The Big (Speaker) Reveal at TEDxAustin

Tedxaustin_2011_right_now

TEDxAustin is a TEDx event in Austin, Texas.

Their most recent event was February 20th, 2010, with the theme "Right Now".

It's a tradition of TED to keep some speakers secret, and TEDxAustin followed this trend, creating a graphic of red squares on their website that when rolled over, revealed a poem that gives a clue to the identity of a TEDxAustin speaker.

The poem "From tiny town to 2.0; direction cities want to grow; two dozen trips around the sun; as many jobs (almost!) I've done" revealed speaker Dustin Haisler, Director of Government Innovation at Spigit Inc; Robyn O'Brien, the author of "The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It" was revealed with this ditty: "Real food, is that too much to ask; 
Big industry, I take to task;
 It's time that we reclaim our plates; 
from food forced into altered states."

A new poem was added daily in the days leading up to the event, and the the identity of all of the speakers were revealed on the day of the event -- a graphically dynamic and lyrical way to build excitement.

See the TEDxAustin Speaker Teaser site for yourself here.