TEDX Sydney: Were the ideas worth spreading?

The first people Ogilvy PR’s Heather Jacobs ran into a TEDX Sydney were a team from Ogilvy & Mather. So, she roped American Express creative director Simon Bloomfield into writing up a piece for the website on his experience.

The second annual TEDx Sydney has come and gone (or the 3rd if you count the one not organized by Remo), and a few days later I sit pondering what I found of it.

There’s no doubt it was a brilliantly organised, thoroughly fascinating, and somewhat overwhelming day in the Carriageworks surrounds, but there’s been one thing gnawing away at me: I didn’t walk away from it as inspired to do something as I did after attending TEDx Sydney 2010.

Was I the cynical old hand, compared to the many starry-eyed TEDx virgins in attendance? Or was it something else?

I’ll be honest and say things didn’t start well when everyone bar the back two rows (containing the designated “blogging community”) were asked to switch off all electrical devices. How were we supposed to spread the ideas if we couldn’t take note of them? (#tweettweet?) I confess I didn’t turn my iPad off but felt conspicuous when I did try to jot something down.

But I don’t think that was the main problem.

Try as I might, five days later I can’t really recall hearing any big ideas that were really worth spreading. At 2010’s event, Rachel Botsman delivered her first presentation on Collaborative Consumption, and whether you were into it or not, it was an idea that has well and truly spread from that point to all corners of the world.

Sure there were plenty of ideas that made sense – Katherine Samaras’ presentation on obesity certainly was that. But if parts of the US are already looking at it – read here about Arizona’s plans to tax the obese – then it’s hardly revolutionary.

And there were ideas I certainly agreed with – I went home and told my wife I wanted to take my girls out of ballet and get them into an instrumental music program thanks to Richard Gill’s speech. But after two years of end of year concerts that look like someone’s trying to herd cats – it was hardly going to require a big push. (Question is will screeching cats be any better?)

There were loads of interesting people doing loads of interesting things – Drew Berry the biomedical animator; Josh Cook the bird behaviourist; Bryan Gaensler the astronomer; Johanna Featherstone the poetry advocate (yep, not sure what that means, but she was cool) … the list could go on. Everyone was really interesting to listen to.

But I reckon other than Saul Griffith – who wanted to (re)spread the idea that the future should be awesome (robot shark submarines, anyone?); and Genevieve Bell, who told me it was OK to be bored every once in a while (and revived my faith in big corporations like Intel at the same time), there was no one else that really got me thinking.

Except I did think that the upcoming Daniel Johns/Josh Wakely collaboration was likely to end in disaster. But boy can he sing.

Yes, I loved the day, and yes I’ll be clamouring for a ticket again next year (providing this post doesn’t put me on the outer with the organisers), but I just hope third time round I walk out burning to make a difference somewhere.

Then it’s up to me spread something.

Motorola rocks Australia with exclusive Silverchair gig

Howorth helped Motorola officially rock Australia, developing a major buzz campaign to launch its exciting Artist of the Month program.

Kicking off with an exclusive live gig for over 1,000 of Sydney’s hippest VIPs, fans and industry fanatics with Silverchair – the nation’s most popular chart topping band, the campaign achieved:

• Extensive pre and post-coverage hype reaching more than 13 million Australians across news, music lift-outs and social pages, including print media; SMH, The Sun Herald, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier Mail, The Newcastle Herald, 3DWorld, The Brag. TV; Channel 10’s Video Hits and MTV. Radio; FBI radio. Online media; ninemsn, news.com.au, The Music, Fasterlouder, PopRepublic, suburbanforce.com.au, musichead.com.au, mediasearch.com.au

• Strategic brand positioning for Motorola’s new Artist of the Month program via engagement with key influencers.

Campaign key steps

• Targeted giveaways in TV, major metropolitan newspapers, online and street press – promoting the Silverchair AOTM event, and leveraging the Artist of the Month website
• Influencer engagement and seeding program
• Extensive media outreach campaign covering Australia’s top rating music TV and radio programs, major newspapers and online sites
• Unique mobile downloads of Silverchair content for 3 mobile customers via Motorola’s Artist of the Month Program
• In-store promotion with 3 mobile, to win tickets to attend the exclusive album launch.

Media and influencers commented that:

• “The event was a delicious delight for sight and sound. A stellar venue for one of Australia’s best bands. Young Modern in on high rotation!” ~ Alex Thompson, InStyle Magazine ~

• “In short, the night ROCKED. The whole event was really well orchestrated and made guests feel we were part of something very special.” ~ Emma Vidgen, New Woman Magazine ~