity and move action.
Keeping in mind we are looking for stories that help reveal the future (or a future), they can be in any of these categories:
- an idea worth spreading
- an amazing personal story
- a stunning performance
- a jawdropping technology demo
- a brand new piece of work/research
- a unique “how to”
- a slide show of remarkable images
- a review of a unique trend or set of data with your unique lens
- anything that you think would fascinate, excite, educate, inspire or delight the rest of us.
This year’s process has a new phase which includes an open call for ideas.
Phase 1:
To be considered by the curatorial team (April – June), anyone nominated needs to submit a one minute (and we mean one minute) video of the idea you want to share at TEDxColumbus. You may nominate others or yourself, as long as the video is submitted at the same time as the nomination. We will not consider any nominations during this time that don’t include a video.
So, to nominate yourself or someone else, two things are needed.
1. Fill out this form.
2. Submit a video to this email address: tedxcolumbus@gmail.com.
If you don’t submit a video, we will not remind you or reach to you, we’ll just not review your nomination. You should be notified by July whether or not you were chosen by the curatorial team. We encourage you to submit your videos by May 15th! But read on….
Phase 2:
While the curatorial team will pick approximately 12-15 speakers and performers from our search and general nominations in Phase 1, we will leave three spots open to be chosen in three new ways in 2012:
- A panel of previous TEDxColumbus attendees and speakers will audition up to 10 speakers who will be chosen from the video submissions. Each applicant / nominee will present a 3 minute sample talk. During that same audition, we will open it to up to 20 people (first come, first serve) to present 1 minute ideas to also be considered. These people need not submit a nomination or video in advance. The panel’s choice will present at TEDxColumbus 2012. The audition event is August 16 at Columbus Museum of Art in the Cardinal Health Auditorium from 7-9pm. This audition is open and free to anyone to attend, should you just want to stop in and hear some great short talks!
- Registrants / attendees to TEDxColumbus 2012 will get to vote on a final speaker, also from the open nomination videos. We will submit three videos to the attendees in early September on which they will vote and the winner will present.
- We will pick one speaker from TEDxYouth@Columbus on October 3 (also at COSI). We will scout a speaker or performer that day and offer a surprise invitation to him or her to come back on October 5.
Readers’ Roundtable with Claudia Kirsch
A group of 23 discussed their thoughts of “Mindset” by Carol Dweck
We would love for you to join us for a future session. Below is the complete schedule for Readers’ Roundtable:
April 11: David Burns (2011 speaker) discussing The Big Short by Michael Lewis. Click here to register
May 16: David Staley (2010 speaker) discussing Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation by David Edwards. Click here to register
June 8: Jason Barger (2010 speaker) discussing the film Finding Joe. Click here to register
July 11: Alex Bandar (2011 speaker) discussing Good to Great by Jim Collins. Click here to register
August 9: Mike Figliuolo (2011 speaker) discussing One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership by Mike Figliuolo. Click here to register
For more information on Readers’ Roundtable, click here.
For more photos from Readers’ Roundtable with Claudia Kirsch, click here.
This one, for the kids
February 26, 2012: I had the honor of giving a presentation to 250 TEDx organizers from 41 countries on our experience helping with the elementary school program, TEDxKids@NBCC. I think in this shot I was making the point that my son gave his TEDx talk in 52 seconds in his socks. Taken at the Living Desert Museum.