TEDx Walden Pond is the talk of the town

A Lincoln couple recently hosted the town’s first TedX event, TedX Walden Pond, which showcased 15 speakers as well as two artistic performances.

Co-organizer Nick Morgan said he’s been a longtime fan of TED Talks, where “ideas are front and center, new voices can be heard, and the opportunity to debate interesting topics was there.” TEDx (the “x” indicates independently organized) is an offshoot program that enables local communities to host TED-like events. They’re usually named after the host town, but “TEDx Lincoln” was already taken by Lincoln, Neb.

Anyone can host a TEDx event in their hometown as long as they get approved and licensed by TedX, so Morgan and his wife Jessica Cooper started the application process a year ago and got the green light in August for the November 1 event held at the First Parish stone church. Morgan is a public speaking coach with Public Words Inc. and Cooper is a voice teacher. 

He and Cooper put out the word to their networks for potential speakers. Since the TedX brand is quite prestigious, “you immediately get overwhelmed with people who want to give talks — selecting the most promising is tough,” Morgan said. His theme was “Ripples of Thought,” which was “deliberately ambiguous,” he said. 

“The audience particularly liked Gerami Groover-Flores’ talk about the origins of the Hamilton-Garrett Center for Music & Arts in the music of the Black church in America, Trish Kendall‘s deeply moving talk on success, and SNL veteran Tim Washer‘s funny closing talk, ‘Follow the Fear,’ on self-acceptance,” Morgan said. The other speakers were:

• Charley Blandy, expert on negotiation and corporate social responsibility and a professional singer, on our response to climate change
• Dr. Jared Cox on shame
• Dr. Lauren Chaby, director of scientific strategies at ALZpath, on new developments in Alzheimer’s research
• Rick Chavez, partner at Oliver Wyman, on lessons he learned from 25 years in the technology business
• Dr. Seth Ettenberg, chief scientific officer at BlueRock Therapeutics, on regenerative medicine
• Dr. Rebecca Heiss on how men struggle to find their roles in modern society
• Graham Lutz on the importance of allowing ourselves to embrace mistakes
• Eric McNulty on the importance of working together as a community on difficult issues such as climate change
• Martin G. Moore, producer of the “No Bullsh!t Leadership” podcast, on handling conflict
• Wendy Murphy, adjunct professor of sexual violence law at the New England School of Law, on how women are denied equal protection under the law
• Storyteller and educator Graham Lutz on the importance of allowing ourselves to embrace mistakes
• “Chaos coach” Corinne Hancock Scott
• Raj Sharma, head of The Sharma Group and a director of the Boston Foundation, on choosing wealth management as a career

A highlight of the evening was “Ripples: gathered,” a performance choreographed specially for “Ripples of Thought” by Urbanity Dance, whose mission it is to bring contemporary dance to the Boston landscape. Classical guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan also performed “moving still,” an original composition, resulting in “a potpourri of people and topics, which is what TEDx wants,” Cooper said.

TED Talks are limited to 18 minutes and TEDx to just 10 minutes — a departure from when Morgan started coaching public speakers when “a 90-minute lecture was not unusual,” he said. TED Talks were “a bellwether of the times” to encourage a variety of shorter speeches in one session. 

TedX Walden Pond should be available for viewing on YouTube by the end of the year once the event company has finished editing, Morgan said.