David O'Hara

This was my second TEDx talk — I gave one in Fargo a few years ago — and it was nice to be doing one in the city where I live. I spent the first half of the evening with my wife and some friends in the audience, then went backstage for the second half so I could get miked up (mic’ed up? What’s the right way to type that? So they could put a wireless mic on me.)

I spend much of my life standing in front of groups and talking with them about “ideas that matter.” It’s what I do as a teacher, and it’s also a big part of what my business does. It’s a good feeling when people come up to me later and tell me that they learned something helpful, something that helped them to examine their lives, and to live as better neighbors, better ancestors.

I don’t advertise my business, but I let it spread by word of mouth. No website, no contact information or “landing page,”no description of what I do. Maybe that’s a bad business strategy, but it seems to work pretty well.

The day after my TEDx talk I gave a presentation at the Dakota Conference at the Center for Western Studies at Augustana University. Two men who came to my TEDx talk (and whom I did not know before that) came and sat in the front row. Before my talk began I apologized and said they’d be hearing a lot of the same material. They said that’s why they were there! They liked it the first time around, and had told friends to come to my second talk. They seemed pleased with the second round as well.

Tomorrow I give another talk for a local faith community, then I’m off to Texas this week for another talk, once my classes are done. So far, no worries about running out of work to keep me busy!

The Sioux Falls talk is not available online yet, but I’ll post a link once the TED channel has edited it and posted it.