I have long thought about doing a TED or a TEDx talk. (TEDx events are independently organized TED events.) Thus, when I heard of a local opportunity, I applied immediately. That was in February 2020. As you can imagine, that event was canceled due to the pandemic.
Once I applied, however, I started giving some serious thought to what I would say in a TEDx talk. To apply, I had to tell the organizers what I would say, so I had already come up with a throughline: Disinvestment in Washington, DC made gentrification possible.
The throughline is the argument on which your entire talk is based. If you imagine your talk like a tree, the throughline is the trunk and you use the branches to fill the argument out.
Your throughline should be based on your expertise. I am writing a book on this topic, am a Washington, DC native, and am a sociologist of race. For academics, the expertise and credibility part is straightforward. However, I also wanted to choose a topic I have personal as well as academic interest in. I could have given a talk based on one of my other areas of expertise, but this topic is the nearest and dearest to me because everything I discuss in the talk happened in the neighborhood where I was raised.
Your throughline also should convey something novel or unexpected like Barry Schwartz’s TED talk, which explains that more choice makes us less happy. That’s unexpected, right!
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| Tanya Golash-Boza delivering her TEDx talk |
The novelty doesn’t have to be something only you know, but it should be novel to a broader audience. For my topic, academics who study gentrification know that gentrification requires disinvestment. However, most people have not thought about the fact that racist housing practices and policies like redlining and blockbusting led to disinvestment in Black communities and made gentrification possible. Another twist in my talk is that the community I discuss is a Black middle-class community, which adds another novel dimension to the conversation on gentrification.
Once I had my throughline in place, I began to think about which stories I would tell – both from my own story of growing up in a neighborhood that has gentrified and from my research. There are so many stories to choose from, so I had to decide which stories would be the most compelling
On November 17, 2020, the organizers from the TEDx UC Merced event reached out and told us they decided to go virtual so the event was going to take place in January 2021. And, the script was due on December 23, giving me less than five weeks to prepare.
Luckily, I had already begun working on the talk because five weeks is a very short time to come up with a compelling script.
So, the first lesson in all of this is: If you want to deliver a TED or TEDx talk, start working on it now so that you are ready when the opportunity arises. (There are plenty of opportunities to deliver a TEDx talk – this website lists several events every day!)
Come up with a throughline and a full outline before applying. First of all, you need a good throughline to apply in the first place. And, secondly, this will give you a head start on preparing.
When I received my invitation to give my virtual TEDx talk, I had my throughline and a very draft-y version of the talk prepared. Only a few lines from that original draft made it into the final version, although the throughline stayed the same. I worked on my talk every single weekday (and some weekends) between November 17 and the date I delivered it: January 11, 2021.
I will write a couple more blog posts in the coming days to provide more TEDx related tips. So, please comment below if you have questions!
And, please watch and share my TEDx talk!
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