Summary: Welcome to the very first episode of Road To TED (RTT). If you love public speaking as much as we do, you will find kindred spirits here. In this episode of RTT, Mike Brooks and Dino Dogan talk about where the idea for the podcast came from, why they decided to do it, and they even have a special guests who crashed the podcast mid way through. In this episode, we talk about: The Format Our typical format for the show is to interview a TED (or TEDx) speaker who is in the throws of preparation for their TED talk. We like to catch them while they're in the middle of it. :-) After the interview is over, we talk about our guest behind their back by sharing things we've learned from them with you. And I hope you'll share things you've learned with us in the comments, or by embedding our podcast in your blog and writing additional commentary. In the Midst of it all There's a special type of nervousness and energy a speaker will have when they're mere days or weeks away from giving the most important talk of their life. And we want to capture that, bottle it, and learn from it. However, we stray from this format a bit when called for. A god example is this first episode which is just me and Mike talking about where we want to take this show and what we hope to accomplish with it. Few episodes from now, we interview a TED organizer to find out what TED curators look for in speakers. So, as you can see...we plan on using a specific format, but we're not opposed to changing things up if it makes sense. :-) The Podcast Crasher John Bates crashes our first episode mid way through, and contributes his unique perspective on TED talks. John Bates is a speaker, and a speaking coach, and has worked with thousands of speakers getting them prepared for their performance. He shares some valuable insight into the process and we were very grateful to have him in our corner. We didn't know it then, but John became instrumental in helping us get the initial few bookings on RTT podcast before we even launched, which is something we will always appreciate. Thanks John. At the very end of our episode, John mentions a resource he is using with his clients to demonstrate some great and some not-so-great talks. You can see those on John's YouTube channel. Before Mackenzie Unintentionally, our first few interviews have been with female guests. And having Mike and I interview a female guest felt a little...shall we say unbalanced? Plus, Mike and I really suck at scheduling, organization, setting dates and deadlines, and we need someone to keep us in line. So, few episodes into RTT, we decided to bring Mackenzie Labrecque, who is a wonderful blogger, she's super-smart, she loves public speaking, and I figured she would provide the right balance by being our on and off the air producer for the show. If you're preparing for a TED talk and you'd like to come on the show and share your road with us, contact Mackenzie. Favorite TED Talk One of the questions we ask all of our guests is to choose their favorite TED talk. So, it's only fair that the hosts share theirs as well. Mike's Favorite TED talk: Lessons of Steve Jobs by Guy Kawasaki Mackenzie's Favorite TED talk: John's Favorite TED talk: The transformative power of classical music by Benjamin Zander Dino's Favorite TED talk: How we rescued the dancing bears by Kartick Satyanarayan This is your Road To TED That does it for this inaugural podcast, I hope you'll join us in our journey to TED. We would love nothing more than to help you get there, and we hope to get there ourselves some day. And since we showed you ours, it's now your turn to make a tough choice... What is YOUR favorite TED talk?
