HOBART | What’s your “wow” factor, and what can you do to multiply it? Is the conventional wisdom about the 2008 financial crisis all wrong? Why haven’t charities been able to fix poverty, homelessness or breast cancer?
Such thought-provoking questions were explored at TEDx CountyLineRoad, the first TED event to take place in Northwest Indiana. The morning-long conference Thursday was a locally organized offshoot of the the popular TED Talks videos, which feature speakers sharing “ideas worth spreading” about technology, entertainment and design in short presentations of less than 18 minutes. The aspiration is to showcase ideas that could change the world, or in this case, the Calumet Region.
“What is Northwest Indiana’s ‘wow,’ and what can it do to reproduce it?” said Bob Bouwer, senior pastor of Faith Church in Dyer.
A sell-out crowd of 100 community leaders gathered at County Line Orchard in Hobart for Northwest Indiana’s inaugural TEDx event, which was organized by young professionals who met during the campaign for a South Shore Rail expansion and wanted to get more people talking about the region’s future.
“The young and talented people who had the vision for doing this take great interest in the community, and want you to go forth and multiply the ideas presented,” said emcee John Cain, executive director of the South Shore Arts Center and the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra.
In video presentations, speakers discussed how great leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Apple’s Steve Jobs inspired action with belief, and how non-profits have been stuck at about 2 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product for the last 40 years, because a bias against high overhead has made it difficult to advertise and hire talented leaders who could grow their scale.
Economist Brian Wesbury started the day with a talk about what caused the 2008 financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession, which he said is commonly misunderstood. The Federal Reserve kept the interest rate low at about 1 percent between 2001 and 2003, prompting people to buy larger homes in nicer neighborhoods that they might not have been able to afford if interest rates were higher. The potential losses from bad loans added up to more than $200 billion, which is a large sum but small compared to the $15 trillion size of the economy.
Mark-to-market accounting, which values assets and liabilities based on the estimated current market price instead of historical cost, exacerbated the danger that bad bank assets posed to the overall economy, and the economy improved after Congress did away with it, Wesbury said.
Excellence By Design owner Norma Williams shared her personal story about how she went from being a struggling single mother to a successful owner of a painting company that creates employment opportunities for disadvantaged women. She urged people to make an impact by finding their passion, which in her case is helping women “the world has thrown away.”
“The African proverb is it takes a village to raise a child, but what happens if the village leaders are broken?” she said. “We’ve traded in a community mentality for an island one.”
Her company hires women who are under-qualified but get on-the-job training, including some who are in county work-release programs. She encouraged others to step up to help women and children who have been left behind by society.
“I can offer a stepping-stone of hope for women in need, but I only have so many stones to offer,” Williams said. “The community needs to come together. Whether you’re a baker or a banker, everyone has something they can offer.”
Bouwer talked about the power of “wow,” such as how a restaurant’s house-made ketchup and monstrous portions of pancakes ensure it’s packed every weekend because of a positive word-of-mouth reputation. The senior pastor also stressed the aphorism “if it’s alive, it’s meant to multiply,” which inspired him as he took over a 250-member church in Dyer and attracted a following large enough to outgrow a new $9.2 million church building in 12 months, to the point where it had to establish satellite churches.
Faith Church now has 11 sites in Northwest Indiana and Chicago’s south suburbs and aspires to get to 20 by 2020, including locations under development in Brazil and the Dominican Republic. Bouwer’s church grew by wowing people, and he said everyone has something unique and special they can wow others with.
“What about you is a wow skill?” he asked. “Once you discover that knowledge, get better at it.”
Inspirational talk abounded at the event. LaPorte Mayor Blair Milo encouraged people to draw inspiration from Walt Disney and try to create the happiest place on earth in Northwest Indiana in a talk that emphasized happiness as an economic development strategy.
The online retailer Zappos.com created a corporate culture of happiness so it would provide better customer service, inspire more customer loyalty and ultimately increase profits. Milo said such an approach could made the overall economy more productive in an increasingly globally competitive world.
“As Walt Disney said, all your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them,” she said.
Anyone who wasn’t able to attend can go online to view the videos, which will soon be posted to www.tedxcountylineroad.com.
Find the full article at: http://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/nwi-s-first-tedx-wows-with-big-ideas/article_b72bea8c-9b93-52f1-95be-b366ed5aca3a.html