Imagine sharing a message that’s important to you in front of a huge audience. On Oct. 4, two of Lakeland’s TEDx speakers, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Monique Brickham and senior communication and media studies major Zachery Mock, did just that. 

Brickham shared her view on a topic she was passionate about. The message she hoped she conveyed was that “Design thinking is a creative problem solving process that can be used to solve social and human problems that have nothing to do with design.”  

Brickham first heard about the event through Krebs during a faculty meeting. She was interested in the event because she wanted to share something she was passionate about. Brickham enjoys listening to TED Talks because she finds them motivational and informational sources. She wanted to share her message in the same way. 

Brickham started working on her speech seven months ago. She said her process was wrong in the beginning because she wrote out her entire speech. Krebs advised her to just talk out her speech over and over again. He also told Brickham to have a notecard with key words to remind her of her main ideas. 

Brickham played around with the way she wanted to communicate her message every time she practiced her speech and eventually found the right phrasing. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, she would practice her speech in the car on the way to work and on the way back. She then practiced on the stage with Krebs. Through repetition, she remembered her speech. 

This event is important to her because she believes she has reached a point in her career in which she has the knowledge and credibility to have a worthwhile and valuable message to share with others. She explained that “the world isn’t getting easier, and we have a lot of problems as a society and globally like climate change and dwindling food sources. In order to solve the really big social problems, we need to think creatively. Design thinking and creative problem solving can spread the message and make people more aware. It can also solve these complex issues.” 

Brickham believes TEDx is important because it helps audiences expand their horizons when they hear from experts, peers and the community. She thinks it’s important to listen to new ideas and think about them in ways that have not been considered before.  

Zachery Mock also spoke at the event. Krebs presented the idea of the TEDx event to him about seven months ago. Krebs expressed a desire for Mock to be a part of the event because he did well in his advanced public speaking course.  

Mock wanted to be a part of this event to spread his message: “Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from doing what you want to do in life. People look at failure as such a negative thing in life and something that we should avoid. But if we don’t go for our goals then we are never going to know what failure feels like. We have all failed at something before and it’s going to happen to us all again at some point. So why fear it?” 

Mock explained the long application process he had to go through to get his topic approved. Once his topic was approved, he began working on his speech with Krebs. He practiced with him about 15 times.  

His topic of taking risks in life came from a previous speech he gave in one of last year’s convocations. He wanted to expand on the idea by discussing how fear and failure can be used in a positive way. He kept hearing people complain that they could not accomplish their goals because they were afraid to fail. He wanted people to understand that there will always be a chance for failure, but it shouldn’t matter.  

He believes TEDx is important because it’s a rare opportunity to experience. He also thinks that that TEDx talks can “reach everyone.” The convocations are usually geared towards certain majors or certain groups of people, but Mock believes TEDx talks are geared toward everyone.