TEDxVolcano: Why You Should Try Big Stupid Things

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-04-18 06:30:00 UTC
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Ashes be damned. With the entire Skoll World Forum community (and half the world, it seems) stranded in London as that unpronounceably-named Icelandic volcano continues to spew its plane-killing ash into the sky, a group of us decided to something entirely foolish and organize the first ever TEDxVolcano. In 36 hours.

Closing out the Skoll Forum, UK social entrepreneur and potty-mouth extraordinaire Tim Smit shared that one of his managerial rules at his Eden Project is, when you're entirely stretched to the gills and every sinew in your organization's collective body is tensed, there is only one thing you must do: "take on a giant f*cking project."

Yesterday, while waiting on the line with Virgin Atlantic to learn that my flight would be rescheduled for sometime mid 2013, I emailed the amazing folks at TED to see what they thought about having us run a TEDxVolcano, do celebrate the true absurdity of this whole situation.

The response was amazing, and their team -- some of whom were stranded here themselves -- immediately jumped into action. We began recruiting speakers, and starting to plan the logistics. When I landed in London, I put out a call for help to the great TEDxLondon organizers and the dynamic Sandbox Network of under-30 rockstars.

Pretty soon we had a venue at the beautiful Hub Kings Cross, a set of volunteers, food for the event, speakers that include Google.org's Larry Brilliant and Economist New York Bureau Chief Matthew Bishop, and a whole city excited and behind us.

We're trying our best to fit everyone in, although there is far more demand than we can accommodate.

Photocredit: mine

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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