We have all been at events where the AV fails; it can be frustrating for the organisers, distracting for the audience and disappointing for the speakers. Often the technical aspects can feel overwhelming if you don’t have a technical background. So what can you do and what do you need to know? When I started…

Last week I was fortunate enough to get to see the opening session of TED 2016: Dream. It got me thinking about TED’s famous tag line – ideas worth spreading. What makes one talk stand out, what makes you share a talk and tell your friends about it? Why did I immediately share one talk…

Since starting my own business a year ago I have been asking myself this question quite a lot. After a decade of working in the charity and human rights sector where I was so solidly defined by the causes I was working on, it was daunting to figure out what I was about now. Of…

TED talks are compelling, they keep your attention, they can communicate complex ideas simply, they inspire and they are ultimately about sharing a great idea. The format is simple – one idea, 18 minutes maximum, no reading or complex slides. But how do you create and give a talk a great talk (or how do…

Love them or hate them, it seems that panel discussions are here to stay as a format for conferences and events, but so often they are a source of stress for organisers, anxiety for speakers and frustration for audiences. Disjointed discussion, domineering hosts, pointless questions and hostile audience members aren’t a recipe for a success.…

Curating your sessions, the order in which people speak, can be as impactful as the speakers on stage.  Organising TEDx events for the past five years has changed the way I think about a speaker line-up. However, when I first started to organise events, I never really thought about the order in which people spoke.…

TED talks get millions of views and thousands of people have attended TED and TEDx events around the world every year. Whether you are a TED fan or not it is undeniable that the TED style works to attract audiences and keep them engaged. So how do they do it? I’ve been to quite a…

Most of us are familiar with the role a curator plays in a gallery or museum. But it wasn’t until I started attending and running TEDx events that I realised that curation was not only a part of organising conference and talks – but it was vital! For me curation is about using the content…

I’ve worked with some amazing speakers over the last 10 years for TEDxEastEnd and other events I’ve organised for companies and charities. For the most part my experiences have been positive, working with dedicated speakers who take what they are doing seriously. However, I have also worked with speakers who are determined to ruin their…