Tide Talks returns Wednesday at 8 p.m. to the Ferguson Theater for a second event.
The speakers at Tide Talks II will be Mallory Flowers, a senior majoring in applied math and New College; Joshua White, a senior majoring in economics and finance; Lissa Handley Tyson, a senior majoring in accounting and finance; and Ryan Jamal Davis, a graduate student studying business analytics.
David Phelps, a junior majoring in civil engineering and urban education and the president of Tide Talks, said the organization is excited to build off the success of Tide Talks I.
“We were very pleased with the turnout. The speakers all did incredible. All four of them brought a different element. They were each dynamic, but they all had a niche they played to in the audience,” Phelps said. “We had about 150 people show up, which was about our goal. Our goal for Tide Talks II is 200, so we want to continue to increase attendance on a consistent level.”
Phelps said social media will be more heavily used to connect the audience and the speakers.
“For Tide Talks I, we had two discussion questions after each speaker. This time, we’re moving to a Twitter discussion,” Phelps said.
He said this time, after each talk, the speaker will get to pick one song they think embodies their talk. During the four to five minutes that the song is playing there will be a Twitter feed on the projector.
“People will tweet how they thought the talk went, there will be a discussion question for them to answer, and there’ll be #rolltidetalks for people to use,” he said. “People will actually get to see what other people are saying in the audience, and the speakers will get to respond during that period.”
Tide Talks is responding to student feedback by asking speakers to create a concise thesis for their talks.
“While we loved the way Tide Talks I went with the diversity, some of the feedback we got from the audience is that they’d like a concise thesis on what their revolutionary idea is,” Phelps said. “So we’re asking each speaker for Tide Talks II to literally give us a thesis statement, a one sentence summary of what they’re doing that starts with, ‘My revolutionary idea is _______.’”
Katerina Peña, a junior majoring in advertising and communication studies and vice president of Tide Talks, said that while Tide Talks II will be the last event of the semester, the organization will continue to grow this fall.
“The future involves having Tide Talks events occur once a month,” Peña said. “Additionally, we hope to continue to foster more intimate audience-speaker interactions and get closer to our goal of sharing revolutionary ideas and providing our audience with a concrete takeaway.”
The videos from Tide Talks II will be posted online in one week intervals following the event. The videos from Tide Talks I are viewable on the Tide Talks Facebook page or at tidetalks.ua.edu. In the past month, the first four talks have a combined 1,484 plays.
For more information and a free Tide Talks koozie, visit the Tide Talks pump-up table in the Ferguson Center from 11 p.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
If you go…
What: Tide Talks II
When: Wednesday at 8 p.m.
Where: Ferguson Theater
