But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep"
---These are Lovely line from Robert Frost Poem
I Keep murmuring these Lines always becoz he doesn't say he needs to travel long, he mentioned he need to achieve more and has to go way long to do it before he die.This was the thought i got when i went to be part of TEDxChennai Organizing Team...I said Days to go before the event and we need to achieve something good and there were 4 months to go for the TEDxChennai Initially when we planned.
The TEDxChennai Buzz Started after the "BUZZ 140-Twitter Conference" Nambirajan is the guy who initiated this and Kiruba started the buzz and almost like 40 people jumped into the Discussion and at the end of day the Google Group was created and then Kiruba send the invitation to to few and almost like 30 + guys signed up for the group and get started .
There are lot of things to do on our plate i.e venue,date,speakers,sponsors,Publicity and Team etc. The First task is to list down the name of speakers,Swami took the responsibility and created a Google spreadsheet . when we asked for this there were around 150 nomination for the speakers.
The Second task is sponsor and Meeting,first discussed to have one meeting every two weeks,Initially Benny,Nambi and few other (sorry if i missed some names) met at some of their houses and start the
TEDxChennai Conversations.Good way to involve more and show them TED Videos and start disussing about the video.The Initial Meetup was almost dull in terms of the buzz created.But Nambi kept his vibrant Energy and spent most of the time by sending emails the groups and keep everyone engaged at one point of time.
The we thought we all have a game to play and need to play wise,so the first organising meet happened at IIT-CCD (CCD becomes the next home in most of the occasions).we got the mail from Kiruba saying that our TEDxChennai License got approved and everyone thought we are part of the game and kick started.we plan to have IC&SR Venue in IIT to host the TEDxChennai Event and we got it through RTBI ,it was one good achievement which makes the event so success.
so we meet at CCD-Isphani and almost for four month it's been a regular meet up on every weekend,my job is send out an email to the group and set the venue (CCD-Isphani).So as soon the buzz started we created a buzz around net through updating our twitter and FB Page and created a Twitter id for TEDxChennai (@tedxchennai) and
Facebook Page - (http://www.facebook.com/TEDxChennai.TEDxEvent)
we have got our own website (TEDxchennai.com) up and created the buzz through socialmedia and got some good response.we planned and planned and sometime thought we are yet to finalize the speakers,so we nailed down the final list and Kiruba started approaching them and we got the final set of speakers on the board for the event.so then what we got the speakers ,venue,Vibrant Team and the next is sponsors.
So we planned to have some break-up in terms of sponsorship and we introduced "Friends of TEDxChennai" and we got some three sponsor on that slot and one silver sponsor that point of time (Thanks for support guys).Then Kiruba got a chance to attened TEDIndia in Mysore,after his return from TEDIndai he was so much moved by the Event and got some more extra stuff to do along with the regular work and we are so much inspired about the work later.
So we planned a TEDxChennai to invite the TEDIndia Fellow and organizers for a get together,it was really a good initiative and had a good response.There were around 25 plus people turned on the event and which provides us a platform to reach more people.The organisers meeting was going on one side,lot of caffe lattes,hot chocolates,cappuccinos gone in and more to do...
when we started the registration process and the team was given seperate responsibilites and see it doesn't get over loaded.Benny takes care of the printing,felix and sreeram with the design and Photo,Kiruba's F5ive Team(Murugesh,vijay and prem) did a wonderful job of designing the website with the latest content and uploading the photos of the speakers and team organizers.
Kiruba was given the charge of speakers and Sponsors and me take care of the finance and registration and also Prashant (registration),sandeep and ram (catering) and this way the list goes on...It was wonderful to see the guys did the job well even it was first time for most of us.so we were waiting for the d-day to come in.
we are at kiruba's office on the day before two days of the event and started the discussion how to handle the registrations,food,participants..etc..It was exactly 12.30 every one left from Kiruba's office ,that one week was really awesome and mind blowing experience.So the saturday was totally mad because the d-day is coming so we got lot of work to do.I was done with the total no of regsitration and their was a regsitarion team setup by prashanth(Srinath,Vinay,murali,avinash,anuj,radhika,prashanthi,,vaishnavi...and the list goes on-sorry if i missed anyone guys) to carry out all the work related to it and done a wonderful job.Hats of guys.
There are lot of humourous things happend,one with preparing the ID Cards sandeep has done a review on his blog(http://www.sandeepnvarma.blogspot.com).So we all set for the D-Day.
The day starts with the high heart beats saying wake up it's sunday..(BTW i didn't got sleep not me most of us)so i was there at the IC&SR Audi at 6am and was surprise am i came to the wrond place bcoz i was one to come first and was waiting for the team to come in,Slowly the team came and we started the registration process,SAE Team setup the cameras and all set to receive the participants.
Here are some analysis as of 29-nov-2009
- Total no of mails exchanged in Google Group=1000+
- Total no of member in the Google group=100+
- Total no of meetups=20 + 1 mixer
- Total no of Cafe Lattes,Cappuccinos,hot chocolates=???
- Total no of followers in Twitter and Facebook =130 / 270
- Energy and hardwork=Priceless...
All we did just for the Inspiration we had in TED and this brings out all of us into one family
TEDxChennai Team, for me it is an close to the heart event and first of its kind i was been part of such a great team.I thought i need to write a blog after one week and here i am .Sorry if i missed any names..It was the dailogue when a film was success they say i like to thank and it goes one...the list is big it was the same for me....and it was even bigger..Thanks to Everyone who helps us to make it a Big success.Special Thanks to David and Rathish for being a TEDxChennai Ambassadors and also for their support for the Event and also to Chinmayi who Compered for us for the event.
We all worked for this moment what kiruba says TED Moment for me...the standing Ovations from the participants...this claps pay us for our 4 months hardwork and gives us an inspiration to do more in next event.
Photos of TEDxChennai Event :
http://picasaweb.google.com/felixchandran/TEDxChennai2009
http://www.flickr.com/photos/felixchandran
http://picasaweb.google.com/sreraam/Pics
