TEDxWellingtonSalon #2 | Event Review

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Around 80 creative souls attended the second TEDxWellingtonSalon for a night of inspiration and discussion on 8th April at Bizdojo.

Oh and there was pizza, coffee and kombucha! Here is a re-cap of what we did and if you were un-able to attend it will hopefully give you an understanding of what a TEDxSalon event can be like:

We heard about the value of sharing your story from TED Prize winner Dave Isay, particularly with those closest to us who we might not REALY know much about. Take your father or grandfather for example; do you know what most inspired them in school? Or how they viewed the world when they took their first job? You never know, you might find a little more about yourself through the process.

Crowd funding is one way of getting your story out there and known to your community. We heard from Anna Guenther about what she has been up to and learned since her TED talk at TEDxTeAro back in December 2012. We also heard from Fraser and Oliver who spoke at TEDxWellington last year and got an update on their idea of a cardboard desk that has the ability to change the way you work.

We took Shimpei Takahashi’s challenge and stepped away from trends and data and we looked at creating ideas from a completely random set of cues. In fact, we played a word game, a small and seemingly insignificant game. The delegates started with the word Wellington, and came up with three sequential words. From this they had to come up with a toy or a movie idea. Here are some of these words:

Toy
1. Nature, Egg, Goat, Teapot
2. Noodle, Eskimo, Olympics
3. Netball, Lettuce, Environment

Movie
1. Wellington Naughty Yacht Club
2. Nana Asteroid Defends Skiing
3. Never Resting Girls School

Google Maps lets us view Wellington via satellite, street view and by playing Pac man, but there are many other ways to map a city. In answer to Dave Troy’s talk the Salon delegates described how they thought Wellington could be mapped. Here are some of their responses:

  • By dog size: starting with ‘Cuba’ small, ‘Spitztown’ Medium and going right out to the suburbs, ‘Labrador’ City.
  • By alcoholic drink choice: Cocktails, Shots, Beer, Craft Beer, Cider, Wine and make your own.
  • By groups of people: Wellywooders, Coffee lovers, 1984ers, Bogans, Students, Outdoorsy people, Pet lovers, Exercisers, Hipsters, Government.
  • By caffeine groups: Coca-cola, Redbull, Flat white, Espresso, Tea, Chai.

We hope to see you all at the next TEDxWellingtonSalon in a few months’ time (date and venue TBC) plus there’ll be an announcement soon about TEDxWellington 2015.

And if you can’t wait, here are the details for other TEDx events going on around New Zealand in the coming months: