On 17th November my team-members and I hosted TEDxYouth@Hackney event with a theme of ‘Dream big…..then do it’. There were a series of TEDxYouth events happening around the world, celebrating the power of youth. It was to be a day of learning, inspiration and creativity. My job was to manage the social media and this time I had volunteers to help me out. These volunteers were teenage girls who were acting as youth reporters and my role became instrumental in coordinating them. Coordination was a very important key in ensuring youth reporting and live updates on social media would go smoothly as possible. One of the main roles for me was live tweeting during the speakers’ talks, and so in between I had to manage a group of five girls; making sure they interviewed the speakers and did live tweeting. Though this was my first time in managing a small group at a TEDx event, I think I pulled it off well. However, a few days later I thought about it more and realised that there is room for improvement.
The Pros:
I had managed the team well by preparing them before the event (via email) by encouraging them to brush up on speakers’ information on the internet, and prepare their interview questions beforehand.
On the day, I assigned a speaker to each girl and introduced them to the speakers.
I had set a social media table in the hall where the girls sat together and giving them a sense of how important social media team is at a TEDx event.
The girls were confident, had prepared questions and some of them required little management in approaching speakers and audience members for interviews.
I gave them sound advice on what to do, how to do and what to look out for.
The Cons:
I should have planned out the day more properly and set out an itinerary of hour by hour on what the social media team should be doing. There were times I had to encourage or remind girls to live tweet. One of the girls got bored and started playing on her iPad.
I should have explained properly how important live tweeting is during the event. As it was their first time at TEDx event, they were not accustomed to this environment. I should have been clearer on this.
For those who have FB accounts, I should have encouraged them to participate at TEDxYouthDay Youth Reporters 2012 group and communicate with other Youth reporters from other parts of the world. I should have encouraged them to give me updates from their proactivity on the Facebook group.
I am taking all of this into account for next time and the good thing is some of the girls expressed their interest in volunteering again. Next time, I will be better prepared and hopefully give my social media team a much better experience than before.