“This must be the place,” Brigham Young reportedly said when his followers brought him, bedridden, to Utah. It’s a saying that is not so much a geographical discovery, but a psychological one: No matter where you go, there you are. Be here now. The only thing you can change is your mind.
It’s not so difficult to accept that viewpoint in Sonoma County, where every place looks pretty good anyway. There are agricultural valleys, business parks, schools, regional and state parks. Recently we even had snow.
“Sonoma County is an ideal location for TEDx,” said Marilyn Nagel, executive producer of TEDx Sonoma County. “TEDx thrives where there is a high density of ideas, diverse storytellers and an audience hungry for connection.” She is the “license holder” of the TEDx brand and of the 14-year-old mini-lecture series. “Sonoma County is ideal because we invest in creativity as a driver of economy, cohesion and identity.”
This is the localized version of the TED conference—technology, education and design—that began in 1984 but is now widely diversified. Now grown beyond simple presentations with signature 20-minute speeches, the hatchery of “ideas worth spreading” broadcasts through podcasts, educational programming and thousands of the TEDx events, each independently produced.
The Sonoma County version has been running since 2012, formed by the members of the Board of Trustees of Sonoma Country Day School (SCDS). It is still held at the comfortable Jackson Theater on their campus in north Santa Rosa, at 4400 Day School Place.
This year is built around the concept of “Mindshift: The Power of Perspective,” and promises to explore how changing the way we see the world can unlock transformative breakthroughs. Previous TEDx attendees, however, recognize the concept as broad enough, and true enough, to encompass a range of speakers and their thought-provoking ideas.
It’s not the common message that the speakers communicate, but their uncommon messages. Those breakthroughs can be for the individuals who make them.
Take Festus Ezeli, a Nigerian-born former Golden State Warrior whose professional career was cut short by injuries—but not before he received an NBL championship ring in 2015. He has been able to carry the lessons he learned playing basketball at the highest levels into later projects, among them Festus Feasts, a food program on YouTube. A recent edition—youtube.com/watch?v=SK4sALVA5Uo—visited The Matheson as Dustin Valette introduced the ball player to an all-chocolate menu, “an evolutionary dining experience.”
Another local angle comes from Shelina Moreda, born and raised in Petaluma, whose motto is, “I race every kind of motorcycle I can get my hands on.” Her career demonstrates how seriously she takes that pledge, even running Girlz MotoCamps for those who would follow in her dust. Plus, she finds time to double as a CoverGirl model. Oh, and she started an animal survival nonprofit in 2017. Somewhere in that resume is surely at least one idea worth sharing.
Also promising is Nichole Warwick, the new executive director of the Blue Zones Project Petaluma. That organization is an offshoot of the National Geographic’s study of the international regions with high concentrations of people living long, healthy lives and the common traits they share, distilled down to a local level. Its mission is to improve community wellbeing and increase longevity by making healthy choices, creating a blueprint for better living.
All of the speakers are new to this year’s TEDx Sonoma, as is usually the case. Though several are well-known in their fields, they may not have a wide following—at least until they get the opportunity to speak before the open-minded, intelligent Sonoma County audience.
Some are researchers, like sleep and productivity expert Lyndsay Scola, author of AI for ADHD: A Practical Guide For Starting (and actually finishing) What Matters. Other speakers explore beneficent use of social media, or transformation through exercise or music or by means of personal health app.
Then there’s Mauricio Umansky. The real estate mogul and entrepreneur known to many from his time on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on Bravo or his Netflix show, Buying Beverly Hills, will talk about something relevant to these times, the fuzzy lines between authenticity and performance.
Those lines blur at a TEDx Sonoma event, as the speakers are fully trained in the winning techniques of public communication. That may lead to some predictability in their means of messaging, but it can’t hide the diversity in their insights, observations or sometimes audacious ideas.
TEDx Sonoma County is Saturday March 7, at Sonoma Country Day School, 4400 Day School Place, Santa Rosa. Tickets $74 plus fees at tedxsonomacounty.com.
