5 Things I Learned From Blowing My TEDx Talk

Happy ending

The entire experience was bittersweet for me because I was responsible for organizing a historic salon of whistleblower speakers, which gave eight advocates a global platform to share their messages. Five out of seven of us gave truly remarkable presentations, but my talk missed the mark--badly.

The other speakers included Stephen Kohn, who shared the untold story of the whistleblowers of 1777; Marcel Reid an ACORN whistleblowers and summit co-organizer--talked about whistle-blowing as an extension of hope, I discussed blowing the whistle on our broken courts, Ken Williams, a former Boston-area homicide detective, discussed how a whistleblower lawsuit could reform policing in America, Arthuretta Martin discussed blowing the whistle while Black and Tom Devine described whistle-blowing as a global phenomenon. We also debuted "The Panama Papers" the first TED video on whistleblowers and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, at the salon.

Ajit George, host of the TEDx Wilmington, and Michael McCray, organizer of the Whistleblower Summit for Civil & Human Rights--conclude the Historic TEDx Salon: Whistleblowers and the First Amendment with a Whistleblower Summit Group Picture.

These important TEDx Talks are available at: www.WhistleblowerSummit.com/tedx_salon_2016

At the end of the day, I had an amazing experience arranging, organizing and presenting the TEDx Wilmington talk. My TEDx Salon: Whistleblowers and the First Amendment was an unbridled success, even though I bombed my talk. I would not trade this experience for anything in the world.

I don't know if you get banned from TED if you bomb one talk. I hope one day I might get a second chance to deliver the important talk I intended to give. See My Rehearsal Talk at (https://youtu.be/PfC7N-ATAiI) Still, it occurs to me that people might be more interested in the topic of "Bombing a TED Talk" than in my original topic of judicial reform. If that is so, blowing my TED Talk may be the best thing that happened to this whistleblower and his message.

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