2013 TEDxSalem

Con­cerned about how human rela­tion­ships have changed in the mod­ern world, a Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty Con­tin­u­ing Instruc­tor used tech­nol­o­gy to bring out the strangers on the oth­er end of the com­put­er screen.

Court­ney Dil­lard and Matt Web­ber mar­ried last year and decid­ed to go on an uncon­ven­tion­al hon­ey moon that they felt suit­ed them as a cou­ple. For five months, they trav­eled from Port­land, Ore., to Port­land, ME, to have break­fast with strangers, despite protests from Court­ney’s pro­tec­tive moth­er.

They shared 60 or so break­fasts with strangers that they recruit­ed through Red­dit and oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions and came back with a sim­ple con­vic­tion. Stranger dan­ger may not be a thing.

The cou­ple is now work­ing on a book, Break­fast with Strangers: 50 Meals Across Amer­i­ca, which is set to pub­lish on Nov. 1. At TEDxSalem a cou­ple weeks lat­er, Court­ney — who teach­es rhetoric and media stud­ies — will share with us some lessons she has learned from her con­ver­sa­tions with strangers.

Court­ney said she was struck by the will­ing­ness of peo­ple to take risks, their patri­o­tism and how mul­ti­fac­eted peo­ple are. Even those whom she might’ve writ­ten off have sur­prised her and inspired her.

To learn more about Court­ney and Mat­t’s jour­ney and project, vis­it their web­site at breakfastwithstrangers.com.

Dr. Pamela Wible (rhymes with Bible) played doc­tor from when she was 5 years old.

Her father was a pathol­o­gist and her moth­er a psy­chi­a­trist. There were babysit­ters, of course, but Pamela was one bossy kid. They could­n’t han­dle her.

So she end­ed up going to work with her par­ents, some­times hang­ing out with corpses in the morgue like it was no big thing.

Pame­la’s par­ents advised her not to go into med­i­cine. But she had a dream of being a small town fam­i­ly doc­tor, mak­ing house calls.

At one time, Pame­la’s dream was the norm. But not today. When Pamela start­ed prac­tic­ing med­i­cine, she found her­self rush­ing patients through in 10–15 min­utes, not form­ing a rela­tion­ship with patients and not ful­ly address­ing their prob­lems or answer­ing their ques­tions.

It was not the type of med­i­cine Pamela had in mind.

She tried all sorts of dif­fer­ent work­ing arrange­ments — small clin­ics, part-time, full-time, hos­pi­tal-owned clin­ics — and noth­ing worked.

It was a num­bers game. See more patients. Pro­duce more. Bring in more rev­enue.

“The doc­tors weren’t hap­py and the patients weren’t hap­py,” Pamela says.

Pamela nev­er grew out of her bossi­ness and inde­pen­dence. She knew that heal­ing was still her call­ing. So instead of being beat­en down by the sys­tem, she cre­at­ed a new one.

Well, it’s not entire­ly new. She’s going back to the patients, ask­ing them what their ide­al clin­ic would look like. The result looks very much like the small town vil­lage doc­tor that seems to have dis­ap­peared.

Pame­la’s med­ical prac­tice shows today that health care does not have to be frus­trat­ing and con­fus­ing and scary. Going to the doc­tor can be a joy­ful expe­ri­ence — one that heals you phys­i­cal­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly. One that does­n’t have to break the bank.

Today, Pamela helps doc­tors all over the coun­try revive their pas­sion of health care by cut­ting out the lay­ers that have mys­ti­fied it for so long. And at TEDxSalem, Pamela will share some of her secrets to run­ning the ide­al med­ical prac­tice.

Oh, and what is the three naked peo­ple rule?

You should nev­er have that many wait­ing for you at the same time.

Bio

Name: Dr. Pamela Wible

Occu­pa­tion: Fam­i­ly doc­tor

Wrote: Pet Goats & Pap Smears 

Born in: Philadel­phia

Raised in: Lucas, Texas

Lives in: Eugene

School: Welles­ley Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Med­ical Branch in Galve­ston, Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona (res­i­den­cy)

Words of wis­dom: “It’s just not right to have three naked peo­ple wait­ing at the same time.”

– Saerom Yoo, TEDxSalem sto­ry­teller

The thing about Von Glitsch­ka is that you may not rec­og­nize the man, but you would rec­og­nize his work.

The phoenix on the exte­ri­or of the Grand Hotel in down­town Salem? That’s Von’s.

He’s also done work for chew­ing gum brand Orbit and fast food chain Wendy’s.

Local graph­ic design­er and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, Von will share his cre­ative mus­ings with us this Novem­ber at TEDxSalem.

Von grew up in Olympia, Wash., and attend­ed Seat­tle Art Insti­tute. He moved to Salem for a job in 1991, and save for a few years he lived in Cal­i­for­nia, Salem has been his home ever since.

Von went to art school out of his fear of col­lege math. Iron­i­cal­ly, some of his favorite kind of design is tes­sel­la­tions — pat­terns that are beau­ti­ful because of its math­e­mat­i­cal nature.

TEDxSalem will be far from Von’s first stab at pub­lic speak­ing. He became noticed in an online forum for design­ers and was invit­ed to speak at a con­fer­ence in Iowa. Ever since, he’s been trav­el­ing the coun­try — even as far as Lon­don — to share his design wis­dom.

In Novem­ber, you can expect him to dis­cuss fear as a bar­ri­er to cre­ativ­i­ty.

Fear of rejec­tion and fail­ure is not only nor­mal, it is aus­pi­cious when try­ing to embark on some­thing great, Von says. But the key is to not shy away from it.

Fear is the sen­sa­tion of a cre­ative break­through knock­ing at your door.

“That applies to any kind of prob­lem-solv­ing,” Von said.

To keep your cre­ative juices flow­ing, Von advis­es you to avoid rou­tine and com­fort. While that may sound coun­ter­in­tu­itive, rou­tine and com­fort breed apa­thy and a lack of pas­sion.

When pas­sion dies, so does cre­ativ­i­ty.

Instead of work­ing in famil­iar places like your office or home, Von rec­om­mends work­ing off-site, like a park, cof­fee shop or the library.

Von some­times parks his car in the South Salem Safe­way and blast clas­si­cal music.

What­ev­er floats your boat.

– Saerom Yoo, TEDxSalem sto­ry­teller

Rick Gaupo walked onto the cam­pus of Willamette Uni­ver­si­ty with a leather brief­case in hand. He walked out with a back­pack.

Because his first gig was­n’t at a law or cor­po­rate office, where he may have end­ed up if he had fol­lowed his ini­tial inten­tions to study man­age­ment and law. His first posi­tion was actu­al­ly a vol­un­teer build­ing homes in rur­al Geor­gia, with Habi­tat for Human­i­ty.

Ever since, he has com­mit­ted his life to non­prof­its and meet­ing peo­ple’s phys­i­cal needs. And at TEDxSalem, Rick will share some of his per­spec­tives gained from two decades of non­prof­it lead­er­ship.

As a 26-year-old, Rick became the exec­u­tive direc­tor of Habi­tat for Human­i­ty of the Mid-Willamette Val­ley, when the orga­ni­za­tion could only afford one quar­ter-time staffer. He was it.

Fif­teen years lat­er, he left the orga­ni­za­tion with $4 mil­lion in assets — 100 times more than when he start­ed.

Today, he is the pres­i­dent of Mar­i­on-Polk Food Share, the region­al food bank that dis­trib­utes food to hun­gry peo­ple through near­ly 100 com­mu­ni­ty pantries and meal sites.

That’s the tra­di­tion­al def­i­n­i­tion of what the Food Share does as well as what food banks every­where have been doing for­ev­er. But in Salem, Rick and his team are think­ing out­side of the emer­gency food box.

The Food Share has mul­ti­ple ini­tia­tives occur­ring that you like­ly will not find at oth­er food banks. It is farm­ing hun­dreds of acres of land and test­ing three crops of quinoa. It’s mak­ing pro­tein pat­ties and part­ner­ing with incar­cer­at­ed youths to do so. It’s run­ning voca­tion­al train­ing and com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens.

The Food Share is show­ing the Salem com­mu­ni­ty how dream­ing big can lead to greater impact.

If your main engage­ment with the Food Share is donat­ing canned food every once in a while, no wor­ries. That will not go away, Rick says. But that isn’t close to cov­er­ing all of its efforts that boil down to feed­ing the hun­gry and pre­vent­ing future hunger.

As the work of the food bank changes, the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty could also change the way it thinks of hunger and what it can do to help. Food dri­ves may become less of a focus.

“Maybe some­day the donat­ed food would be the small­er part,” he said. “The larg­er part would be the farm, a pro­duce stand or a restau­rant.”

Bio

Name: Rick Gaupo

Born in: Port­land

Occu­pa­tion: Pres­i­dent at Mar­i­on-Polk Food Share

Spot him: On a drag­on boat this week­end at the World Beat Fes­ti­val!

Fam­i­ly: Wife, Eliz­a­beth, and two chil­dren, Hold­en, 15; and Isabela, 10

Ask him about: The uber roman­tic, 17-day motor­cy­cle trip Rick and Eliz­a­beth took with sleep­ing bags and lit­tle mon­ey post-col­lege. The route took them south on Cal­i­for­nia High­way 1 all the way to Tijua­na, Mex­i­co, then back up via High­way 395.

– Saerom Yoo, TEDxSalem sto­ry­teller

Bri­an’s idea of a good time is vol­un­teer­ing at Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val every year. He does­n’t even care much for the celebri­ty sight­ings. He’s a true lover of film — you know, the friend who might rec­om­mend the most obscure, for­eign works? That’s Bri­an.

Car­lee, on the oth­er hand, is a punk rock­er. She’s the one who’ll tell you, yes, Punk Rock Bowl­ing is a thing. Because she’s been to the annu­al Las Vegas fes­ti­val, where she saw Drop­kick Mur­phys.

There is one key thing that bonds these two, and that is a love for Salem. That love is why Car­lee Wright and Bri­an Hart make a great team of co-cura­tors for TEDxSalem.

Some may think that no one real­ly loves Salem. We might tol­er­ate it and find it com­fort­able and con­ve­nient and a safe, afford­able place to raise kids. But love? That’s quite a strong word.

The kind of love Bri­an and Car­lee have for Salem isn’t the blind, naive type. It’s the hon­est, com­mit­ted, per­sis­tent type. They know there’s work to be done. And with enough invest­ment and faith, Salem could be a great city. It’s not easy work, but it’s mean­ing­ful.

TEDxSalem is among the great­est invest­ments Bri­an and Car­lee will make in Salem. They had long been lead­ers in many cul­tur­al efforts like the Cher­ry City Der­by Girls and Cul­ture Shock Com­mu­ni­ty Project when Bri­an came across Can­dy Chang’s TED talk.

It was 2 a.m. and he was in bed with his iPad when he first watched Can­dy Chang talk about the Before I Die wall. Inspired, he emailed the video to Car­lee. To his sur­prise, she was also up in bed. She imme­di­ate­ly wrote back. She was in.

That’s how their com­pa­ny, Be, was cre­at­ed. They raised the funds then lit­er­al­ly raised the wall and it was a huge suc­cess. The two con­tin­ued to think of oth­er projects to pur­sue. TEDx was def­i­nite­ly on the table, as a dis­tant, ambi­tious goal.

They decid­ed to attend TEDx­Con­cor­dia togeth­er and as they watched the event come togeth­er, the more they real­ized Salem need­ed this event and the more con­fi­dent they became that they could pull it off.

The appli­ca­tion for TEDxSalem was approved in May, and Bri­an and Car­lee decid­ed to put the event on the fast track — an ambi­tious six-month plan­ning peri­od.

“It need­ed to hap­pen now,” Bri­an said.

“Salem need­ed it,” Car­lee said.

The co-cura­tors’ eyes sparkle when they talk about the poten­tial impact of TEDxSalem.

“Their brains will be on fire,” Bri­an says.

Car­lee: “The good kind of fire.”

In all seri­ous­ness, though, Bri­an and Car­lee want TEDxSalem to be a game-chang­er. The event that peo­ple talk about for a long time. The site where new mean­ing­ful friend­ships are forged. They want it to shat­ter expec­ta­tions.

Bios

Name: Bri­an Hart

Occu­pa­tion: Pro­duc­er at Allied Video Pro­duc­tions

Born in: Salem

Vol­un­teers as: Event direc­tor for Cher­ry City Der­by Girls, among tons oth­ers

Alter ego: Super­man

Prized fash­ion item: Sil­ver dis­co pants, gold suit

Name: Car­lee Wright

Occu­pa­tion: Enter­tain­ment reporter at States­man Jour­nal

Born in: Vic­to­ria, British Colum­bia

Vol­un­teers as: Sociocraftol­o­gist at DIY Stu­dio, among tons oth­ers

For­mer life: Fash­ion design­er

Prized fash­ion item: Shoes. OMG, shoes.

– Saerom Yoo, TEDxSalem sto­ry­teller