TED is a platform that finds exciting speakers from all over the globe and shares their stories. “TED’s magic is the type of people they find to give these fantastic talks. It’s not just the usual suspects of you have to be so prominent within your area or in your industry or anything like that,” Monique Ruff-Bell, chief program and strategy officer at TED Conferences, said.
Skift Meetings changed the script and put her in the spotlight during its forum.
Strategic Career Building
“I have reached many of the career goals that I wanted to reach because of my intention, my focus, work ethic. Because I have built wonderful relationships with people who in a heartbeat will step up for me, and I would do the same for them,” said Ruff-Bell.
A key to her career journey has been gaining access. She became very intentional about connecting with people and organizations from which she could learn. Her main question was, “How do I get heard by the people who hold the purse strings?”
Sometimes, she asked to shadow others going to a CEO to pitch an event idea.
“Every time I put myself in those positions, I kept learning and learning and doing,” she said. “And then when I moved to a different job, I would say, ‘I know you want me to be the head of content programming here, but I also want to run this P&L.’ Why? Because I think content is a P&L driver.”
Each situation allowed Ruff-Bell to acquire additional skills that helped her trajectory. “TED did not have this role. They created it for me because I was bringing certain knowledge and expertise to it,” she explained.
She stresses the difference between being an event planner and an event strategist. “We don’t just order chicken. It’s important to understand the language of the C-suite and get them to understand the importance of what you do,” she said.
Getting Inspiration from TED
TED is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. With more than 30 billion views of TED Talks, it is a globally recognized brand. In addition, TED curates immersive, in-person conferences. Although much has evolved, its overarching mission has not. “You come to TED to be motivated, inspired and changed. To think differently.”
The annual TED Conference in Vancouver features more than 80 TED Talks over five days. TED Talks vary in length. “They can be six minutes, 12 minutes, just not more than 18 minutes,” she said.
What many like is that speakers are approachable. They hang around to interact with the audience.
“What TED Conferences have done is we have been able to create a community of curious people,” she said.
The experience includes more than talks. Ruff-Bell often says content is king and experience is queen. Discovery sessions focus on myriad subjects. For example, a recent one featured a tree doctor who took people outside to listen to trees speak. “You have to create an experience that people want to talk about,” she said.
Many find it surprising that TED is a non-profit, said Ruff-Bell. She also stresses that anyone can apply to come to a TED conference. “They think there’s this exclusivity to it but it is not,” she said.
It’s all about community first. “I always tell my teams to create a connective tissue for each other, for all of our attendees, as well as for TED,” she said.
TED has a new initiative, a consulting program. “We are sharing with companies, organizations, nonprofits, event companies who want to learn how to get speakers to be great speakers like TED,” she said. “We’re doing this for the betterment of our industry, making sure that we share what has worked for us.”