What do Jimmy Swaggart and Stephen Hawking have in common?

In the same way Jimmy and his kin passionately appealed to millions across the land in the 1980s, today’s technological evangelists are connecting people and ideas in the same way – and they’re doing so by preaching the gospel of technology, entertainment and design. In short, they’re talking about TED.

TEDtalks, devoted to “ideas worth spreading,” has become a global online phenomenon since their videos became increasingly traded on the Internet in 2006, and the weekly video podcasts of conferences have become rapid touchstones for the world’s most influential and innovative minds.

And Columbus, with an enormous pool of talent and innovation, plays a large part in spreading new ideas in a creative way.

Since TED was founded in 1984 as a one-off annual conference held in Monterey, California, the brand has expanded quicker than a Silicon Valley start-up.

Affiliated offshoots such as TED Fellows, TED Women and TED Books have taken root, in addition to a massive network of smaller, licensed TEDx events, which have increased the imprint’s relevance more than any other expansions.

The Columbus version, scheduled for November 11th, is one of the most highly regarded TEDx events in the country and was an early adopter of the TEDx franchise. The Central Ohio incarnation was the 35th out of a current 700 worldwide, said developer and organizer Ruth Milligan.

Milligan also runs Articulation Inc., a company devoted to turning an average presenter into a master of the audience – a big part of why TEDx Columbus is more than a local knockoff of its parent convention. Milligan’s artful development of the craft of presentation ensures that the audience gets it; after all, a good story poorly told is just another bad story.

“We’re publishing stories, we’re just doing it in an oratorial fashion with video,” explained Milligan, and that’s why she was tapped to teach other leaders around the world how to organize and present a top notch TEDx event. That’s right, Japan and Alaska called and they want our secret.

“The shared experience is why people come. You can sit and watch an individual TEDtalk in your living room, and you get a cool 18-minute inspiration hit. To watch a TED event from end to end means that you’ll walk away completely blown away. It’s like an all-day Broadway show where you get idea after cool idea after cool idea.”

Columbus also has several other connections and collaborations with the TEDx brand.

Seagull Bags, Columbus’ own handmade courier bag company, just filled an order for 1,000 custom bags to be presented to attendees of a medical-based TED affiliate in San Diego, TEDMED. Mark Wilkos, a local leader with The Columbus Foundation and past TEDx Columbus presenter, delivered a statistical analysis of Columbus so interesting and unique that he fields dozens of requests to repeat it at other events. Christian Long, a brash and unrelenting promoter of new ways of educating and learning, brought TEDxYouth to Columbus, happening the day before TEDx Columbus, to lead the next generation of thinkers and doers into the capital city’s renaissance. And Nancy Kramer, founder of local design powerhouse Resource Interactive, is one of five Columbus residents that have attended the primary invitation-only TEDTalk event and shepherded its development locally.

If a good story is told well in the woods, and no one hears it told, is it still a good story? Maybe … but it won't matter. That is ultimately why TEDx is good for Columbus; it makes good stories matter. Exposed in a room full of paradigm shifts and life-altering prose, attendees will walk back out into the world reinvigorated and filled with ideas worth spreading.

Or, as Milligan put it, “If we don’t know who’s in Columbus, if we don’t know the stories down the street, how are we supposed to celebrate the town we live in?”

TEDxYouth will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on November 10th and TEDx Columbus: A Moment in Time will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on November 11th – both at COSI. For more information, visit www.tedxcolumbus.com.