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TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

2015 TEDxSalem

TEDxSalem speakers: Where are they now?

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elaineEvery year, TEDxSalem speak­ers inspire us with their unique ideas that shed light on the world around us, but where have these ideas tak­en them since leav­ing the stage?


We caught up with sev­er­al past speak­ers to see where they are now. Here’s what they had to say:

Jonathan Chase, who spoke last year about the inner work­ings of the autis­tic mind, is con­sult­ing at Duke Uni­ver­si­ty to help sci­en­tists bet­ter under­stand research par­tic­i­pants on the autism spec­trum. He has also kept busy pre­sent­ing at con­fer­ences, uni­ver­si­ties, work­shops and offer­ing train­ing for par­ents, pro­fes­sion­als and JCPlayingBassedu­ca­tors.

“TEDxSalem was a great expe­ri­ence and led to a lot of inter­est in what I do and my unique approach to autism sup­port,” he said.

Travis Jank, who talked about Bit­Coin , a type of dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy, start­ed a new com­pa­ny with fel­low speak­er Richard Sur­roz , called the Nerdy Nin­jas, to pro­duce show­case PCS and to do events includ­ing the Vanil­la Ice Project.

SIMON_TAMSimon Tam, who talked about mak­ing every word count in 2014, has done four more TED talks and is tour­ing the coun­try with his band, The Slants. Cur­rent­ly he is head­ed to Wash­ing­ton DC for a case that might expand the First Amend­ment. Plus he devel­oped a great new taco recipe.

Jef­fer­son Smith, who talked thank­less jobs last year, has con­tin­ued to build XRAY.FM, a start­up radio sta­tion vot­ed Portland’s Best Radio Sta­tion this sum­mer. He is also work­ing with a crew of fel­low vol­un­teers to orga­nize a sto­ry­telling series focused on rad­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty grat­i­tude. The crew is called SuperThank, and they have start­ed a pod­cast and radio show.

“Sept. 21st is World Grat­i­tude Day,” he said, “and we’ll be doing some ridicu­lous things.”

Patrick Spencer, who talked about the Cork For­est Con­ser­va­tion Alliance in 2013, has helped expand its pro­grams to all sev­en cork-

Patrick Spencerpro­duc­ing coun­tries. The Alliance’s cork recy­cling pro­gram now has more than 1,000 drop-off loca­tions across the Unit­ed States and Cana­da.

“The most excit­ing news is that we have launched an eco-tour of the cork forests in Spain,” he said. “We were very hon­ored to have the eco-tour fea­tured in the New York Times Trav­el sec­tion.”

Thank you to all our speak­ers who shared updates. This year’s line­up of TEDxSalem speak­ers promis­es to be just as excit­ing. Get your tick­ets at tedxsalem2015.eventbrite.com.

Pamela Wible — A TEDx Salem alum looks back

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It’s been quite a ride for Dr. Pamela Wible since she last took our stage.

It was two years ago that Wible stood before a TEDx Salem crowd as founder of the Ide­al Med­ical Care move­ment to talk about the impor­tance of chang­ing the imper­son­al, assem­bly-line men­tal­i­ty that infects the Amer­i­can med­ical care indus­try, for the health not just of patients but of doc­tors them­selves.

Pamela WibleIt’s a quest that for her began over 10 years ago, in town hall meet­ings where she would stand up and, as she puts it, bare her soul to the very peo­ple who once stood naked before her, seek­ing her patients’ advice in how to devel­op a more inti­mate, more com­pas­sion­ate med­ical care expe­ri­ence.

Her talk was one of the most well received TEDx Salem talks ever, gen­er­at­ing well over 200,000 views since being post­ed on YouTube. Since then, Wible has gone on to spread her mes­sage in inter­views on CBS, ABC, CNN, NPR and else­where. Ear­li­er this year, she was award­ed the 2015 Women Lead­ers in Med­i­cine Award by the Amer­i­can Med­ical Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion. This Novem­ber, she will speak at TEDMED in Palm Springs, Cal­i­for­nia.

Accord­ing to Wible, all the suc­cess is a sign that her mes­sage is res­onat­ing.

“It’s time to talk,” she said, “about the taboo top­ics that are hold­ing us back as a cul­ture.”

Since her talk, more peo­ple are hav­ing “black and white dis­cus­sions,” she said. Patients are frus­trat­ed with their hos­pi­tal and clin­ic expe­ri­ences, and are also begin­ning to rec­og­nize how equal­ly frus­trat­ed doc­tors are, she said. And doc­tors are start­ing to see the toll that the profession’s tra­di­tion­al rig­ors are tak­ing on their own emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal well being.

Over 1 mil­lion peo­ple lose their doc­tor to sui­cide, a sta­tis­tic Wible often cites in her talks. Since speak­ing at TEDx Salem, doc­tors are becom­ing more recep­tive of her mes­sage, she said, and more will­ing to speak up about the pain they endure, a pain that has often been insti­tu­tion­al­ized from med­ical school onward.

“It’s inspir­ing med stu­dents to stand up and refuse to be vic­tim­ized,” she said.

“Peo­ple are will­ing to say it out loud,” she said, “the time has come for the truth.”

Wible cred­its TEDx Salem with help­ing to “break through the media glass ceil­ing,” as she calls it, ampli­fy­ing the thoughts of a female fam­i­ly doc­tor from Eugene, in a media land­scape so often focused on male spe­cial­ists work­ing on the East Coast. Her TEDx Salem talk and accom­pa­ny­ing op-ed was also pub­lished in the Wash­ing­ton Post last sum­mer.

“It brings peo­ple to me,” she said, “in want­i­ng to know more.”

And as she pre­pares for her TEDMED talk, Wible recalls her TEDx Salem expe­ri­ence fond­ly.

“I was on such an emo­tion­al high, I wasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly tak­ing it all in,” she said. “I was so proud to be a part of it.”

It real­ly shows you the “pow­er of one new idea,” she said.

 

- To get your tick­ets for TEDx Salem 2015, click here.

 

What does fearless look like?

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Von_GlitschkaVon Glitsch­ka, cre­ative direc­tor and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, want­ed to cre­ate a logo as fear­less as this year’s TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

“The theme “Fear­less” made me think a lot. Fear is nat­ur­al, but it’s also a choice so if I’m going to brand an event that is declar­ing peo­ple should be fear­less,” he said, “I need to be authen­tic in my approach.”

Glitsch­ka designed the last two TEDxSalem logos, which he described as aes­thet­i­cal­ly clean. It’s a look that didn’t seem to fit this year’s theme, he said, so he tried some­thing new.

Fearless_ProcessHe grabbed some black paint and a few brush­es and began paint­ing all the let­ters he need­ed. Then he arranged them in Pho­to­shop. It looked good, but some­thing was miss­ing.

“That’s when I read the word dif­fer­ent­ly. I’d nev­er noticed that the word fear­less is actu­al­ly two words “fear” and “less,” he said. “I want­ed to play off of “fear less,” and put fear aside and all that it implies.”

Fearless_Type

 

He decid­ed to asso­ciate fear with dis­or­der and rearranged the word so its let­ters were back­wards.

“In con­text of design, fear is main­ly about the fear of fail­ure,” he said. He thought, “What if they don’t like it?”

 

 

Once he added the col­or red, he liked what he saw. And so do we. Thank you for being fear­less in your design Glitsch­ka. T‑shirts with this year’s logo will be on sale at TEDxSalem Oct. 3.

 

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Learn what it means to be fear­less at TEDxSalem Oct. 3

The all-day event is $40 for stu­dents and $50 for the gen­er­al pub­lic and includes talks, enter­tain­ment, par­tic­i­pa­tion in recess breaks, hands-on activ­i­ties between ses­sions, plus food through­out the day (break­fast, coffee/tea/water, snacks and lunch), a gift bag and a few oth­er good­ies. Be fear­less and find your tick­ets here.

Von Glitsch­ka is the cre­ative direc­tor and own­er of Glitsch­ka Stu­dios, a small bou­tique design firm in Salem. Its diverse range of illus­tra­tive designs have been used by some of the most respect­ed glob­al brands. The stu­dio cre­ative­ly col­lab­o­rates with ad agen­cies, design firms, cor­po­rate art depart­ments, and small busi­ness­es to pro­duce com­pelling illus­tra­tive design.