TED speaker auditions to come to Sydney – but no product-hawkers, jargon-junkies, dullards, motivator wannabes or spouters of new-age fluff
In a twist to annual ideas festival TED, live auditions will be held to select speakers for the main event in Long Beach, California in 2013.
The Sydney leg of auditions will be held on Sunday 27 May – the day after the return of TEDxSydney.
Historically, speakers are invited to attend.
The live audition process will be hosted by TED curator Chris Anderson, TED content director Kelly Stoetzel and TEDxSydney licensee Remo Giuffré.
The theme for the event – which stands for technology, entertainment and design – is “the young, the wise, the undiscovered.”
According to a TEDxSydney press release, the event organisers are looking for:
- The inventor – sharing an innovation with world-changing potential
- The teacher – sharing valuable knowledge in a memorable way, to teenagers or adults
- The progidy – young talent ready to break out
- The artist – who can showcase their work in a compelling, new way
- The performer – music, dance, comedy, drama… or something entirely different
- The sage – wisdom the world needs from those who have learned it the hard way
- The enthusiast – with an infectious passion about a topic they can share
- The change agent – helping shape the world’s future with work that matters
- The story teller – vivid, original, meaningful … with a talent for connection
- The spark – with a powerful idea worth spreading
According to TED: “product-hawkers, jargon-junkies, dullards, wafflers, motivator wannabes, self-promoters, spouters of new-age fluff should not apply.”
Applications for a TEDxSydney ticket will open in March, and submitted via the TEDxSydney.com website.
Last year’s event saw a geneticist, a corporate anthropologist, a bird behaviourist, a poet, an inventor and a historian take to the stage in Sydney.
Now how will I sell all this snake oil?
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TED asking people to ‘audition’ to appear. Are they serious?
So, now the people appearing at TED aren’t people who’ve been invited because of what they have to say, but people who feel what they have to say is important?
This is kind of what you’d get if a Head of State was ever elected in Australia. Great Australians like Sir William Dean, Sir Zelman Cowan, the current GG Quentin Bryce would never be appointed as GG’s because they’d never stand for election. They’re not politicians and don’t want to be. If TED’s ‘cattle call’ was applied to the GG’s post we’d end up with Dick Smith, or Daryl Somers as our Head of State. I fear that’s the road TED is now travelling. Can you imagine what sort of kid would audition for _ ‘The Prodigy – young talent ready to break out’? I think I’d rather watch The Kardashians and save myself some money.
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That’s gonna be a waste of time.
Inspirational speakers are thin on the ground in Oz. Nano-thin.
Not for lack of inspirational achievements, but because the standard of public speaking an presentation in Australia is rank.
Possibly a cultural thing in that oratory is seen as ‘getting above yourself’.
There hasn’t been one politician in 110 years since Federation that you’d waste your time listening to – not one, no exceptions. No, don’t even try. They’re all forgotten, having drowned in the drivel of their stream-of-consciousness speeches.
Not one business or social leader who wasn’t an embarrassment when they open their mouths. Just a mish-mash of facts, agendas, Powerpoint, blah.
There’s no love of writing a speech, of taking emotional risks, of showing passion in Australian public speakers.
Which is why there are no Australian JFKs, no MLKs, no Obamas – just dreary drones with Powerpoint and no story or syntax.
We have the writers, we have the audiences yearning, but we just haven’t got the talented speakers with guts and vision. Sad but true.
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