TEDxBrisbane Speaker Guide

The Must-Know Essentials

TEDxBrisbane is more than a series of events—it is a local and global community that comprises individuals from diverse walks of life, with a diverse range of skills, knowledge, and experiences, but with a shared commitment to challenging preconceived ideas and the status quo, sharing ideas worth spreading and making a positive difference in the world. We have chosen you because we believe you have an idea worth spreading: one that can play a role in changing the world for the better.

Our Curatorial Team

We are committed to helping you to deliver the best talk possible to help spread that idea. We have a curatorial team dedicated to working with our speakers. Our team has over ten years of experience with TEDx events. Two of the curators have presented their own TEDx Talks, and collectively the team has curated more than 50 talks. Our team includes professional copywriters, speechwriters, speaker & pitch coaches and qualified journalists.

Our Executive Director & Licensee

Under the global TEDx Rules the Licensee (our Executive Director, Juanita Wheeler) is ultimately responsible for every idea and every speaker presented on our TEDx stage. She is tasked with seeking out ideas worth spreading by finding extraordinary people who have been heard and seen by few, but have a fresh approach in their field, or a new perspective to share – which they can convey in a dynamic way.

The ideas must be new and novel, and she is responsible for creating a program that “wows” our guests and viewers.

She is also ultimately responsible for ensuring the integrity of the platform, ensuring that every idea and every speaker is vetted in accordance with TED standards.

Our Head of Curation

The Head of Curation works closely with our curatorial team, and our speakers in our highly curated process to ensure that every script meets TEDx standards, maximises the potential for real-world impact, and that every performance is well crafted, well rehearsed, and ultimately, successful.

What our Head of Curation, Jade Damnar says, goes! The Head of Curation is in charge of getting you the resources you need when you need them. She works hand in hand with the the Curation Administration Coordinator – who you will be working very closely with as you make your journey to the red circle.

Our Curation Administration Coordinator

Our Curation Administration Coordinator, Ashleigh Law will help you with all the administrative aspects of your speaker journey. She will also play a vital role in ensuring you stick to deadlines such as submitting biographic information, script drafts and slides.

Every year, without fail, the most successful and well polished talks are delivered by the speakers who hit their deadlines, and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Our Curation Administration Coordinator will help to keep you on track, and report status updates to the curatorial team.

They have their work cut out for them, so please submit things on time – and in return they’ll get back to you about any questions you may have, guide you on the specific TEDx regulations and ensure reviews of your drafts and slides are back to you as soon as possible.

Your Dedicated Curator

We will allocate a dedicated curator to work with you over the coming months. This person has been carefully matched to you based on their experience with different formats of TEDx Talks, their areas of expertise, and sometimes their skepticism.

In keeping with TEDx guidelines, we often look for innovative and challenging ideas that need to be defended – that are not self-evident, and we will often appoint someone from the curatorial team who still needs convincing. Because if you can convince them – your talk is ready for the larger audience.

Your curator will work alongside you during every stage of your talk development. They will be the conduit between you and the entire curation team as they work to support you in picking the topic and title, guiding you on honing your idea, challenging you to convince them, listening to rehearsals and more. Think of them as your new TEDx best friend. And like any true best friend they’ll be incredibly supportive, but they’ll also be very honest with you, and give you the feedback that you need to hear to be deliver the best possible talk.

They have the challenging task of being your toughest critic and your best friend all at the same time, to help you give the talk of your life. We’ve invited you to speak because your knowledge and experience makes you are an expert in a specific topic. We are the experts on what works on the TEDxBrisbane stage, what works in TEDx Talk videos, and the difference between good and great TEDx Talks. Together we are a formidable team.

How does a TEDx Talk differ from other presentations you may have done?

TEDx Talks are short, and about one idea worth spreading.
We give you a time limit – and you will have to stick to it!
It is a curated process. This means your drafts are reviewed in detail by the full curatorial team and feedback will be given to you to incorporate into your talk. Your slides will also be reviewed in this way to be appropriate for TEDx. At the end of the process, you will walk away with a honed message, a polished presentation, developed presentation skills and a professional slide deck.
It is essential that you must memorise your talk as no notes are allowed on stage.

Our essential communication and planning tool – Basecamp!

We use project management tool, Basecamp to keep up to date with everything! You will be invited to our 2019 Speakers Basecamp Team. We also use Google Drive to share and edit talks with you. We have found this is the easiest way to keep everything in one place, and don’t worry – you don’t need a Gmail account to use it. You can always ask our Curation Administration Coordinator if you need any assistance.

The Basic How To Dos and Don’ts

Over the years we’ve come up with a few dos and don’ts on how to give a great talk. Though these steps are in no way comprehensive, they contain some guiding principles that have been known to work.

But before leaping into the how to’s we want to reassure you that if we have invited you to give a TEDx Talk on our stage, then we passionately believe that you have an idea worth spreading. More than that, we believe you have the potential, through your idea, to have a positive impact in the world, and we want to help you do it. Our whole team, including your dedicated curator, the broader curatorial team, and the entire event team are committed to ensuring you give the best possible talk at an event the audience never forgets.

At TEDxBrisbane our motto is ‘engineering impact’. We are serious about changing the world and are crazy enough to know we are doing it.

We believe in your idea. We want others to believe in it, and to help you to advance it further – with actions and behaviour changes that turn ideas into impact

We will work with you to hone your impact goals/objectives for your TEDx Talk. It might be personal behaviour changes, or legislative changes. It might be small but impactful, or it might be the equivalent of seismic cultural changes, like those seen in relation to passive smoking. If you know what your impact goals are, don’t be shy about letting us know what they are. You’ll never hear us say they are too big or bold – even if you’re aiming for the stars. We love that. And the more we understand your impact vision, the more help you in achieving it. We are here to be your impact engineers on this journey you are taking.

To help us help you, you need to…

Step 1: Get familiar with the form

Step 2: Develop an idea

Step 3: Make an outline and script

Step 4: Create slides

Step 5: Rehearse

Step 6: Give your talk

Step 7: Savour the glory

STEP 1: GET FAMILIAR WITH THE FORM

What is a TEDx Talk?

TEDx Talks are a showcase for speakers presenting well-formed ideas succinctly in as little as 3 minutes and a maximum of 18 minutes. The ‘x’ in TEDx means that the events are independently licensed. Juanita – our licensee, holds that important license! It’s important based on the TED rules that you always call your talk a TEDx Talk, not a TED talk. If you haven’t seen a TED or TEDx Talk, go to TED.com and watch at least ten, including five of a similar length to your allocated talk time. If you want some suggestions of which talks might be good for you specifically, ask us if we have any recommendations.

Why such short talks?

Because it works. An audience is good at focusing on one subject at a time in relatively short chunks. Some ideas can be told succinctly and compellingly in just three minutes. Others need a little longer, but TED and TEDx rules prohibit talks being over 18 minutes in length.

Our experience has shown us that carefully and precisely curated talks, in their purest, concise form, are far more likely to be viewed and shared throughout the TEDx community and beyond.

In addition to retaining the audience’s attention, shorter and snappier talks also minimise the tendency for some speakers to wander into other ideas and tangential topics that weaken the impact and potency of their single new and novel idea.

When speakers are invited to give a talk on our TEDxBrisbane stage we extend a time-specific offer (e.g.: 4 minutes). Our curation team has extensive knowledge of what length of talk works with what type of ideas, and offer potential speakers a time slot using that expertise.

Once a speaker is confirmed, and the curatorial team is reviewing drafts they will be will be asking themselves and the speaker, ‘why is this sentence here, and what does it add?’. In the final stages, we go word by word, questioning whether it adds value or detracts from the idea

But, really, can I go over my allocated time?

No – it wouldn’t be a TEDx Talk. The time limit is part of what makes TEDx Talks work, and the specific time offered for your talk by the curation team represents their extensive knowledge about the best possible duration to maximise the successful spread of your idea. And remember: Shorter talks are not lesser talks. It may only take 5 minutes to make your point unforgettable, and a minute longer could undo your good work and dilute it. A great example is Joe Smith’s “How to use a paper towel”. We would also encourage you to check out TED’s playlist of 13 talks delivered in 3 minutes.

STEP 2: DEVELOP AN IDEA

What makes a good idea for a TEDx Talk?

Like a good magazine article, your idea can be new or surprising, or challenge a belief your audience is likely to hold. It can be a world-first or cutting edge invention or innovation, or it can be a great basic idea with a compelling new argument behind it.

Distinct from your typical public speaking gig or keynote address, a TEDx Talk is all about a single idea worth spreading, that if embraced by the audience, both locally and online, could help change the world. An idea isn’t just a story or a list of facts. A good idea takes evidence or observations and draws a more significant conclusion. Please remember your idea should be new to most people in the audience. You should highlight an idea that most people haven’t thought about before. Don’t aim to reinforce already entrenched or established world-views.

Do I need to be an expert on my topic?

You do not need to be the world’s foremost expert on the topic, but you do have to be an expert. Please remember that the audience relies on you to give accurate information, so whatever you say in your talk, must be extensively and robustly fact-checked — especially facts you may take for granted: statistics, historical anecdotes and scientific stats.

TEDx rules require the curatorial team and ultimately the Licensee to be responsible for checking every fact you present is evidence-based, which is just one of the reasons we need to review and sign off on every single word in your script. As part of the curatorial process, we’ll be asking you to provide evidence for your statements to meet these rules in the footnotes in each draft you send. If you’re drawing an example from a discipline that is not your primary area of knowledge, use research from widely accepted and peer-reviewed sources, and, if at all possible, consult with experts directly.

When one of our TEDx Talks was selected by the TED Headquarters (HQ) Curatorial Team in New York to be a feature talk on TED.com (the TEDx equivalent to winning a gold medal at the Olympics) we needed to provide sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, assertion by assertion references. It took months for the vetting to be completed. If the HQ team express an interest in showcasing your talk on TED.com, we want to have this referencing ready to go the second they ask!

Is my idea ready?

Write your idea down in one or two sentences. Ask yourself three questions:

Is my idea new?
Are you telling people something you’re pretty sure they have not heard before?
Is it interesting?

You don’t need to do this alone. This is something you should do alongside your curator, with input from the curatorial team, but if we’ve offered you a speaking place following a 12/120 word pitch – we think your idea is ready. Think about how your idea might apply to a room full of varied kinds of people. Who might be interested in it?

Is it factual and realistic?
Will the audience know what they can do next if they believe and embrace my idea?
If you are presenting new research, make sure your idea is backed by peer-reviewed data.

We ask that all speakers include a call to action as part of their TEDx talk. Put simply, if your idea convinces people, you are challenging them to put that belief into action. Depending on your specific idea this might be to learn a new language, travel to a new country, change the way you use paper towels, become a mentor or start growing some of your food. The important aspect is that your challenge must be something that can be executed by the majority of audience members, both live and online. It should not require them to be angel investors or legislators – though they might be.

You might have two, closely linked calls to action. For example, one for a specific industry subset (stop discriminating against female journalists in the workplace) and one for the broader audience (try to reduce the amount of time you spend on grooming). If you answered “no” or “I don’t know” to any of the three questions above, refine your idea. Ask your curator and the curatorial team and if they answer “no” of “I don’t know” to any of these questions, refine your idea. Remember you don’t need to do this alone. This is a team effort. We are your impact engineers.

STEP 3: MAKE AN OUTLINE AND SCRIPT

What is the best structure for a talk?

There are many theories on the best structure for a great presentation. However, we can’t stress enough that there is no one way to give a TEDx Talk, and there is no single way to structure a successful TEDx Talk. One of our challenges as curators is to help you find a structure that best conveys your idea, inspires action and promotes impact while still feeling authentic to who you are.

We are big fans of the work of Nancy Duarte, and highly recommend you check out her TED Talk on the topic to get you thinking.

You might also be interested in reading TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson, curator of TED. In Australia, this book is available online via Booktopia and as an audiobook.

So acknowledging there’s no single trick to structure, here is one fairly general structure that we’ve found to work particularly well as a starting point if you’re not sure where to start:

Start by making your audience care, using a relatable example or an intriguing idea.
Explain your idea clearly and with conviction.
Detail the evidence that shows this idea works, even on a small scale, and how it could be implemented further.
End by addressing how your idea could affect individuals, the local community, our nation or the world if the audience accepts your idea and seeks to take action.

Whatever structure you decide on, remember:

The primary goal of your talk is to communicate an idea effectively, not to tell a story about something you have done or to evoke emotions. You can of course include story where appropriate, but it is a tool to explain your idea, and not an end in itself.
Your structure should be invisible to the audience. Completely disregard the public speaking norm of “tell us what you’re going to tell us, then tell us, then tell us what you told us” – this is not how you do a TEDx Talk. In other words, don’t talk about how you’re going to talk about your topic – just talk about it!

Introduction

A strong introduction is crucial.

Draw in your audience members with something they care about.
If it’s a topic the general TED audience thinks about a lot, start with a clear statement of what the idea is.
If it’s a field they never think about, start by invoking something they do think about a lot and relate that concept to your idea.
If the idea is something fun, but not something the audience would ever think about, open with a surprising and cool fact, or a declaration of relevance (not a statistic!).
If it’s a heavy topic, you might find an understated and frank way to get off the ground; there’s not a need to force people to feel emotional.
Get your idea out as quickly as possible.
Don’t focus too much on yourself.
Don’t open with a string of stats.
Never start with “Today I’d like to talk about” or any variations on this theme.

Body

In presenting your topic and evidence:

Make a list of all the evidence you want to use: Think about items that your audience already knows about and the things you’ll need to convince them of.
The following is an absolutely essential step in preparing a great TEDx Talk. Order all of the items in your list based on what a person needs to know before they can understand the next point, and from least to most exciting. Now cut out everything you possibly can without losing the integrity of your argument. You will most likely need to cut things that you think are important. Remember many things that are appropriate for keynote addresses or general public speaking can be the enemy of a great TEDx Talk. The curatorial team will help you cut the things that are standing in the way of making your good TEDx Talk great.
Spend more time on new information: If your audience needs to be reminded of old or common information, be brief.
Use empirical evidence, and limit anecdotal evidence.
Don’t use too much jargon – in fact, try not to use any, or where it must be used, explain new terminology.
Don’t ever sell from the stage. Unless TEDxBrisbane has specifically asked you to, do not talk about your company or organisation. You cannot, under any circumstances pitch your products or services or ask for funding from the stage. If your talk appears to include aspects that sell from the stage, we will not submit your video for approval on the TEDx platform, and your talk will not be available online.
(Respectfully) address any controversies in your claims, including legitimate counterarguments, reasons you might be wrong or doubts your audience might have about your idea. Failing to acknowledge and address a controversial issue or counterpoint can lead to your talk being dismissed by people who might significantly benefit from embracing your idea, just because you didn’t acknowledge that issue. It does not need to be lengthy, but it does need to be included.
In accordance with TEDx rules, all facts need to have evidence to support them. But don’t let citations interrupt the flow of your explanation: Save them for after you’ve made your point, or place them in the fine print of your slides.
Slides: Note anything in your outline that is best expressed visually and plan accordingly, in your script. We find with slides that less is always more (refer once more to Nancy Duarte). Given enough notice, we can help you with your slides. We’ll expand on the slides below.

Conclusion

Find a landing point in your conclusion that will leave your audience feeling positively towards you and your idea’s chances for success.
Don’t use your conclusion to simply summarise what you’ve already said – never do this; tell your audience how your idea might affect their lives and the lives of others if or when it’s implemented.
Avoid ending with a pitch. Never use the TEDxBrisbane stage to solicit funds or donations, show a book cover or present logos.
Ensure you include a practical challenge (call to action) that the audience can implement if you have convinced them of the merits of your idea so they too can become your impact engineers.
One of the most common mistakes in TEDx Talks occurs when speakers don’t stop at the high impact statement and go one or two sentences too far. Your curators will help you nail your final sentences for maximum impact as part of the scriptwriting stage.

Script

Once you’re settled on your outline, start writing a script.

You should think of your script as a story you are telling the audience to take them from their starting point (the things you speculate they believe at point A) to the point you would like them to land at, having been convinced of the merits of your idea and embraced it into their own beliefs (point B).

As an expert, you have likely spent years working in the field that has led you to form your beliefs and to develop your idea. You are asking the audience to make that journey in 18 minutes or less (sometimes as little as 3 minutes).

So when writing the script – be concise, but write in a way that feels natural to you. Use present tense and strong, interesting verbs.

The story you tell with your script shouldn’t be ‘about you’, but you absolutely should use some of your personal story as a way to ensure a sense of human connection with the audience, to evoke empathy, and to make potentially abstract theoretical ideas approachable and relatable for the diversity of people in the audience, both in person and online.

Once you have an initial draft, share with your curator and the Curation Administration Coordinator by uploading to your Google Drive folder.

Don’t wait for it to be perfect before you show it to the team. Getting it to the curatorial team soon rather than later is the best way to maximise the time they can dedicate to helping you make your talk great.

Before the script can be signed off by our Executive Director, all speakers must affirm that they are the sole author of their presentation and that they own all rights to its content. This is a legal contract with TED. Curation Administration Coordinator, Ashleigh Law will provide the relevant paperwork in advance.

Format

As part of finalising your script we’ll also be talking to you about experimenting with different presentation formats, such as including powerful images on slides, presenting some video, a working model or stripping it all back and letting the words and your delivery speak for themselves – which, if you can nail it, can be incredibly powerful.

We’ll ask if you have elements you can extend beyond the talk itself, perhaps by setting up demos in the activation spaces or hosting a TEDxAdventure in the months after the event, such as an exclusive tour of your lab, or a field trip. These aren’t requirements by any means, but if you can think outside the box, so can we. It is another opportunity to maximise the impact your talk has with our audience.

Examples from other TEDx events globally include a beekeeper who embraced the idea to go beyond the talk. She:

developed a talk about how bee communities closely mimic human communities,
took live recordings of her beehives to play in the background during her talk, so it would sound like the audience is in a giant beehive,
had slides that only showed giant pictures of honeycombs, so you feel as if you were in a hive,
brought live bees on stage, encased in a protective glass case during her talk,
brought honey from her hives so that during the break, the audience could taste it, and then
planned to host a TEDx Adventure on her farm so people could see the beehives in person.

STEP 4: CREATE SLIDES

Should I use slides?

Slides can be helpful for the audience, but they are by no means necessary or relevant to every talk. Ask yourself: Would my slides help and clarify information for the audience, or would they distract and confuse them? Some great examples of slides can be found in the talks by Candy Chang, Dan Phillips, Jarrett Krosoczka and Rick Guidotti on TED.com. The most important rule for slides: Keep it simple.

I’ve never made slides before. Where do I start?

Assess your skill level. You can create simple yet effective slides or there are people on the TEDxBrisbane team who can help you, providing you get your slides to us early.

There are deadlines for slides to be submitted but in general – the earlier, the better. Final slides need to be approved by your curator at least three weeks prior to your talk. This gives the digital and design team the opportunity to test and collate all presentations and materials for delivery.

As mentioned if you need help with building high impact and professionally designed slides, your curator and Curation Administration Coordinator will need to receive these slides or slide requests at least a month and a half prior to your talk. Refer to the below deadlines for further details.

What goes in my slides?

To help the audience remember a particular person, place or thing, you might use graphics or images.
People will understand that the images represent what you’re saying, so there is no need to describe the images on screen verbally. So don’t.
Under a global TEDx partnership, we have free access to the Shutterstock library. If you submit your slide deck early and include blank slides with a request for an image that depicts a particular element or emotion or references a particular image from the Shutterstock library, we shall do our best to secure it for you at no charge.
Graphs and infographics
Keep graphs visually clear, even if the content is complex. Each graph should make only one point.
No slide should support more than one point.

What should the slides look like?

Use as little text as possible – if your audience is reading, they are not listening. Avoid using bullet points. Consider putting different points on different slides. If in doubt remember the phrase bullets kill. So do bullet points.
Please make sure they are 1920×1080 pixels at a 16:9 aspect ratio. Click here to find out to adjust your slide size.
Use the broadcast-safe zones in PowerPoint or Keynote. Don’t put any information or visuals in the far corners of your slides.
Use font size 42 points or larger.
Use Helvetica. There is no other font.

I want to use an image I found off Google Image Search but I don’t know where it came from. It’s off the Simpsons.

Don’t. This is important: only use images that you own or have permission to use. If you use an image under a Creative Commons license, cite the source at the bottom of your slide. Talk to us if you are in any way confused.

How do I click through my slides on the day?

Our Audio Visual (AV) team will advance the slides for you. As your script drafts progress to lock down, you and your curator will identify the points at which you want to change slides. This means that once you memorise it – we can click through the slides for you on the day, which means your hands are free to talk naturally! This is also the best way to avoid any technical difficulties. Our Head of Production, Rob Wheeler has several years of experience doing this specific role for our TEDx Speakers.

STEP 5: REHEARSE

I’ve said my talk once in my head. Is that enough?

No. No. Absolutely not. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse! We can’t stress this enough. Rehearse until you’re completely comfortable in front of other people: different groups of people, people you love, people you fear, small groups, large groups, peers, people who aren’t experts in your field. Stand on a beach, draw yourself a circle to stand in and say it aloud as people walk past. Say it in parks to the trees, but say it over and over again.

Listen to the criticisms and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. If someone says you sound “over-rehearsed,” this means you sound stilted and unnatural, which means you have not rehearsed enough. Keep rehearsing, and focus on talking like you’re speaking to just one person in a spontaneous one-way conversation. In the event you are receiving conflicting feedback from different people you are rehearsing in front of always defer to the TEDxBrisbane curatorial team and your curator. They know TEDx Talks, and they are the experts on what works and what does not work on the TEDxBrisbane stage. You need to rehearse your presentation to deliver a great TEDx Talk.

The Head of Curation and the Executive Director are responsible for ensuring that all talks on the day are high-calibre and achieve TEDx standards. A number of speaker rehearsals will be held in the lead up to the event to help ensure this happens. Three weeks prior to the event the Head of Curation must confirm for the Executive Director that each speaker has memorised their script, and has reached a level of rehearsal that will allow them to be stage and camera-ready within three weeks. This is the final checkpoint to confirm the speaker will appear on stage on event day.

Can I have notes?

No. A talk provided without notes is far more powerful. TEDxBrisbane requires all speakers to deliver their talks without notes.Unless you are a 92-year-old nun in which case you can ask for an exemption, though we will vigorously attempt to dissuade you from doing so because it’s just not as powerful.

Timing

Time yourself. Practice with the clock winding down in front of you. Do it until you get the timing right every time. Practice presenting your talk with a digital countdown timer somewhere in your peripheral vision, because you will have one on the day and it is good to recreate that environment.

The Curation Administration Coordinator can give you access to a timer mandated by TEDx in advance. Trust us, you do not want the first time you are delivering your talk in front of a countdown timer to be in the red circle itself.

Posture

Practice standing still, planted firmly in one spot. We don’t want you to be a statue devoid of expressions and movement as you stand in the middle of the red circle (rug) we place centre-stage, but we do need you to keep your feet planted to ensure we capture the best video possible.

Wandering speakers don’t make for great TEDx Talk videos. Even wandering around the red circle will see you move in and out of the ideal lighting spot and it makes it harder to capture compelling video images of your delivery. So practice keeping your feet planted when speaking.

Most people have no problem doing this naturally at barbecues, or chatting to friends, but add a stage and lights, and some people are itching to wander. Have a friend or family member watch you and stop you from pacing back and forth or shifting your weight from leg to leg. Your kids will love it! Ask them to ring a bell or make a buzzing sound with their phone each time you move. It can you help you train your brain to stand and deliver.It takes time to get this right for some people, but once you have developed the skill, it will not only help with your TEDx Talk but all your presentations in the future.

Rehearsals – come prepared

The speakers who deliver the best talks on the day are almost always the speakers who come to each rehearsal with their script fully memorised and well rehearsed. This allows us to dedicate rehearsal time to fine tuning the delivery and identify any script elements that need tweaking. Having this dedicated time to focus on delivery can make the difference between you presenting a good TEDx Talk and a great TEDx Talk. It’s an opportunity too good to waste, so please ensure you have memorised your script before the group and individual rehearsals.

Stage time

The curatorial team tries to ensure all speakers get a chance to stand on stage, with your slides, the wireless presenter remote (if required) and the countdown timer ahead of the event.

There is a mandatory technical production run-through on Friday 22 November at Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC). Timing to be confirmed but it is currently penciled in for 4.00pm to 8.00pm. Each speaker will get a single run-through (for shorter talks) or a top and tail run-through (for longer talks).

It is important to note this is not a rehearsal persay. Rehearsals to lock the performance will have been held in increasing frequency at a different venue in the lead up to event day. This final run-through is a technical run-through to address any issues or questions you may have and to also give you opportunity to step into the red circle prior to your talk.

We ask that all speakers wear the exact outfit and jewellery they intend to wear for their talk for this run-through. This will allow the Video Director, camera production and sound teams to note any issues ahead of the big day (e.g. bold patterns interfering with camera shots or jewellery tapping on mics).

STEP 6: GIVE YOUR TALK

Inhale. Exhale. Do it as you practised. And remember, TED and TEDx audiences are the most supportive audiences you could ever aspire to speak to. They want you to give a great talk and are sending good vibes your way.

What audio visual equipment is there in the red circle?

There will be a foldback monitor which will display the countdown clock and your on screen content.

As mentioned the AV team will advance your slides as per the queues identified in your final script. You will also be provided a hand free microphone for your talk.

If you have any questions about the audio visual set up or the presentation of your talk, please contact the Curation Administration Coordinator.

STEP 7: SAVOUR THE GLORY

Congratulations, you’re done! Bask in the praise you get over how you seemed so relaxed and spontaneous.

Please take a few moments during the After Party to thank members of the team, including the production crew and advocates, for their support of the event, and your talk. Your appreciation will mean a great deal to them!

EXPECTATIONS

It is a real honour to be asked to deliver a TEDx Talk. Please make the most of the opportunity because we believe you have an idea worth spreading. We are also trusting you to respect the requirements and expectations of TEDx and TEDxBrisbane. We expect our speakers to:

Adhere to all TEDx speaker/performer rules as per the TEDxBrisbane Code of Conduct.
Provide a 1000 character bio and high resolution headshot for inclusion on tedxbrisbane.com.au.
Actively engage with your TEDx curators to ensure the creation and delivery of the best possible TEDx Talk.
Remember and respect that while your knowledge and experience makes you are an expert in a specific topic, we are the experts on what works on the TEDxBrisbane stage, what works in TEDx Talk videos, and the difference between good and great TEDx Talks.
Do several rehearsals with your TEDx curator either in person or via Skype before the group speaker rehearsal and final onstage rehearsal.
Memorise the script and be able to deliver it in a single run-through before the group rehearsals.
Attend an in-person technical run-through on stage before the event (individual times to be scheduled).
Respect the other speakers and the team by adhering to your allocated time (this will be between 3 and 18 minutes).
Deliver a well-rehearsed talk without notes.
Attend the full program on Saturday 23 November being respectful to all other speakers and performers, the participants and the TEDxBrisbane team.
Respect your membership as part of the TEDxBrisbane community. We hand-select our audience filling it with people who are just as impressive and interesting as the speakers in their own way. Actively engage with them as fellow members of the TEDxBrisbane community and be giving of your time throughout the day and beyond.
Make yourself available for media coverage associated with the event.
Help the digital team identify key target audiences for your particular idea and help disseminate your talk far and wide.
Actively support and encourage your fellow speakers, and help to disseminate their ideas through your networks whenever possible.
Have fun and relish the opportunity to be a TEDx speaker.

KEY DATES

Monday, 07 October

1000 character biography, high resolution headshot and signed forms – content release and code of conduct.

Saturday, 12 October

Attendance at Speaker Briefing at QUT Gardens Point campus 12.00pm. Remote speakers can dial in for this session.

Monday, 14 October

Final deadline for (at least) the first draft of full script and first draft of slide deck to be submitted to your dedicated curator and the Curation Administration Coordinator.

Saturday, 28 October

Final deadline for talk script and slide deck to be submitted to your dedicated curator and the Curation Administration Coordinator for sign off.

Monday, 4 November

Deadline for talk to be memorised. Final one-on-one rehearsals with your curator to take place.

Saturday, 9 November

Final speaker briefing and rehearsals at QUT Gardens Point from 12.00pm. Remote speakers can dial in for this session.

Saturday, 16 November

Follow up rehearsal at QUT Gardens Point from 12.00pm. Remote speakers can dial in for this session.

Thursday, 21 November

Speaker and Curator Cocktail Event

Friday, 22 November

Mandatory technical production run-through at QPAC. Details to be announced in the coming weeks.

Saturday, 23 November

TEDxBrisbane 2019 at QPAC from 7.30am to 6.00pm.

SPEAKER GUIDE