Tag Archives | tedxphilly

it belongs to the community

I’ve been kicking this post around in my head for a while (along with sooo many others) and it finally seems like the right time to get my thoughts out there. Over the last four years, I have learned a great deal about planning events & conferences, and quite frankly — hustling. I’ve run on excitement, enthusiasm, soy chai lattes and the thrill of bringing awesome educational & inspirational experiences to the good people of Philadelphia. I have learned so much about myself in the process, and seen the good (and the bad) side of people. This year, I’ve decided to step back a bit and I wanted to provide more context as to why. So here goes.

Barcamp Philly After Party Photobooth

In the summer of 2008, I stumbled across the opportunity to bring the global unconference Barcamp to Philadelphia alongside my now great friend JP Toto. BarCamp Philly was decidedly a huge hit. Each year has been a complete sellout and the geek love that sprouts from this event is impossible to measure. Friendships are formed, new collaborations are developed, shy people become impressive speakers, new jobs are landed!  4 years running, real shit has happened as a result of BarCamp Philly. I’m not trying to brag — it’s a people-powered event and Philly knows how to represent! I’m so grateful to my fellow organizers, JP, Kelani Nichole and Sarah Feidt for making it so. And yes, you read that right, a rockin’ tech conference put on by 3 chicks and 1 dude!

Fast forward a bit, 2 BarCamps down, the next opportunity strikes… TEDxPhilly! TEDx events had just started cropping up in cities around the world and it was Philly’s turn. Conversations had started, introductions were made, a license was granted. Since BarCamp Philly was on such an epic roll, I was ready to conquer this event. Biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on, by far. The first year we held the event at the Kimmel Center. After doing BarCamps in donated university space, this was crazy to me. Like, a real professional grownup event in a top shelf venue. I thought I had hit the big time. After it was over, I felt like I was run over by a truck. So many insane lessons learned, so much left to learn.

The second year was far better than the first. I put those hard won lessons to work in a multitude of ways. The team was more focused, the tools were more appropriate, the speakers were more aligned, the experience was more thoughtful, the venue was more accommodating, the sponsors were more generous. It was a worthy challenge to work out some of the things that didn’t work the first go ’round. Due to better planning, I was fortunate enough to simply watch the show like an audience member. Quite frankly, I was just plain tired.

So this is where I tell you why I participated in bringing these events to Philadelphia. Because I genuinely care. I want people to be moved, to connect with others, to learn something new, to think differently, to see something they haven’t seen before. This is all done on a volunteer basis, so I have to care!

Caring is in fact the reason why it’s hard not to hear the naysayers sometimes. The ones that bitch about the price, the speakers, the choices we made. I already know, I can’t and won’t ever be able to please everyone. That lesson is learned! It took some effort and a thick skin to learn it, but there you have it. I care, dammit! And I’ll have you know, I hear everything and I’m always listening.

So why is it time to move on?

It’s just time for me to see something new, experience something different, be an observer, be an attendee. It has been an incredible experience to create platforms for people to share their awesomeness with each other. I’m proud of this work and have great hope for the people who will take the reins in the future… people who have also invested huge parts of themselves in making these events a reality.

It belongs to the community.

That’s my magic phrase that is guiding this transition. It’s hard to let go of things you have worked so hard for, but I know that it’s what’s best for the events and it’s what’s best for me.

Carry on!

p.s. If you’ve been on this wild ride with me, please give a shout below. It’s fun to relive the memories with all of you :)

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here and now

Laughing Lotus Yoga School Teacher Training Graduation, May 2005

I've been doing yoga on and off for nine years now. By on and off I mean that I'm either fully immersed in it (and loving every second), or I've fallen into a lazy pattern where I'm longing for it but not doing it. I'm sure there are many things we wish we were doing, but aren't, for whatever reason. Excuses are easy to come by.

Returning to practice has been slow, but steady. It's definitely not a question of soreness or loss of flexibility. It's all in there, written deep into my muscle memories. The interesting part has been acceptance. I was part of a very intense and vibrant yoga community in NYC and have not found its match in my current locale. I've thought that many of the studios I have tried here are not hard enough, not sweaty enough, not challenging enough… 

But I realized that none of those things are true. Yoga isn't always exactly what you want it to be. The only consistent thing in your yoga practice (and let's face it, in your life) is YOU. You're the one who is bringing whatever you are bringing onto your mat every time you roll it out. Bringing negative emotions and missed expectations won't improve your practice nor will it encourage you to keep trying.

After my last post about finding and creating community, I couldn't help but draw parallels between the two. If I really think that "just showing up" is important, then I better have that attitude about yoga as well. I've found that the more I show up, the easier it is to let go of my expectations of how I think it's supposed to be. I can feel the resistance begin to break up and reveal new sensations: openness, curiosity, flexibility, adventure!

I find that most yoga classes have lessons in them if you are open to it. This morning was no exception. A typically busy Saturday morning class was presented with new challenges when we had to practice in the smaller of the two studios. A great example of real world collaboration is watching yogis make space for a few more mats in a packed room. It's pretty amazing how there's always just enough room. If you've ever done yoga, you know that the physical practice of yoga is also often about discovering space that you didn't realize was there.

The words that we began class with are what inspired this post in the first place. I think the rushed mat moving and craziness diverted the teacher's intention a little bit, in a good way. She asked us, what does yoga mean? A few people responded with "union" (the literal translation), uniting the mind and body, getting the mind out of the way, etc. The words we landed on that stuck with me were "here" and "now".

TEDxPhilly t-shirt. Design by Sean Martorana, Photo by Kevin Monko.

As I'm currently in a period of reflection and transition, I couldn't help but think about how that's where last year's theme for TEDxPhilly came from. Right Here, Right Now was actually a modified version of Being Present — being in the here and now. Funnily enough, the visual representation of our theme was two right arrows, each above the words Here and Now. If you didn't catch the cleverness of the right arrows (Sean Martorana is a very clever designer!) then you saw it as Here and Now, which in itself, is something.

If you are anything like me, here and now is a place you don't often frequent. Sometimes I think I spend too much time looking back or looking ahead, but definitely not spending enough time in the here and now. It's quite a different picture. My yoga practice is just part of the adventure, writing this blog post is another. 

So if I said the other day to just show up, today I'm suggesting (mostly to myself), enjoy the present moment. Take it all in, look at it, laugh at it, and just be all up in it.

Enjoy.

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my community story

The vibrant community of TEDxPhilly, photographed by Kevin Monko of Monkophoto.

Earlier this week I was given the opportunity to share my experience with TEDxPhilly at an Innovation & Entrepreneurship class at UArts. When first asked by the wonderful Hilary Jay of DesignPhiladephia, I hesitated. Public speaking is not my comfort zone at all, and organizing TEDxPhilly this year was pretty damn challenging on many levels. What would I talk about? How would I close with a message of positivity? I was unsure how to proceed.

Before I go too much further, I want to say that Hilary gets it. DesignPhiladelphia is an amazing 10 day event that descends on Philadelphia each October, showcasing incredible design talent in the community, through exhibits, lectures, open studios and more. I'm in complete awe of the annual undertaking. The truth is, I reached out to Hilary independently, because when I see people pulling off such meaningful events, I want to reach out to them and ask – how do you do it!?

So back to class, back to this presentation. I was thinking about winging it and just riffing on the experience, but I realized it was a good opportunity to sit with it and think about it. I've had a canned answer for how things went, how I pulled it off (with an amazing group of volunteers), etc, but this was my chance to tell a story of how I got there and where I am today. 

This is how the story goes…

In the Spring of 2007, I came upon a group of likeminded individuals — web developers, designers, and generally enthusiastic people who wanted to change things up a bit in Philadelphia. Tired of the same old same old, you need to do things in this order, etc. While we ultimately all became great friends, this was also one of the first professional communities I had ever been a part of. Need design inspiration? Check. Wanna get that WordPress question answered? Check. And so on and so forth.  I always found this group to be very welcoming and everyone had something to contribute. And if you didn't, you thought of something. That's how it worked. 

It was this group that gave me the guts to co-organize the first BarCamp Philly in the fall of 2008.  It was a very pivotal moment for me. Oh hey, turns out I like this community organizer thing. BarCamp Philly gave way to Refresh Philly which gave way to UX Book Club Philly and ultimately my largest project to date: TEDxPhilly. Each project had different requirements, different community overlaps, different stresses and rewards. 

One of the best thing to come out of TEDxPhilly from my perspective was that it was the most diverse audience I had ever created an event for. Young, old, professional, student, musician, artist, scientist, nonprofit, corporate, techie, luddite, the list goes on. The TED brand is very powerful and draws people out the of the woodwork. That's why I wanted to bring it to Philadelphia — to help people discover new people and projects and get inspired again!

So what was the message I wanted to leave with these students? It was simple and this is how I put it:

Find community
Create community
Have fun (the most important thing)
Pass it on

When asked, "how do you find community?" I said this… Just show up. That's the first step. Inevitably there's going to be someone else there who is also there for the first time, and better yet, someone that's there to welcome you and learn more about you and your interests.

Maybe you ultimately decide you want to start your own community project — figure out how to do it, either dive right in, or ask someone you look up to how they went about it. Learn from your mistakes, and share them with others.

Make things happen. Don't complain, just do. We're all in this together.


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