“What makes a difference is the passion with which you do your job”

15/12/2015

Robert Ferrer, speaker in the third edition of UAB Talks, with “The path to talent” presented on 14 December the idea that inspired him: if you do not do things with passion it is not worth it. With his personal experience as a starting point, one of the directors of TEDx Gràcia and collaborator of TEDxEd Barcelona tells us how he came into the marketing business after working in the engineering sector, and why it is never too late to start again.

You are one of the directors of TEDx Gràcia, how did you come up with the idea of starting this project in this area?

I was a collaborator with TEDxEd Barcelona and in this project I heard a lot about NEETs. It was an answer to a stereotype, we wanted to show that there was talented people trying to find their way. I heard old people saying that it is very easy to change your life when you are young, but not when you are older. At that time I had left my job as an engineer to work in the marketing business. I thought we needed to create a project to show that it is possible to do whatever you want with your life, that there isn’t an established path to follow, that making mistakes is not failure and that people should always keep trying.

Why Gràcia? The choice of this quarter was circumstantial or there was a motive?

We wanted to be in Barcelona, but the license TEDx Barcelona was already taken. We chose Barcelona because it is a well-communicated city and we decided on Gràcia because it has the characteristics that our project also has: internationality, acceptance, innovation, different social classes… We think that this multicultural quarter fitted very well with our social perspective.

How is it to organize an event like this? Is there workers, volunteers, help from institutions?

All the workers are volunteers, people who spend their free time trying to make these events a reality. They look for speakers and train them; they find the funds, record, edit and upload the talks to YouTube so that the message can reach the entire world… This means from ten to thirty hours of work per week. What the volunteers get from all this is the knowledge, the experience of having participated in an event like this and sharing ideas with people who otherwise they would have never met.

As a speaker, what is necessary apart from a good idea?

Most people need to train in order to speak in public. At TEDx (at least us) we do not look for good speakers, but we look for good ideas that then must be trained in order to be properly communicated.

Then, first comes the idea and then how to communicate it?

Yes, first comes the idea, and then how to communicate it and create a story. At TEDx we say that good stories support good ideas and not the other way round. It is true that sometimes there are some talks that are more motivational and in which emotions win over the idea, but the training we give to the speakers is focused in the idea over the story.

Was it like that for you? How did you decide?

Actually, I have only been an organizer and a coach for TEDx speakers. This will be my first talk in the TEDx Talks project, but not my fist conference, of course.

Compared to other talks or conferences, what is new about TEDx Talks?

Knowledge is shared freely. The speaker doesn’t get any money and the idea can reach the whole world. Sharing an idea that can be local to a global level is quite new. Also, the speaker, after their training in oratory, learns a skill and can share that idea when and where they want. Another distinctive trait is that the talks are very short, the longest is about 20 minutes and TEDx Gràcia talks are only 10 minutes: in such a short time ideas about many different fields can be presented, from art to science and technology. This is very fitting for the modern problem of the lack of time and it one of the key factors of TEDx’s success.

These talks are always unidirectional: one speaks and the others listen. Is there space for interaction with the audience?

This is one of the challenges that the TEDx event organizers face. The event consists of a stage for the speaker and a place for the audience. It is true that with oratory you can try to be participative with the audience, but it always ends up being a one-sided communication, like a master class in university. The challenge of the project is, not only to train the speakers, but also to make all this a good experienced for the audience, generate networking, and create the possibility for the speaker to share things with the public after the talk, and also to create workshops that allow a better relation between the speaker and the audience.

Do you think that this type of talks help to the democratization of education?

I think that it adds to it, it is a contribution to the idea that people with no recourses should still have access to education.

The target of these TEDx Talks, apart from university students and entrepreneurs, does it also include average workers?

Yes, it does. In Spain we are still a bit behind, but there has now been a boom and people who are interested by these talks can be university students and retired people. It includes people from all ages and we try to encourage that people from all social classes come to our events: when the capacity of the hall allows it we save seats for university students, unemployed people, etc. If there is an idea important for social changes, the access must not be limited to the elite, but all social classes must be able to access it.

Let’s talk a bit about today’s UABTalk in which you will be the speaker. Is talent innate or does it require practice?

When I speak of talent I speak of something that we all have but that we have put aside because of different reasons, because we were told that we needed to study in a certain university or work in a certain place or because of family pressures… Later you realize that when you are out in the job market nothing is easy nor clear and that what really makes a difference is the passion with which you do your job, and that is related to the talent we have inside.

Is it necessary, then, for this event to come to the university community and to the UAB with the collaboration of Unity UAB?

I think it's good for universities to promote a platform that periodically gives the chance to share ideas with different people from different sectors and generate a debate outside of the university routine of classes and exams. The idea that university has the answer for everything should be changed, and I think it's great that if usually someone doesn't get out of this routine, university encourages to change that. I encourage all UAB students to come, both attendants to the talks and future speakers.