Great Time Presenting at TEDxNavesink

Last week was a busy week for me presenting at the ASTD (now ATD) conference (see slides here) and a TEDx event on Saturday. The ATD presentation was a great deal of work to create and put together and I was happy with the entire presentation.

The TEDx event was an exciting and unique experience which also took a great deal of work and, I have to admit, I was very nervous presenting at the event. It was a wonderful venue at the Two River Theater in Red Bank, NJ. The theme of the event was “Play” so my topic fit well. I spoke on “Life Lessons…from Video Games.” The recording will be online in June.

The venue was incredible. Great artwork throughout the theater, the lighting was just right and the house was standing room only as TEDxNavesink had sold out.

The stage is set.

The theme of TEDxNavesink was “Play.”

The event was co-hosted by Brian Smiga and Dorothea Drew. Both great speakers and hosts.

Brian Smiga introducing the TEDxNavesink event.

Then Todd Reynolds gave a stirring violin and technology-enhanced performance which he did at specific intervals during the event.

Todd Reynolds moving the audience with his music.

Then we got into the main event. You can see all the speakers and the topics here.

One speaker, who is still in high school, John Shammas creating an app for selfies. The app collected all the selfies for the event in one place and created a leaderboard based on the number of selfies you’ve taken or been a part of at the event.

Here is a selfie with me and Dennis Daniels aka Mr. D. He did a spritiual drumming performance piece that was energetic and exciting. He got the entire group into it.

Karl Kapp and Mr. D. aka Dennis Daniels.

My presentation was in the section called Pleasure. There were four sections to the day which related to Play.

• Possibility
• Pleasure
• Progress
• Paradox

The TEDxNavesink event opened with the theme of Possibility of Play.

As indicated before, I was very nervous about the event. I had to coordinate my slides, my video game stories and work the audience with a couple of jokes to add some “fun” to my presentation. Overall, enjoyed my presentation and got a number of laughs. The TEDXNavesink team was great to work with, they provided lots of coaching sessions and practice times. Even with all that, I think I went over my 10 minute allotmenton stage. I am really looking forward to the finished presentation, can wait to share it and all the other wonder “ideas worth sharing” that came from the event.

Back stage at TEDxNavesink looking much calmer than I felt.

If you have a chance to attend a TEDx event, I strongly recommend attending. It is a wonderful time and you get to meet all kinds of brilliant, creative and insightful folks.