News | TEDxCalgary

"Yes, and..."

Does the world today feel like a bit of an improv experiment? We live in some very volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous times (V.U.C.A. as the term was coined in the 1980s by leadership and strategy experts and subsequently adopted by the U.S. military), and that makes it exceptionally difficult to get traction on many of the very important but intractable issues in our midst. From the places where we live and work, to the political and social realm in the countries and territories we inhabit, the nature of a post-COVID VUCA world has made a mockery of countless well-laid plans.

People passing. Ideas living on.

Clockwise from upper left: Ken Low, Lauren Voisin, Glenda MacQueen, Cheri Macauley

Recently, we had another of our more than 150 speakers pass away. That reminds us that we, as humans, have a finite amount of time on this earth. But our ideas can continue living on, influencing others.

Reconnecting with "companion idea travellers"

Together as curators over the last decade and more, TEDxCalgary co-founder Rahim Sajan and myself have had the very special priviledge of meeting an amazing array of what I'd like to call "companion idea travellers".

Big thinking is coming to town...

What happens when big ideas come to town? In cases like the WhatWorks 2022 summit from the Social Progress Imperative that's coming to Banff in late May, it's a chance for a premier gathering of global thought leaders, innovators and social entrepreneurs to use evidence and experience to debate and advance solutions that drive social impact.

Canada and social progress

As TEDx organizers, we're big proponents of making evidence-based decisions. As Canadians, we take our quality of life seriously -- it is one of the things that helps define us as a nation, together with the principle that we need need to keep developing those standards for all Canadians. When it comes to something so seemingly nebulous like "social progress", it can be daunting to try and nail down how to measure that in a meaningful way. It's essential that we do so, however, so that we can hold useful discussions about how to move the needle as a country, or as a region or city within our larger national structure. Through a great friend of ours (thanks, Camille!) we recently were introduced to the amazing folks at the Social Progress Imperative. Haven't heard of it? Neither had we, but we're eternally grateful for having been introduced. Philosophically, we're very…

At the intersection of ideas

As we plan for our 2021 events, we continue to find that we sit at the intersection of so many great ideas and too little time to pursue them all! Of course, that's probably an enviable place to be. We'd all be in a much poorer place as a species if good ideas were highly scarce. At the same time, it also makes it more important for us to continually curate the ideas that are best suited to our current time and place in history. Especially as we start to emerge from the pent-up nature of the pandemic, we anticipate that people will be even hungrier for the types of ideas that help us make sense of the next step. We have lots to recover from, and a vast number of choices to make as we attempt to move forward as societies in a post-pandemic world.

How do we ENGAGE: Connected?

As current news reports are constantly reminding us, our journey with COVID-19 is far from over. Many of us are likely tired of living through a major historical event and continally unprecedented (modern) times. The urge to get back to "normal" is strong, even though we don't know what that will mean for us going forward, or when it will happen.

Staying Engaged in a Time of Isolation

We find ourselves in a time of great uncertainty that demands a period of physical isolation, but that doesn't mean we and our ideas need to be isolated socially.

A legacy of engaging deeply

It's actually a bit misleading to describe this year's ENGAGE: Deeply event as our "deepest, most engaging event ever." The truth is, we'd like to think that ALL of our events over the last decade have been part of building toward this year's culminating event for our 10th anniversary of operating as a team.