Kerry Ressler, TEDxPeachtree 2012 Speaker on the Neuroscience of Fear

This post was written in 2013 but much of it still applies with a few updates. 

We are curating speakers for TEDxPeachtree 2015 and these are the updated tips on drafting a compelling speaker nomination.

But first, a couple of rules:

1. There is no pay for play. Current year sponsors are excluded from speaker consideration.
2. Nomination must be submitted online here.
3. Deadline for nominations is June 2015. 

Key takeaways for prospective speakers:

1. Formulate your hypothesis aka your idea worth spreading. If you’re not familiar with the talks that are featured on TEDxPeachtree or TED.com, go to TED.com and TEDxPeachtree.com to get a sense of the types of ideas that are selected.
2. The curation committee places a priority on new areas of study, topics that cover new ground and those that provide a new way to approach an existing area or topic.
3. Provocative topics are welcome but science-based presentations must be peer-reviewed and preferably from multiple sources.
4. Review your hypothesis for any sort of commercial slant. Nominees touting their book or the work that their company is doing receive a much lower priority. The one exception would be an invention.
5. If you can’t share a video link of yourself giving a speech, consider recording a short 2 minute segment explaining your hypothesis. It will help us assess proficiency in public speaking. This video will not be evaluated on production value.

Additional speaker guidelines and the nomination form can be found here. Here are a few of my favorite talks:

Good luck!