(Photography by Brian Baiamonte: TEDxLSU organizers Rebecca Burdette, Annemarie Galeucia and Melissa Thompson)
In early 2014, Dustin LaFont was teaching at Westdale Middle School and dedicating his Tuesday and Friday afternoons to an after-school project in his front yard, showing children how to fix their bikes while dispensing lessons on work ethic. At the time, he simply wanted to provide children from low-income families a safe place to ride their bikes and give them an opportunity to learn and grow.
But LaFont’s after-school hobby became a full-fledged community movement—and full-time career—after he delivered a nine-minute TEDxLSU talk about it at the second annual event in March 2014.
“How they ever found us is just astounding to me because we weren’t looking to be found and get attention, but they did, and since then we’ve found out Baton Rouge wanted us really badly,” says LaFont, who was approached by donors who heard his talk and wanted to get involved. With the newfound support, he established Front Yard Bikes as an official 501(c)(3) and made it his full-time job. Since then, he has managed to expand his reach with two bike shops and multiple programs for children and the community.
LaFont’s story epitomizes the aim of TEDxLSU events: Share “ideas worth spreading” and inspire Baton Rouge to embrace them in ways that have a real impact in the community.
TEDx events are licensed, local events designed to be intellectual and creative experiences that bring local, regional and statewide communities together. These events are the independent arm of TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design), a nonprofit organization devoted to “ideas worth spreading.” Established in 1984, TED hosts two conferences annually that bring together some of the most interesting thinkers and doers from around the world, challenging them to communicate their ideas via talks that last just 18 minutes or less.
Rebecca Burdette is a TEDxLSU co-organizer and director of LSU’s Communication Across the Curriculum program, which supports the annual event by integrating it with the university’s programming and resources. She organizes the events along with Melissa Thompson, director of talent development at the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, and Annemarie Galeucia, coordinator for student development for Communication across the Curriculum.
Burdette stresses the TEDxLSU talks are not for sales pitches or political grandstanding. For example, LaFont’s talk was not a call for the community to take up his after-school project and expand it, but instead focused on what his work with the children meant to him in discovering and following his calling.
“TEDxLSU is the largest soap box you can stand on to share a message,” LaFont says. “They don’t make the message, but they provide the platform to share the message with Baton Rouge.”
Likewise, Joseph Tucker, founder and CEO of Hydra-Guard, the world’s first hydrating mouth guard, will be speaking at this year’s fourth annual TEDxLSU event at the LSU Union Theater on March 5. While Tucker is actively growing his business and seeking capital, his talk will focus on what he has learned from his challenges in business.
“You have the greatest minds talking on the TED stage already, and part of the [TEDxLSU] event is the opportunity to start unearthing some of those people who may not have the right title or be the billionaire or may not be getting the publicity that their idea warrants,” Burdette says, adding the local TED events “can start to expose those types of people.”
IDENTIFY, DEVELOP, RETAIN
As it returns to Baton Rouge for a fourth year with the theme of “Why,” TEDxLSU is still working to establish its role and its reach in the community. Last year, as part of that effort, the organizers created a competitive internship program in which students become members of the TEDxLSU creative communications team tasked with producing content and promotional materials for the event.
This year, with the help of local business partners, TEDxLSU has essentially created its own workforce development initiative by showing students potential career opportunities and providing them with real world career experience, while also getting the larger student population engaged in the TEDxLSU event as a way to encourage them to embrace Baton Rouge.
“They are the next generation of change agents in our community,” Burdette explains. “And how do we use this platform to, one, help them build the skills that they need to be successful professionals but also engage them in our community in a way that makes them want to stay in Baton Rouge and give back to Baton Rouge? What is going to convince a bright LSU student to want to be here after graduation when they have the world in front of them?”
Mary Ellen Slayter, CEO of Rep Cap, a premium business-to-business content marketing company, is partnering with TEDxLSU for the second time, teaching the student-led creative team to produce sponsored content and write profiles on the event’s speakers. Slayter describes the partnership as a win for her business and for the community.
“I’m really interested in spending my time and my energy in Baton Rouge to bring us closer together rather than leave us out in our little silos,” Slayter says, who also admits a selfish motive: to identify a new crop of interns.
“What I like about it as a business owner is it lets me see them do the real work,” she says.
Students from a variety of concentrations also get to try their hand in photography by working with Sean Richardson of Green Potato Media, who was hired to produce the speaker portraits and photograph the event.
“A lot of these kids, they definitely have a future in the creative business, and you know, hopefully with TED it is going to root them to Baton Rouge and Louisiana so we can keep growing and keep feeding that creative desire and that workforce here,” Richardson says.
Lamar Advertising Co. has also aligned itself with the TED brand in recent years by donating billboard space to promote the event and producing 3-D materials for the TED stage. And with the start of the internship program last year, Lamar wanted to take its involvement a step further.
Lamar Creative Director Mendi Robinson and Director of Digital Innovation and Sales Strategy Ian Dallimore worked with students to teach them to design digital billboards for the event that would then be displayed around the city. Robinson describes the student mentoring as “just our way” at Lamar.
“We try to stay plugged in to what is happening [at LSU]. That is where we look to hire,” she says. “We try to get in there and promote Lamar because we want them to stay local and stay in town and consider us.”
BUILDING BLOCKS
Big Fish Presentations CEO and founder Kenny Nguyen participated in organizing Baton Rouge’s first TEDxLSU event in 2013. As a business owner, he felt TED would become a great resource for new talent in the community. Little did he know that his own story about what he learned from his experience on ABC’s Shark Tank would become the subject of his TEDxLSU talk that year.
“It is a unique mix,” Nguyen says of the event’s speakers and attendees. “That is why it is so good for the community. You can be inspired, not only by the speakers but also by the people there.”
Although TEDxLSU is able to bring people together from all over the city and unearth new ideas, the challenge is continuing that positive momentum beyond just that day.
“There is something missing right now that could change the momentum because it is not enough to do it once a year,” he says. “You have to have that rhythm to really make a difference.”
In the coming months the TEDxLSU organizers hope to launch a new TED event called Salons, designed as a scaled-down TED event that could take place several times a year.
“It gives you the opportunity to have some smaller events throughout the year and keep the same energy flowing,” says Thompson, the BRAC director of talent development.
Nguyen is also currently planning his own conference called Creative City. It’s set to take place in September with the aim of furthering creative discussions in the community. He recommends that local businesses get involved in TEDxLSU and other intellectual events as a way to foster conversations, find new talent and even solve problems in their business by using the audience as a resource for private sector solutions.
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