TEDxRVA

Communications & Marketing Lead

COMMS TEAM:
Shannon Essad, Samantha Ramos, Jordan Vrescak, Andrew Mowe, Jeff Kelley

INTERNS:
Paige Kobza, Maxwell Nardi

What Is It?

  • TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. In that spirit, TEDx is a program of local events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience, branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

    TEDxRVA, a full-day conference of TEDx talks by live speakers with diverse ideas and expertise. In addition to the lineup of speakers around the world the conference creates an array of interactive exhibits, organizes meals and snack breaks for all attendees, and has merch, and concessions available. All this takes place at Dominion Energy Center’s historic 1800-seat Carpenter Theatre, where the adjacent block of 6th Street in Downtown Richmond is closed to traffic for the day to accommodate public displays and activities outside the event venue as well.

  • Similar to TEDxRVA, TEDxRVAWomen presents a full-day conference of TEDx talks by live speakers with diverse ideas and expertise. This full-day conference, held at the 800-seat historic Byrd Theatre in Richmond, features an all-female roster of speakers, presenting talks on topics that run the gamut of topics that may interest, affect, or involve the women’s experience.

  • TEDxRVASalon, an event series initiated by Community Team Lead Patricia Bradby, invited community members into art galleries, libraries, restaurants, retail shops, and a variety of other unique meeting locations to watch previously recorded TED Talks from around the world, then break out into small groups to discuss ideas shared with other attendees, each group facilitated by volunteers. Each event featured a different topic, different speakers/videos and conversation facilitators, and even snacks coordinated by Community Team volunteers, and donated by featured local businesses. With much smaller audiences than the main event, gathering in more intimate spaces, salons created environments for attendees to get to know one another and exchange ideas on a personal level.

  • This annual event, led by TED Ed Innovator Tim Couillard, is organized by a team of high school students who learn about Richmond to understand who and what makes it great, who has ideas worth spreading, and who is committed to serving the young people of the city. At the event, speakers chosen by the students organizers present TED Talks on a variety of topics.

How It Started

  • Two of my personal friends-turned-professional-mentors in Richmond were heavily involved in these local events, Tim Couillard (physics and ethics teacher, TED Ed Innovator, TEDxRVA Advisor and leader of TEDxYouth@RVA programming) and Lloyd Young (Director of Innovation & Design at VCU da Vinci Center and Shift Retail Lab, and head of marketing and design for TEDxRVA and TEDxRVAWomen’s for the last several years). Dipping a toe in the water, I took a volunteer role simply directing pedestrian traffic at the full-day 2016 TEDxRVA conference. I got a bit more involved in the next TEDxRVAWomen event, volunteering my design expertise on the Production Team (led by Todd Waldo), developing custom graphics and laying out presentations along with designer Anne Love Field at Todd’s dining room table.

    I was hooked. I was building my own community, professional and personal, through this inspiring community-building project. As Lloyd decided to shift focus to other projects, I sought her advice about picking up where she left off. With her guidance, I was able to shake the deer-in-headlights awe at the complex dynamics of the proposed role and get to work.

  • In August of 2016, I first met with Katie Shea, Producer of the TEDxRVA main event for 2017. Katie was piecing together the Team Leads that would work diligently developing the collective vision for this event and then bringing it to life over the next 10 months. I was struck by her serious tone around the task, and remember feeling nervous enough to make a feeble joke about the conversation around the volunteer position feeling a bit like a job interview—and I have since realized that it may as well have been one…

    In the Communications & Marketing Lead role, I would learn more about professional collaboration, community outreach, and communications through work with these leaders than I had in the previous near-decade of my professional career.

  • A new challenge for the 2017 planning season was the introduction of TEDxRVASalon events, initiated by Community Team Lead Patricia Bradby Moore, in January 2017. With her leadership we secured venues, curated content, solicited in-kind donations for catering and refreshments from local vendors, and created/distributed beautifully designed promotional assets for each event. It excited me that these free monthly events added an even more community-focused element to the event series, and the added opportunity for regular touch-points with our community audience, growing interest throughout the year leading up to the main event.

    My job would be to spread the word and get people to show up, month after month—an interesting challenge, as this event series involved sharing personal experience in small group settings, even separating from whoever you may have arrived with, to engage in conversations with strangers. However, Richmond proved it was ready to meet the challenge, and the team happily saw our community connecting in new ways.

    Each free event “sold out,” reaching the maximum capacity of 100 registered attendees per salon.

How It’s Going

  • The 2017 conference is detailed with photos and captions below. I’d like to offer a shorter summary, but find it difficult to explain concisely without short-changing the complex journey that an incredible group of 90+ volunteers in the Richmond community could create together, and don’t dare risk underselling the inspirational experiences generated for the broader community of attendees and viewers.

  • While the cost of tickets to the in-person event was set at $50 (including all refreshments, meals, and SWAG), we provided equity in access to the event by streaming it live for free at 12 satellite locations throughout Virginia.

    TEDxRVA hasn’t held a main stage conference event similar to that of 2017 since, though TEDxYOUTH@RVA continues hosting annual events. Some volunteers picked up the baton to host a scaled-back half-day event similar to TEDxRVAWomen at the 225-seat Grace Street Theater, under the name TEDxGraceStreetWomen in 2018. I can’t help but feel lucky that our team avoided the hurt and challenges that came along with producing events leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, but perhaps the round red rug of TEDxRVA will find the spotlight of the main stage again somewhere down the line.

  • 20+ Team Leads, most of whom were complete strangers prior to working together on TEDxRVA (save for those who had work together on previous TEDx projects) became a tight-knit cast of characters, each bringing our own strengths and supporting each others’ shortcomings. Despite our varied lifestyles, family situations, and goals, we developed personal and professional connections from sitting in rooms together, sometimes our own living rooms, for countless hours of planning throughout year. Perhaps there is something to be said about the connections that blossom between any people who commit so much time, effort, and passion toward something in a volunteer capacity. We developed a truly special community through our efforts to build up the community around us.

    Today, I’ve celebrated the purchase of a first/new home for seven volunteer teammates, been a guest at the weddings of three of them, and traveled across the country to visit two team leads who became friends, traveling internationally with two others. I’d never met any of these individuals prior to getting involved with TEDxRVA, and it’s my hope that if the team was able to gain so much in the aftermath of our work, perhaps what we built together was able to have a similarly positive affect on those who attended.

What was my role?

As the Communications & Marketing Lead for the 2017 conference, I was responsible for maintaining and communicating a thorough understanding of the dozens of moving parts, complex and thoughtful elements of the conference—like interactive kiosks run by volunteers, and art installations, and three complete menus for break times and their schedules throughout the day of the conference—and managing TEDxRVA’s public representation and marketing through website updates, mass emails, social media, blogs, press releases, news coverage. I oversaw all external communications, assembling a team of copywriters, web developers, social media managers and interns, reviewing each piece developed (blog copy, speaker bios, printed event programs, etc.) before sharing with the public. This unpaid work involved tasks such as:

  • Promote TEDxRVA on all platforms and create a day-of-event communications plan

  • Redesign website and update regularly

  • Promote 4 additional pre-conference events

    • 2 open mic events

    • 2 screen-printing workshops

  • Promote and recap 12 TEDxRVASalon events, with adequate representation of over 145 collaborators:

    • 26+ individual speakers/panelists/guests

    • 85+ small group facilitators

    • 22+ sponsors and in-kind sponsors

    • 12 host locations

  • Layout, schedule, write/review content, and request graphic assets for:

    • 20+ email blasts

    • 23 Speaker bios

    • 13 blogs

    • 15–page program booklet

  • Promote 12 remote viewing parties throughout the state

  • Ensure adequate representation for 10 main event sponsors/fiscal partners

  • Draft/review the formal press release for the 2017 conference

Leaders I collaborated with most closely in this role include:

Katie Shea, Producer | Conferring on all moving parts for scheduling and communications, and because of this overall knowledge-sharing, standing in for each other in meetings/speaker workshops/events to answer questions if the other was out of reach.

Megan Price, Design Lead | Collaborating for all graphic assets to accompany communications, and ensuring her team would have sufficient time to develop them ahead of each scheduled promotion or release date.

Matt Ho, Ticket Sales Lead | Monitoring to ensure communications campaigns and marketing efforts would successfully result in actual ticket sales as expected.

Patricia Bradby, Community Lead | Understanding themes and facilitators’ directions for each TEDxRVASalon, and relaying information for live-streaming of the main TEDxRVA conference in multiple satellite locations.

Digital Solutions

To accommodate simultaneous event promotion and more robust content communication needs, I reworked the main pages of the TEDxRVA website and designed new email communication templates.

Since we had many concurrent events to promote, a new header immediately told viewers the focus of the email, while still inviting the community to engage with other TEDxRVA-based initiatives.

We collected emails from each TEDxRVASalon attendee, so they could receive an event summary followup email, thanking them and providing a blog recap as well as links to all sponsors/facilitators/panelists/food vendors and dozens of event photos (taken by TEDxRVA volunteer photographers) which attendees were encouraged to share.

We held team meetings and creative brainstorms several times per week local coworking spaces or volunteers’ homes.

We offered anyone in the Richmond community the opportunity to present on the TEDxRVA main stage at two Open Mic Night competitions.

To promote this opportunity, we peppered the city with printed posters and flyers (designed by Megan Price), took to social media, posted thorough information on the website and sent email blasts calling for anyone with an idea worth spreading.

Audience members voted on the best two-minute presentation at each location. A winner from the Library of Virginia Open Mic and a winner The Broadberry concert venue were invited to give a full-length TEDx talk at the main event, with support from coaches on the Speaker Team.

We announced winners from each Open Mic Night via website, email blast, and social media, with photos of each event and thanking all who attended and participated.

WINNER: Rachel Pater

WINNER: Tom Doland

Meanwhile, the Stage Team drew up design concepts for the main event, which they spent the following months constructing.

I created a Social Media Playbook and a Communications Plan for the day of the event for volunteers to review and maintain consistency in voice, messaging, and quality of the TEDxRVA brand.

As the main event drew closer and urgent needs increased, the Producer and I began holding regular working “office hours” at the coworking spaces to be available for even more planning discussions throughout each week.

Salons continued drawing audiences and spurring meaningful conversations.

We continued engaging this community through regular emails, event recap blogs, and photos from each salon.

Enlisting help from a local print shop, volunteers from several TEDxRVA teams created hand-stenciled posters for the main event, and placed them on shop windows/bulletin boards around the city as we did for Open Mic events.

The Speaker Team finalized our lineup and met with presenters one-on-one and as a group in a small theatre to coach and craft their talks.

The Ticket Sales Team not only worked with the venue and my communications team to get tickets sold, but made sure we had a presence at other local events, talking to people about TEDxRVA and building an audience of individuals actively engaging in other parts of the community.

Ticket sales began flowing in.

Our final pre-event outreach promoted two free screen printing workshops, where we taught techniques in exchange for some of their artworks, triangle flags to be crafted into banners, hung around the tented outside area of the venue.

Look, Ma! We’re on TV!

CBS 6 (WTVR) welcomed Todd Waldo and Leah Fremouw for Virginia This Morning to share what TEDxRVA conference attendees could expect at this year’s event and the conversations and community building taking place across the city at regular TEDxRVASalon events.

“Designed to connect, motivate and change the way we view the world, TEDxRVA returns to the river city.”

— CBS 6 – WTVR

What They Were Saying

TEDxRVA Main Event:

“The popular event features a variety of speakers from all over the country, inspiring members of the audience and helping them change the way they see the world.”

— NBC 12 – WWBT

“This year’s one-day event includes a speaker series and interactive experiences to discuss how change is present in everyday life and how it can be used for personal and community improvement.”

— Richmond Times-Dispatch

“‘Change is about introspection’,” notes Williams. After we look inward, she feels, we can go about making changes in our communities that will have an impact on the greater society.”

— Richmond Magazine

“TEDx talks and sessions will revolve around the concept of activating change: to one’s self, one’s community, and the world at large.”

— RVAHub

TEDxRVASalon:

“A steady stream of nearly 100 people filtered in… to attend TEDxRVASalon on the process of resettlement for refugees who come to Richmond. These events are called salons in order to communicate ideas of casual conversation which happen in people’s private spaces. The intent is to localize broad topics and making them relatable to the Richmond area.”

— Commonwealth Times

“‘Happiness, Connection, Adventure— it’s all right where we are.’ These were the words of Ginger Kern from her TEDx event in Brookings, SD… viewed by the crowd at the TEDxRVA salon held at HI Richmond Hostel.

— RVA Magazine

Mentions:

SPOILER ALERT!

SPOILER ALERT!

TEDxRVA Audience, Carpenter Theatre at Dominion Energy Center | June 23, 2017

We sold out the 1800-seat theatre.

One Week Countdown

A week before the main event we launched a countdown on social media, highlighting remaining ticket availability and emphasizing other ways to get involved, including opportunities to join free live-streamed viewing parties throughout the region.

(Social media graphics designed by Megan Price)

As the event kicked off, the Food Team organized breakfast lines and cleared cafe tables under tents lining the street.

They arranged meals, snacks, coffee, and a cocktail hour in partnership with local food vendors for all attendees to enjoy at breaks throughout the day.

Early in the spring, we had put out a call for volunteers from the community as the Volunteer Coordination Team assessed their needs and organized information meetings.

They showed out in dozens to help for half-day shifts, helping to direct attendee traffic, answer questions, sell merch, and share about the event on social media with our custom event filters and hashtags.

The Sponsorship Team solidified support from 10 main event sponsors, and together we ensured proper representation for them in all communications and in person at the main event.

In the Speaker Lounge, the Speaker Team arranged interviews with local radio WRIR, poster signings, and a makeup artist to prepare speakers for the stage…

…while in the front-of-house, the Interactive Team coordinated art installations and interactive exhibits.

Interactive exhibits lined the indoor and outdoor spaces of the theatre, everywhere but the main auditorium.

We produced 36-page printed programs for each attendee, outlining all event details; exhibits to lunch menu options to speaker bios.

“Be the Change” Photo Booth