Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground brought to you by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community, Member FDIC.

Welcome to Common Ground.

I'm producer/director Scott Knudson.

In this first of a two-part series we go behind the scenes at TEDx Bemidji 2018.

Tammy Schotzko: What went into the event prep was no to little sleep but the exhilaration and the euphoria of knowing that the event was getting closer and closer and closer helped us pull things together.

It was a coming together of the team.

Everybody was doing their parts.

It was pulling in the vendors.

It was setting the spaces up.

It was getting the stage ready.

It was getting the green room and the back stage area ready for our speakers.

We did dress rehearsal with the speakers which was so rewarding to sit in that audience when there was only a handful of us listening to the speakers put their best out on the stage and be able to clap for them and give them some support and the high fives and it just was a really uplifting, heartwarming experience.

My name is Samantha Nienow and I'm the co-organizer of TEDx Bemidji.

TEDx Bemidji is a lot of things.

It's an event but it's also a process so it's an event where we get to come together as a community to listen to ideas worth spreading and the speakers on the stage are local speakers who have ideas to share.

It's also a process in that this took about a year to put together and a whole team was behind the scenes thinking about what is the event going to look like?

Who are we going to have to speak in terms of curation?

How are we going to go about finding those speakers with open mic nights and interacting with our local community on ideas?

Since this was our second event we already had an established team of people from our local community who are interested in participating and helping to lead the second event.

Tammy Schotzko is amazing.

She is one of the most organized people that I know and as my co-coordinator for TEDx Bemidji she was one of the people that I could lean on when I needed help most or when I wasn't sure about a particular decision or was stuck.

I leaned on Tammy to help figure things out and we got to work together, do a lot of problem solving.

She's just an amazing positive force.

I am Tammy Schotzko.

I'm a certified professional organizer.

I own a company called, We Love Messes.

Organizing is definitely my jam.

My part in bringing TEDx Bemidji to Bemidji was co-organizing with Sam and that meant filling out the application, getting sponsorships to have the event and also attending Ted Fest in New York City so that we could get the license to have a TEDx Bemidji because TED just doesn't let you just have an event.

You have to have a license so TEDx stands for the independently organized local community branch of TED Talks.

I feel like TEDx Bemidji was so much more than that in that we brought together our local community.

We brought together our speakers.

We brought together people in the audience and pulling them together into one location for an afternoon of deep conversations, talking points, hopefully the starting point for so much more than what happened just in that afternoon.

So as co-organizers Sam and I kind of shared the leadership roles.

Her expertise is in clearly speaker presentation, getting the meat of the event happening.

I excel in event planning so I did everything from like the beginning of the ticket sales up through the event, the intermission, the food, the after party and then like the volunteer organization and stuff and when I say I, it was really a team effort but that was kind of like I headed that and then Sam and I had equal roles and equal weight and were able to excel in our different areas.

Sam: John Andringa was the video production master behind the scenes and he was part of the Lakeland team that were also masterful in creating the shots for TEDx Bemidji.

Tammy: John Andringa, formerly of Lakeland Public Television was our tech and sound guy.

I'm sorry i don't know his exact role but I can tell you that he was amazing.

Sam: John Andringa, he is such a community-minded person.

He wanted to be part of a team that did something amazing for our community.

So often Bemidji gets passed over for different things because we're a small community in northern Minnesota.

Who even thinks about Bemidji but Bemidji has some cool things going on and it was really fun to work with John to highlight the talents in our community that we could highlight and capturing them on digital video and really helping us capture the spirit of the event.

What was neat about John's too is that even in our weekly meetings John was always the, the calm master of zen.

He would always bring such a calm demeanor and positive attitude to whatever we were trying to figure out.

John was that rock of just being so supportive and encouraging to the rest of the team.

I'm John Andringa.

I work at Lakeland PBS.

I got involved in TEDx as a videographer so Sam and the rest of the crew approached Lakeland PBS about providing video for that first event and I kind of showed up and took some initiative to really look at the layout of the Chief Theater and how video was going to work in that space and what we could provide and they kind of invited me in to be more than just the videographer.

Like it really became not really a second job but like a really kind of a pet project here at the station for me.

Jane Hastig was also part of the TEDx Bemidji team.

She had really two big roles.

She was part of the social media team with Karen Harrison and Lavonne Dennison but she was also part of figuring out the ticketing strategy.

Because the goal of TEDx events is to have an inclusive audience, Jane helped to think through how are we going to get different sectors of the community all in the same room together?

How can we get students, artists, musicians, professors, business folks, non-profit leaders, retirees, really different aspects of our community, how can we get those folks in the room and that way it allowed the tickets to be available from whatever background you have?

Tammy: Keila McCracken was one of our speakers from 2017 and then she came on the board as a volunteer in 2018 and she worked with the speaker experience so she took her experience from 2017 as a speaker and parlayed that into making our 2018 speakers so much more comfortable and at ease and their best self to give their best speech of their life.

Sam: Tiffany Fettig was part of the team that raised money for TEDx Bemidji.

Since this is a not-for-profit event we had to find a way to cover the different expenses that we had for producing this level of event.

We had different food costs, theater costs, production costs.

All of those things add up.

Tiffany and Tammy work together to find sponsors who believed in our community, believe that TEDx could help bring great conversations and spark curiosity in our community.

They worked on figuring out how to pay for this event, and I'm sorry TV time constraints doesn't allow me to mention everybody.

Team members included Keila, Cate, Jim, Satchel, Kaylie, Karen, Kevin and Carl and many others.

I was also part of the lead organizing team and my co-organizer Tammy Schotzko and I really work together to figure out what are the things that we want to accomplish as a team together?

What does this really look like and it meant coordinating meetings, pretty much every week to check in as a team of all the different aspects of the event were being built and created.

Being a core organizer also meant having the energy and passion come through when working with the team because all of us on the TEDx Bemidji team are volunteers.

We're giving extra effort outside of our normal work hours to do something that we're passionate about so it needed to be a combination of getting work done but also enjoying doing the work with the people that they respected and that they liked.

Every TEDx has a theme.

It's one of the application requirements to apply for a license to get an official TEDx event.

Before we could even apply to have a TEDx Bemidji event we had to think about a theme and have it make sense to help capture the spirit and the goals that we were hoping to accomplish as a team so what we did in November of 2017 is come together as a team who were interested in making event number two happen and then talked about what do we want to do this year?

What are the themes that we want to explore?

What kind of speakers do we want to have this year?

What do we want to do differently as an experience for the community?

As a team we had to take a step back in thinking about what does our community really need to hear, really need to showcase and what's going on in our region that we could really highlight for our TEDx event?

That's what the theme is for and we explored about eight different themes to to potentially build an event around and we landed at momentum.

As we were thinking about momentum in our community we noticed that there's a lot of change that's been happening in Bemidji and our surrounding communities.

There's been some good change but there's also been some change that hasn't been so positive and thinking about momentum, a lot of times we think about momentum of something that happens to you, but really momentum can be shaped.

So when thinking about the theme of the event, momentum are we going to let momentum happen to us or are we going to shape our future and how we go about responding to the different events and things that happen in our lives?

That's what we wanted to explore.

What's kind of funny about this is that the theme of momentum actually came to me when I was riding my bike.

As a team we were all brainstorming different ideas of what the theme should be and when I was on a bike ride one day and thinking about you know when you're on a bike and especially if you're going downhill there's a lot of speed and, and momentum that happens to keep you moving forward and isn't that interesting in our lives?

So many times life happens really and there's so many things that seem like there isn't control over but really we do have some control over shaping what that future looks like.

We can hit the brakes on things that we don't like or we can change course on things that are not working, just like riding a bike.

So what momentum means to me... being aware of the forces that we don't have control over but also being mindful of the things that we can shape and can influence.

Tammy: For TEDx Bemidji to find speakers we had an application process.

We did a couple open mic nights where speakers could come and do what we called their pitch, they can get up on the stage and I think it was a two or a three minute pitch of their idea and what they're passionate about and we gauged how the audience responded.

We had a panel of people watching the pitches and kind of evaluating them on whether it fit the theme we were looking for in our needs.

In my opinion the open mic night did two things.

It not only gave the opportunity for the community to see another example of what TEDx Bemidji could be because I think there was a huge and still is a huge learning curve to what is TEDx?

Like people don't know what it is so the open mic nights gave us an opportunity to do it on a smaller scale for free and it gave an opportunity for someone even if they weren't practiced or didn't know they wanted to do it to get there that night and go I'm gonna get up there and talk for two or three minutes about something I'm passionate about and there was really some raw passion that came through on some of those that was so fun to see and so enlightening and I feel like I learned so much about things that exist in our community that I never knew were here before.

Sam: I like these bonus talks.

One of the ways that I got to help on the TEDx Bemidji team is to be on the curation team.

We got to look over applications from speakers, as a team, then figure out which speakers would be a good fit for this year's event based on the theme and then really have that responsibility of knowing that this is the topic that we're bringing forth to the community, so it's part of the curation team, identifying the speakers that would speak at the event.

Tammy: To make a good speaker I think you need passion and practice.

Speaking is so hard and our speakers did such fantastic jobs.

They had Sam to mentor them through the process.

Sam: That was amazing.

Tammy: And she is utterly amazing but the speakers that had the most passion, are the ones that shone through with their message, in my opinion.

Cate Belleveau: Eric Carslon in on new creative technologies in education.

My name is Eric Carlson and I teach art up in Kelliher.

When we blend art with technology and shop class and I got involved with TEDx through Cate Belleveau who had recommended me to give a speech about art and technology.

So they contacted me last which is a great honor.

No they contacted me as an afterthought actually because they didn't have a lot of technology in their technology, entertainment and design talk and they knew that I worked with the Fab Lab.

It was perfect for me because I was, I was really wanting to be a part of something like this.

It's a spiny water flea which is... [Oh, inaudible] Yeah.

Sam: When working with Eric to find the four key components of his core idea, it was clear to me that he really wants to change up the way that we work with kids in the education system, where kids have more interactive learning and engagement in that learning.

Eric: Well TEDx was kind enough to let us set up all of these cool pieces of machinery and some of the things that we make with it, out in a spot where everybody could check it out afterwards and it was, it was really cool to see people interact with it.

So some things that we brought in, we had some fireplaces that people built with metal and we also brought in some mirrors that kids took their artwork and laser engraved the back of a mirror and then painted it and so that the paint came through the other side and that and then they built a frame for it and laser engraved the frame.

So we had a virtual reality machine and we were teaching people how to paint in virtual space, which is totally a new experience for most people so they took some controllers and they were able to just paint something into the air from their perspective with virtual reality goggles on.

I think kids for the most part were the ones that were grabbing things and picking them up and trying to figure out you know how they were made.

Adults kind of gravitated towards asking questions before picking things up, which I thought was really interesting.

Sam: Eric Carlson is someone who is passionate and driven to really influence education and help kids really love and embrace learning.

Eric: A lot goes into being a good speaker but I think charisma and that's one of the criticisms of TED as well is that it can be charisma over content or people see it that way, but I think it's a, it's a complete balance and we, I know that as a teacher as well.

you need to draw people in and make them care about what you're saying and some of that is telling quips and jokes and making sure that they are with you.

So he could start manipulating that sculpture.

I think the biggest surprise for me was that I needed to make a call to action and I hadn't thought about that.

Samantha Nienow was really good at saying, you need to set up a reason why people are going to care about what you're talking about.

Well I love that they have a theme and momentum initially was interesting to me but then I loved how they described it.

They said, momentum is happening.

Are we going to control it or is it going to control us?

And that fit in really well with the Fab Lab and what I do because really what the Fab Lab is, is a democratizing force for the creative elements of our society, so a lot of things that used to be industrial and only the purview of corporations are now being put into our living rooms and into our schools into our libraries, like 3D printers or plasma cutters and things like that.

Tammy: So we did speaker run-throughs or rehearsals the day before the event and so every speaker had a time slot to come in and run through their slides and their talk and then we just had a handful of people in the audience.

It was mostly the volunteer team or whoever was around doing stuff to listen, to give them support, to applaud, to give them a high five.

Say that Sam spent that time making sure that all the technology was in place, the music was right, the slides were right and it also gave them an opportunity to see the red dot on the stage, to stand there, to get a feel for the space and get them comfortable with it too.

Sam: One of the biggest symbols of TEdx is having that red dot on stage.

It's just a red dot on stage but what it symbolizes is this space where ideas are listened to and that there's space around having that idea at least considered.

Eric: Rehearsal the day before for TEDx was really important for me.

I remember coming in and being a little bit rushed but the most important thing was that they have a screen that shows you your PowerPoint in front of you, which was the only time I was able to actually use that before the actual performance and that was very necessary because I could see the words that were in front of me and a little snapshot of the picture that was behind me.

In fact one of the scary things that happened was during rehearsal we had a piece of tape on our microphone that kind of was hidden and it worked really well and if you were sweating it didn't fall off and they couldn't find that tape for the show and so they had just some scotch tape and it was just falling off of us but they managed to make it work really well.

Sam: One of the things that we learned from event number one is that backstage was an area where speakers had to hang out a long time before they presented and it was an area that we realized we had to create a space for calm and preparation.

At the 2018 TEDx Bemidji event we did something special for the speakers.

In that small space we've really tried to give a quiet, zen feel for the speaker that was on deck.

It was complete with Christmas lights and positive affirmations written in marker on a flip chart but they had a space where they could be away from the other speakers, be away from the organizers, be away from everything until they had to step onto that stage.

Eric: Performing in the historic Chief Theater was amazing.

It was so great to be able to go to a place that I grew up watching performers come into Bemidji and to be a part of that myself.

When I think of performing I think of performing on the Chief Theater stage which is awesome.

I want to make it there.

Tammy: When you walk in there you just feel the vibration of history in there and I feel like it was such a good place in Bemidji to have an event like this where it pulls the community together.

Clearly it's been part of our community for a very long time.

Sam: We had the event at the Chief Theater.

Home of Paul Bunyan Playhouse for the 2018 TEDx of Bemidji event.

We got to use downtown Bemidji as our campus.

Krista Grover, the owner of Fusion Dance Center in Bemidji in the old Ben Franklin building allowed us to use her space for our pre-registration and then our intermission so we were able to break up the dance rooms and have activities in there so because we had Laura doing a talk about chickadees we brought our local painter Maureen O'Brien who is world known, in to teach classes on painting chickadees, so during intermission and pre-check she was having groups in the studios painting chickadees.

It was so cool and then we had the tech lab in the other studio.

They had virtual reality.

They had all these really cool things happening there that centered around Eric's talk about technology in the schools.

We had Raphael's bring in donuts with the TEDx "x" on them.

We had posters with all of our speakers and their bios on the walls.

Harmony Food brought in lunch, which was fantastic, fantastic to do something local, something healthy.

Very well received I feel like by our attendees.

Sam: Event day is so exciting.

We get to see not only all the pieces come together with the speakers doing their thing on stage and standing on the red dot but we get to hear audiences respond to what's being presented.

It's so special when we're backstage being able to hear the gasps, the, the laughter, the size.

When, when people were presenting on stage, when a speaker was presenting on stage you could hear the audience reacting and to have that engagement, that conversation that the audience is presenting in their feedback with their body language and how they're responding is so magical.

Tammy: Event day was exhausting but exhilarating and a blur.

I literally wrote down it was a blur.

I don't remember a lot.

I remember running a lot.

I think I was dressed up and at one point because things weren't quite in place in the time we had a lot of, I had a tool belt on with my dress, which whatever works, we got her done.

Sam: What I also love about event day is it's an opportunity to see people experience new things.

Not only are they hearing things from the stage but they got to experience things at the Bemidji Fusion event location.

They got to experience the 3D painting at the Fab Lab.

They got to paint with Maureen O'Brien.

They got to eat great food together and they got to spark new conversations on topics they may have not thought about until hearing it from the TEDx stage.

Tammy: But everything went off really well and even though there were some hiccups behind the scenes I don't think the audience really knew that and that was the beauty of it is that we wanted the audience and the speakers to have an incredible experience and the feedback I heard during intermission was that they were amazed by it.

Scott: Thank you so much for watching.

Join us again next week for Part 2 on Common Ground.

If you have an idea for Common Ground in north central Minnesota, email us.

Production funding of Common Ground was made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community, Member FDIC.

Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.

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