Two Perspectives From Yesterday’s TEDx Dayton Event

Yesterday, our community experienced an event like no other when we had our very first TEDx Dayton event. This blog post is the perspective of two attendees out of the 900 that were there, Carlos Scarpero and Danielle Deramo.

TEDxDayton –Danielle’s Perspective

Where do I begin to convey the enormity of the day and experience?

One eloquent from the heart presentation after another. Sharing life journey, traumatic events, poetry, music, dance, fears, knowledge, and passions with 900 fascinated and engaged participants.

No cameras, no constant tweets, all electronic devices respectfully held to breaks (few), lunch (delicious), and post event festivities around Dayton.

I share my favorite take-aways from notes written fervently in the semi-darkness, front row of the glorious Victoria Theatre. Forgive me if a name credit is misspelled or unrepresented.

Here we go!

Leadership is over glorified. The first follower is really the one to get things moving. Film clip First Follower illustrated the point. –Todd Dewett

Creativity doesn’t come from a computer. Be curious-look to kids for best example of curiosity at work. Curiosity is an innate human trait. Don’t look down on people who ask a lot of questions (YAY!) Don’t let wonderment fade. Don’t become a passive user and look to Google first to answer all of your questions.- Chris Wire

Hard data can be made beautiful by relevant and meaningful storytelling. TEDx participants’ application question responses were revealed visually. 97% of TEDx participants’ say they are happy. –Shu Shiller

Social Media is a powerful connector to problem solving. Infertility issues and the desire to adopt a child led this young man and his wife to the birth mother of their adopted child. –Keith Klein

A beautiful dance performance by students from Stivers School of the Arts with choreography by this artist, conveyed his emotional journey with glaucoma.- Rodney Veal

Abject Poverty. Abundance of Love. A Mother and eight children in Southeastern, Ohio. Believing her children would attend college against all odds, Imogene fostered a love of reading and learning in her children. What if we valued people based on character and how they treated one another?
1. Education is a requirement not an option
2. We must be one another’s champions
3. We were created for a purpose, and that purpose is GOOD.
– Nora Stanger

Dayton is 4th in the nation for food hardship. $38 million a year is awarded in grants by The Dayton Foundation. If we have all the problems, but also the money to solve it, why do our local people still suffer? Where is the disconnect? A shortage of translational leaders.- Nathan Klingbeil

VERY MOVING spoken word performance by the talented and passionate.- Jay Martinez

No one is born with prejudice. It is learned. Words that hurt lead to discrimination which leads to violence. Pyramid of Hate 2005 by Anti-Defamation League was shown (I never knew such a document existed.) We can build a world without hate.- Michael Lieberman

Words can heal. Reading brings empathy. (Note: Read book “Far From The Tree”.)- Sharon Rab

Resilience is a state of mind. Playing dead during a mass shooting saved this young woman’s life. She went on to finish her University education becoming a Medic. This was her first public speaking engagement and she nailed it!- Staff Sergeant Deondra Parks

Do whatever you do for humanity the best that it can be done.- David Shuster, M.D.

You have to get a little bit uncomfortable in order to get comfortable.- April Kline

Carlos’ Perspective

What an amazing and well run event! I’ve been a fan of the TED videos for a long time and have been looking forward to this event. I have the TED channel on my ROKU box and I’ll admit that I use it quite a bit. Anytime I need a word of encouragement of something positive in the world, I’ll turn on my TED channel.

I purchased my ticket a little over a month ago. I’m glad I purchased it when I did, because the event sold out! What a great testament to the Dayton community.

From the moment, I walked into the door, I was immediately impressed with the number of volunteers on hand. They were organized and eager to help. Right after getting my badge, I was offered coffee and doughnuts, a nice touch.

TEDx Dayton started with a live band, Good English. This was nice since there were a few stragglers coming in late. Then, there was the lineup of speakers. Danielle did a nice job with the details of who spoke with the write up above. No detail was left unturned with a nice catered lunch at noon, a 3:00 cookie break and even a free t shirt at the end. The organizers were 100% first class all the way with this event!

I was amazed that the entire speaker line up was made up of people that either lived in the Dayton region or had grown up here. No need to go to other towns. There’s a lot of good things happening right here in our hometown.

The organizers could have taken the easy way out and filled the stage with experienced professional speakers. Instead, they went and found the “unsung heroes” that are doing things in our community that most people don’t know about. I really appreciated this.

Just because they weren’t “professional speakers” doesn’t mean they weren’t quality speakers. I’ve been in Toastmasters for a while, so I’m picker than most about quality speakers. I was a bit apprehensive at first, but my fears turned out to be unfounded. Apparently, the speakers were provided coaches in advance and it paid off immensely. At least one speaker had never spoken in public at all prior to this event, which is even more amazing to me.

It goes to show that in many cases, a good story and heartfelt message can easily trump experience. I’ve experienced this numerous times at Toastmasters, so I’m not surprised that it happened at TEDx Dayton.

This event had a little of everyone in attendance. The age ranged from high schools students to retirees. Employed, self employed and unemployed were all there. It was a great coming together of our community. We DO have a lot to offer the world. We should be proud to tell the outside world about everything going on here and invite them to visit us.

People of Dayton, we should be very proud of ourselves after this event. To all the volunteers, organizers, speakers and sponsors, THANK YOU!

Colliding with amazing people all day long…loving this @TEDxDayton! @Jay_Martinez_NJ @Stoney_D123 #TEDxDayton2013 pic.twitter.com/YRCMAKNMUz

— Justin Bayer (@JJustinB) November 15, 2013

The infuse & inspire chalk board #Tedxdayton2013 pic.twitter.com/T63d6PBWE7

— Dayton Coalition (@daytonregion) November 15, 2013

Can't wait until @TEDxDayton 2014! #TEDxDayton2013 was amazing! pic.twitter.com/UcgPEZW6jN

— girlabouttown (@girlaboutdayton) November 16, 2013

Other TEDx Dayton Perspectives

My #1 Takeaway From TEDx Dayton 2013 via DaytonLocal.com

Tapping Into The Power of Positivity via Dayton Most Metro

How TEDx Came To Dayton via The Dayton Jewish Observer

TEDx Conference: Leaders Talk Improving Dayton via Dayton Business Journal

TedX Dayton-bravo via Estrati.com

TEDx Dayton Pinterest Board

TEDx Dayton tweets via Storify.com

[wp_biographia author=”dderamo”]