Discovering the infinite possibilities of public events: Maureen Connolly at TEDxSpringfield

Maureen Connolly, CEO of Maureen Connolly Management is an event planning professional with extensive national and international experience across diverse markets, and a visionary and passionate leader skilled at creating high impact programs with measurable results. She is the foremost advocate for utilizing public celebrations as a means of extending social capital by having the community, rather than the event, at the core of planning. She has written on the enduring transformational potential of public celebrations, and offers that "now is the time to harness that collective energy and accumulated social capital as a catalyst for social change" that will develop collaborations with the potential to breathe new life into hard-pressed cities.

In this TEDx talk, Maureen shares experiences and examples from the Special Olympics World Games, OpSailCT2000, and other community events on developing social change celebration.

TEDxSpringfield's inaugural event held on October 18, 2013 focused on the theme "Driving Innovation Through Diversity and Inclusion". We are a group of passionate volunteers that believe Springfield and its surrounding areas are full of Ideas Worth Spreading. Springfield is the "City of Firsts" -- the first basketball game, the first motorcycle, the first "Springfield". This event focused on how to use our diversity to bring back the innovation.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)