Full House at the TEDxBeirutSalon 2.0

A TEDx event is independently organized by people from the community, for the community. It is created in the spirit of TED, and ideas worth sharing. On June 30th, the TEDxBeirut team brought together more than 300 of you to AUB's Olayan School of business, in this same spirit, for our second TEDxBeirutSalon!... And we announced something really special.

There is something you should know about the people organizing TEDxBeirut. No one was expecting a full house. The team was working for many weeks to prepare the event, and to make sure the comments we received from our first TEDxBeirutSalon were studied. We wanted to make the TEDxBeirutSalon 2.0 better. And when we saw you all on June 30th, we were proud and happy.

We screened 5 TED talks that were chosen by the team, so that the topics will be varied and interesting. And one of the talks was chosen by you during the event! We asked you to clap for the talk you prefer to watch after showing you 1 minute of each talk. To see the talks that we screened on TEDxBeirutSalon, visit our facebook page www.facebook.com/tedxbeirut .

One of the talks, Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation, showed that higher extrinsic motivators (higher pay if you are an employee) does not mean higher productivity. That technique most often fails, and actually decreases productivity! Business has been using the wrong technique to motivate people to create new and great things.

When we opened the floor for discussion, people used the example of Google and compared it to Microsoft. Someone shared his personal story. He told us about a working space with a pool and slides, and where it doesn't matter what time you come to work, as long as you get the work done!

You can watch the 19 minute talk by clicking on the link here.

I agree with Dan Pink that it is intrinsic motivators that can let people be productive and create great things. One of the intrinsic motivators is purpose: the desire to work because it matters and it is part of something more important than ourselves. I believe this is the engine of the TEDxBeirut team. We are working because we believe that TEDxBeirut matters. It is beneficial and positive for Lebanon. Because we want to spread the inspiring ideas that we have here, in our country,

Our special announcement has been a long time coming. And we finally decided to tell the world about it. The official date, of TEDxBeirut is:

September 24th, 2011

We hope to see you there!

With love,

From the TEDxBeirut Team

Sherif Maktabi

twitter: @sherifmango

Pictures by Hanane Kai.