TEDxMU

Some random thoughts from the inaugural TEDxMU that took place on Saturday morning:

I learned about the hidden side of innovation. I learned about working together. I learned about respect.

I learned about Bono. And that dudes play guitar in outer space.

I witnessed grace. I witnessed curiosity. I witnessed kindness and openness and International goodwill.

I had lunch with a brilliant, interesting young man from India. I did an exercise with a nice, equally interesting young man from Korea.

I’m glad I worked hard on my talk. I put in probably 50 hours of preparation. When it was my turn, I wasn’t nervous. I was prepared. I’m 97% pleased with how I did – which makes me very, very happy. I told the story well, I think.

I’ve been told there will be video. Several people have asked. I’ll let you know when I know.

I got a great pep talk before the event from my older sister. When I got home, my wife and son were waiting for me in the garage applauding. Will didn’t even know why … or care. He’s down with applauding. He’s pretty great like that. So’s his mama.

I was overwhelmed by the support by both people who attended and by people who watched the stream online. I’ve never had so many text messages afterward. It was really neat.

The space over at The Reynolds Journalism Institute on the University of Missouri campus was really cool. It was perfect, actually.

There were a metric ton of volunteers who made the whole thing possible. They were kind and engaged and amazing.

TED gets a lot of things right – most notably that if you’re going to have an event like this, don’t let anyone talk for more than 18 minutes.

I was relieved when my talk was over, but I was also sad. I was sad all day yesterday (Sunday).

I know it’s not the end, though, in the greater sense. It’s only the beginning.

I am grateful for Saturday, and I am hopeful for our future.

(Here’s the slide deck if you want to see it. I uploaded it as a PDF to slideshare. In the conversion, it took out all the transparencies I put on some of the text and images, so it looks a little clunky. Sorry. If you  can’t see the embedded slide deck, click on the link to go to slideshare.)