Results and Effectiveness

• Galvanised the room generating hundreds of conversations, the organisers were also able to instantly gauge how the audience were connecting to talks, what captured the imagination of the room and shape their online talk promotion strategy immediately. • The stunt was broadcast to live millions via ABC and a live TED YouTube stream. • Captured the imagination of the internet sparking over 35,000 online conversations in days. "Prepare to be stopped in your tracks because this is off the hook". - It's Nice That "The Future of Social Media" - HUHMagazine "The World's First Spoken-Word Trending Engine" - SohoHouse

Creative Execution

We turned TEDx’s 1072 square meter theatre into a giant, real-time emerging topics trending engine. We installed an array of directional and parabolic mics throughout the theatre. Each line-out connected to a dedicated speech-to-text-engine. Taking snippets of conversations spoken live from the theatre, and generated a live visualisation portraying ideas in the room. Think twitter, except without the need for a smartphone, laptop or tablet - to trend a topic all you need to do…is speak. The audience was freed from their devices to converse and build upon the ideas in the room. The visualization generated a live topic feedback-loop on the big screen, and an online hub captured topics for later.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Created in the spirit of TED’s mission, “ideas worth spreading,” once a year TEDxSydney creates a forum designed to give Australian communities, organisations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED talks. TEDx want their audience to connect with each other to build upon ideas they had heard in the room. However, they found increasingly come the intermission audiences buried themselves in their smartphone or tablet; sharing ideas with their followers in the social world, but not connecting with their peers in the room. Good ideas don't come from a lone genius glued to an iphone tweeting nearly as often as they come from interactions between geniuses. So we created something that took away the encumbrance of the hardware and liberated the fluidity in the conversation. The best technology is invisible technology.