The Luxor Theater was the location for TEDxRotterdam on last June 4, 2010. Speakers from all over the world gathered to present ideas which are worthy enough to be distributed. Or: Ideas Worth Spreading. The theme of the day was: ‘Somethink Completely Different. The program consisted of several special performances and Talks. Our partner World of Minds facilitated this event via livemindmapping on a livestream on the web. It was possible to follow mindmaps grow which were made by the team of World of Minds. (Photo © Marc Nolte)

Wat is TED?

TED is a nonprofit organization that spread ideas which are worth it. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It started 25 years ago as a four-day conference in California. The annual TED conference invites world ’s greatest thinkers and doers to speak for up to 18 minutes. After that, the presentations are made available on TED.com.

TEDx is a program of local, independently organized events that bring people together to share the TED experience. On a TEDx conference, video and live speakers will be combined so that great discussions are elicit. Also a great degree of involvement will be developed in the exclusive group of attendees. These local, self-organized events called TEDx, where x stands for “Independently Organized TED event”. Although TEDx is a self-organized event, the big line in the program is according to the TED principle.

Program

(photo © Thomas Dral) TEDxRotterdam consisted of a very diverse program. It distinguished itself from other events because all the speakers differed from each other. Each speaker had his or her own style and subjects. This ensured that the audience got inspired again and again. Also the  many performances between the speakers were very enjoyable. Quite something else between the speakers, like a piece of music, singing or dancing, ensured that the audience remained fresh and sharp. This made it attractive for the audience to listen attentively to the innovative ideas of the speakers and receive these ideas. Also people were able to redistribute these ideas and create new ideas by themselves.

The program consisted of four parts:

1. Our World,
2. How We See The World,
3. How We Experience The World and
4.How We Explore The World.

Our World

The host of TEDxRotterdam, Max Westerman, welcomed everyone and explained what the day would bring and what the rules were to the speakers. Each speaker had only eighteen minutes available during his or her presentation.  Also he explained how people inside and outside the theater could participate directly in the event. People exchanged ideas with others by using Twitter through the hashtag # TEDxRdam.

To get started right away, none other than the mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, was the next speaker. He had a few important issues about poverty. Aboutaleb grew up in a poor Moroccan village so he had experience with this subject and knew so much about it. Remarkably, he began his presentation with an impressive Moroccan poem.

The remainder of Part 1 of TEDxRotterdam brought forward some great quotes. After the impressive performance of Besim Hoti and Marielle Rijkaart, Bas Haring said during his presentation: “Sometimes you need to be an island, so you’re blocking other people’s ideas and begin to think for yourself. ” A distinct quote because TED stands for sharing ideas. This quote made a lot of people think.
Arjan el Fassed, located in the top 500 of Twitter users,  presented on the great impact of social media. In example, there is a street named after his Twitter-account: the ‘@arjanelfassed tweetstreet’.

How We See The World

AAlso during the second part a number of renowned speakers presented. Olympic swimming champion Maarten van der Weijden discussed a very direct and honest presentation about overcoming cancer. Like in Part 1, this part consisted of a few performers such as Harry Merry and Ntjam Rosie. Igor Nikolic gave one of the best presentations, according to many specators. This was because his speech filled with nice one-liners like: “Evolution is about trial and error, not trial and success.”

How We Experience The World

In Part 3, it was Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaer who presented vividly on library 2.0. Eppo is a librarian by profession and talked about the impact of the internet and other media for libraries. Eppo said tactfully about libraries: “It’s about meeting people, not the books.” After other speakers in this third part, including the pastor Abeltje Hoogenkamp and APOPO founder Bart Weetjens, had spread their ideas, it was concluded with the brilliant performance of Celine Cairo. (Photo © Marc Nolte)

How We Explore The World

Part 4 of TEDxRotterdam brought the last but certainly not the least speakers. Professor Dick Tibboel gave an interesting presentation about pain. He explained that over 4 million people in the Netherlands are 65 years or older. Many of them suffer daily pain and therefore “a new instrument” is developed so that pain in humans can be easily identified.
Host Westerman shut off and looked back on a day where many new ideas arise and spread.

(Photo © Bram Muller)

Livestream livemindmapping

Besides the live videostream provided by TEDx there was a livestream with the mindmaps: livemindmapping. All day long there was a team of mindmappers in cooperation with the experts from our partners aHa!Coaching and Hypershifters who were actively mindmapping the presentations. The mindmapping team consisted of Alexis van Dam and Mathieu van der Wal, assisted by Denise de Wolf and Edita Artemis. The mindmaps was accessible for everyone via a livestream on the website of our partner MindMeister. MindMeister is an online service for easy online mindmapping. MindMeister focuses on online collaboration through mindmapping. In addition, this service allows mindmaps to share with others and for example connect to a website. It is possible to start a mindmap and share this via a so-called Wikimap with others so people are all contributing in the same mindmap.

Talks are set out in the mindmaps via live stream.

Anyone can read and review the presentations online. This made TEDxRotterdam globally accessible. People gained insight in the large amount of presentations due to Livemindmapping. All the information could be retrieved easily. The visualization of a presentation leads to more associations and stimulated thinking. In addition, a mindmap offers a visual structure of the talk. The livestream is also perfect for people who missed a part of the presentations or even all the presentations. They could retrieve these presentations at a later time. So these people were still aware of all the ideas that were spread on that day. See all mindmaps via the special TEDxRotterdam mindmapstream.

Satelitelocations

People who could not be present at the Luxor Theater, TEDxRotterdam could be followed from the living room via the livestream of the mindmaps and the video’s. However, TED is about sharing ideas, so many people had the need to follow the event in the company of other TED-fans. A few locations in the Netherlands where hosting the event on a big screen. One of these locations was de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, a livestream of the mindmaps was available at this location.

Twitter, tweets & retweets

The #TedxRdam hashtag on Twitter was and is still widely used. Through these hashtag (#), very positive noises were spread about the event and also about the livestream containing the mindmaps of the speakers. Not only during the event, but also after the event people are tweeting about TEDxRotterdam. This was of great value, the tweets offer insight into important issues and opinions, and are accessible to everyone. In this way, the TEDx ideas were also spread through Twitter.

What’s Next?

After the successful facilitation of TEDxAmsterdam 2009, also the Rotterdam edition is more than successful too. TEDxRotterdam spoke the words: “Somethink Completely Different” and they absolutely lived up to this.

Hypershifters thanked the organization of TEDxRotterdam for this inspiring day filled with new insights and ideas.

Have you missed the special TED event? You can watch the videos again. On the livestream you can look back the talks in the form of mindmaps in a visually way.

Would you like to receive the latest developments of World of Minds’ livemindmapping on events? . Follow partner World of Minds on Twitter @worldofminds and LinkedIn! Also register for our Research Report and follow us on Twitter @hypershifters. More information about livemindmapping can be found on the livemindmapping website!

Hypershifters reviews

Hypershifters focuses on the use of visual mapping software. It addresses open source, freeware as well as commercial solutions. The added value Hypershifters provides is in research, advice and consultancy for experienced and inexperienced users. Many users have concerns about the potential of visual mapping in their work environment. This was reason for Hypershifters to create a test team that, co-advised by international experts in the field of visual mapping, critically reviews current products. Not so much viewed from the intricacies of the software, but rather from its scope of applicability. Think, for example, of doing some brainstorming, meeting management, project management and knowledge management.
The reviews are based on a matrix drafted by us to serve as a yardstick for the aforementioned scope of applicability. Besides the reviews you will also find the results in a comparison table.

The video ends with: “What next?” What will be the next service of Google? Please leave your ideas below.

Currently is Google inviting people to test the beta edition of Wave. Please click here to request an invitation (via Google).

Do you like the above video? Does it help in understanding the potential of Wave? Do you expect that Google Wave will change communications within organizations as we know it? please leave a reaction…