TEDxIndianapolis Recap
To scale or not to scale? That’s a question I’ve devoted considerable time pondering. Having spent the past eight-ish years in highly customized, service-oriented agencies with processes and creative inquiry that are challenging to scale, there have been these ever present questions. Whether to grow or not. Or, how to move more quickly without sacrificing quality. Scale was almost always, at least in my mind, about bigger teams, or faster projects, somehow inextricably linked with revenue.
These questions emerged anew starting up YAY as I considered where I might want to take it. People ask a lot about how “big” I want it to be. Still in our first quarter of operations, TEDxIndianapolis with its “scale it up” theme came at a perfect time. Quick answer: yes, I’d like to grow, but not exponentially. As I imagined the future of YAY, my thoughts were much less about size, and more about pursuing creativity, variety, and impact with the work. Here was a new side to an old quandary.
In preparation for the conference, I forced myself to think about scale in a broader sense. What else can scale mean? What a marvel, once I considered it more fully: the many contexts of scale!
Sometimes scale helps you weigh and compare options. It can give a starting and end point, like a pay scale. On a map, a scale gives a sense of scope and space. Balancing scales help equalize things. A scale can be a rigid plate that forms a thick skin. In music, scale can be ascending or descending. The more I let my mind wander, the more I realized scale is any number of levers you can push or pull. To grow sometimes, yes, but also to right-size, to balance, to contextualize. And the zones may be team size or revenue. But also, impact, quality, happiness…
And I suppose that is why I got into experience design. To help organizations do more with less. To create a sense of abundance where before there was scarcity. To scale delight or gratitude. To bring more goodness into the world. The conference hadn’t even started, and already I had this wonderful mind-opening realization.
Highlights from the Day
The conference itself delivered plenty more thought provoking discovery. I learned a lot about people and organizations doing awesome things in Indy, and out in the wide world too. For example, you can be a tiny nonprofit with a scrappy budget, tapping into the passion of others (and fueling them with donuts, if all else fails), to make a big impact, as Urban Patch does. You can curate resources in a remote village, bringing them together to unlock the power of a something as small as a half-used notebook, as Kirsten Van Busum of Project Alianza did.
You too can make a zipline! Part of my sketchnotes from TedxIndianapolis.
The standout talk for me was Natalie Schneider of Anthem. Her message: Don’t be paralyzed by research and planning. Take action. She shared how her dad decided to build a zipline, without having any knowledge of how to do so. In stark contrast, she felt she must be 150% prepared to do something. Planning and research became a debilitating form of procrastination, all the trickier because it feels productive.
One of the biggest awakenings I’ve had since starting YAY has been the ability to decide and do. After being in a highly collaborative environment that leaned toward consensus, swift action is exhilarating. And aside from the sheer awesomeness of getting stuff done, it gives the gift of time and focus, all tied up in a bow. All that time spent debating and deciding isn’t needed when you simply act. Here was, at least for me in this moment, the secret for scaling. Action. Natalie called it “experimenting your way toward success.”
Bean Bag lunch party with Anne Laker and Jim Walker.
The other big highlight? A welcome break. Big Car arranged bean bag chairs on the lawn outside the venue. I had packed a sandwich so I wouldn’t have to rush around for lunch or wait in long lines. Eating a PB&J in the sunshine in a bean bag chair (I hadn’t sat in one since maybe grade school?) took me back to a simpler time. This connected back to the first speaker, Cara Courage and her talk about placemaking. We have land and empty lots in spades, it’s just a matter of activating them. The moral? Placemaking need not be complex. Something as low cost and simple as a bean bag chair can transform how we interact with and feel in a public space.
By the end of the conference I was maxed out from full throttle live-tweeting, sketch-noting, absorbing, connecting, chatting. I hit the cognitive capacity Santosh Mathan mentioned in his talk about how AI will one day expand our mental abilities. But for this one hour of bean bag lounging during the day—total bliss. This break scaled my energy, so I was ready to focus for the next round of talks. If Big Car wants to throw some bean bag / brown bag lunch parties on lovely days, I’ll be there with my PB&J.
It got smooshed in my bag, but was no less delicious. Ah, the simple joy of a PB&J!
I actually burnt out and had to slip out before the final session wrapped. While there was much more to the day (and I hope you watch the videos once they release them), let me scale it down for you. In short, here are some lessons from TEDxIndianapolis 2017:
The bad news.
We are drunk on leadership.
Racial discrimination and poverty stressors have a greater effect on physiology than other forms of stress.
There are major gaps in funding and opportunities for arts in public schools.
And we spend a lot of money on incarceration.
But, on the plus…
You don’t have to be rich and powerful to make change.
Good ideas come from everywhere.
Art will save the world.
And if all else fails, donuts are a great motivator.
So:
Listen to the perspective of unlikely allies.
Do something for somebody out there.
Take action. Not tomorrow. Today.
Check out all the #TEDxIndianapolis tweets.