New websites get launched every day, so we’d understand if you think our new TEDxMelbourne website isn't such a big deal, however one of the reasons that we’re excited about its launch is that it reflects the start of a new era for our community.
When most people think of TED Talks they probably think of on-stage events, but to us, TEDxMelbourne is about more than just physical events or talks, it's about creating a community of like-minded individuals for the sharing of ideas.
But what good is a community if you can only participate in it at select times or in certain places? It's hard to feel connected and that you belong to a community if access to it is bound by the physical.
Enter COVID-19. The pandemic both forced and allowed us to take our community ‘virtual’; transitioning to an online environment for events and challenging ourselves to create new ways that our community can continue to connect when we can't be together in person.
While we started running various online events earlier this year with growing success, in the background we were also improving the online destination for our community to connect with us and participate in the sharing of ideas.
Our new website gives everyone access to every past TEDxMelbourne talk; that's every speaker that’s ever appeared on our official event stage for the past ten years!
It's not just a catalogue of incredible ideas but a reflection of our community’s collective psyche and how it's evolved in that time. Looking back through our catalogue of talks is a testament to the strength of our community and the incredible minds we can bring together.
Beyond the library of talks is an improved blog experience, allowing readers to easily browse through recent articles, get a snapshot of the writer (and their social media accounts) and even select snippets to share directly via Twitter. In fact, sharing our abundance of content via your preferred social media platform is as easy as finding the sharing icons at the bottom of a talk or blog, and before you know it you will have inspired a few more minds for the better.
For both our blogs and talks you can find exactly the genres of content you’re interested in with a simple filtering function based on interest categories (e.g. Adventure, Design, Environment). Even better, if you know exactly what you’re looking for, the search bar can take you there in an instant.
The TEDxMelbourne team has been working harder than ever over the past six months to continue delivering events to our community. We’ve relished in the opportunity to trial new event formats and approaches. Since March, we’ve put on eight events, attracting over 1,000 attendees. With the volume and variety of our events increasing, it was the perfect time to ensure our website was a place that could capture all our events and make it even easier to find and register for them.
Thanks to some fantastic integrations via Eventbrite and Zapier, the new site now allows our community to register or buy tickets directly from our site with just a few clicks. And when you’re finished, you can dive right back into our videos and blog articles!
People new to TEDxMelbourne are often surprised to find out that we’re a 100% volunteer-run organisation. All profits from our events are invested directly back into creating a better TEDxMelbourne experience. Our new website was built completely in-house by our talented and passionate team, outside of their day jobs, all with the intent of giving back to you, our community.
Our new website also focuses on telling our ‘story’; why we exist, who we are and hopefully giving a little insight into our team’s culture and personality.
We’re delighted to invite you to explore more about us and our team. And if you’re interested in joining our team, it’s easier than ever to see where your skills or interest might fit, and then apply here.
We also feature our fantastic partners who help us to deliver engaging events and our day to day workings. We hope you will support them as they have supported us.
With improved back-end functionality to support all of the front-end magic, we’re excited to continue the evolution of our website based on what you tell us you need.
If you have any ideas for how we could improve the site experience, or if you spot a pesky error, please let us know via our new and improved contact us form. By selecting ‘Report a bug’ or ‘Make a suggestion’ from the drop down, your query will make its way directly to the inbox of the right team member (how cool is that!?).
We hope you enjoy exploring the website as much as we enjoyed building it. Thank you for being the driver behind this exciting new project – we couldn’t have done it without you.
Dr. Vanessa Pirotta is finding out.
Where did it all began?
As told by TEDxMelbourne volunteers