The TEDxTokyo Journey
What a day it was. What a week it was.
Last Friday, the launch event of TEDxTokyo was held in the Japanese capital. The independently organized TED talks was months in the making, by a great team of highly-dedicated people that wanted to add new voices to the Ideas Worth Spreading.
Andrew and I were contacted in the days leading to the May 22 event and volunteered to implement its social web presence. In a matter of days, we used all our expertise to define objectives, setup a strategy and choose the correct technology tools.
The idea was to allow people that couldn’t physically attend TEDxTokyo at the Miraikan to be able to follow the events of the day live via social media tools and a live stream.
Gotcha Media kindly offered the live casting of the event, with their very high quality stream technology. From there, we wanted to tell people to tune in to the live page that was being built.
As we wanted the conversation to get going, but also to facilitate the following of the event for those who couldn’t watch the stream -Friday was a working day after all-, we got our friend and technology enthusiast Steve onboard to run an English Twitter stream. We quickly decided on an official hashtag to get people to expand on the official presence. Moreover, we took the decision that while the event was to be run in English, the Japanese audience was key. The stellar Fumi joined us to run the Japanese Twitter feed.
We then worked on a Facebook presence, creating two Pages for the bilingual audience, as to accomodate an audience that is not using Twitter and because it would allow “Fans” to receive updates after the launch event, TEDxTokyo being a on-going experience.
Then again, we thought. Reading about it and watching a stream is one thing. Feeling like being there is another. We hence decided to record live moments with a small camera and upload them to YouTube and Facebook throughout the day. Live snapshots, via pictures on Flickr, were added to the bunch and people were encourage to share their own moments via a group.
By means of an announcement on the official blog, crowdsourcing began. Using our networks, communities and friends, only 1 day before the event, we shared about the Idea Worth Spreading of a TEDx in Tokyo.
What a day it was.
The team worked like clockwork. Fumi, Steve and Andrew were on the scene, reporting and engaging. I was in Manila, living the experience as anyone else would, giving feedback, ensuring quality control. Steve and I were updating the English channel. People joined the conversation. People tuned into the live stream. People shared. Our hearts were beating with excitation. Our minds were filled by the marvelous stories of the speakers.
We got 3500+ people watching. For a live page that didn’t existed the day before…
We went to #3 in the Twitter trends. For a hashtag and Twitter accounts that didn’t existed 2 days prior…
Wow. Thank you. Thanks to the community for having been there with us. You made our day.
Todd Porter and Patrick Newell deserve my utmost respect for their labor of love -and sweat- of setting up the whole TEDx in Japan. Creating the echo-chamber and the conversation online is all about having something interesting to share. I had the best material to work on.
Huge thanks also go to Cara, it was an honor working with you. Garr for being his stellar-self.
Carolyn, Erik, Jason, Bastian, David, Steve: what a pleasure to collaborate with you all!
…and f I forget anyone, please comment, you deserve it.
Finally, I would like to thank Andrew, Steve and Fumi for being such a fantastic team to work with. I’d do anything to relive that day with you. Wait… we will! TEDxTokyo is a new chapter in a enchanting story.
