News Photo by Julie Riddle At the APlex on Thursday, Dustin Black, right, discusses an upcoming TEDx event with event master of ceremonies Jackie Krawczak.

ALPENA — On Thursday afternoon, ideas will flow fast and furious on an Alpena stage.

Speakers from across the state, across a Great Lake, and across the Atlantic Ocean will converge in a ballroom at the APlex in Alpena for a TEDx event — one of hundreds of offshoots of TED (which stands for “Technology, Entertainment, and Design”), an organization that hosts global conferences about ideas.

The Alpena TEDx event will bring fresh and exciting perspectives to Northeast Michigan, according to event organizer Dustin Black.

Speakers will offer new ways of looking at topics ranging from shoreline erosion to business development and creating winning teams to ending isolation-based poverty. Though speakers receive no payment for their presentations, the Alpena TEDx talks, like those produced year-round at TEDx events all over the world, will be shared on TED’s popular website and YouTube channel.

On Thursday, Black and event master of ceremonies Jackie Krawczak discussed ways to encourage audience members, who will sit around tables with light refreshments during the program, to talk about the ideas they hear from the TEDx stage.

Event speakers — including one from Minnesota and another from Rwanda — will speak for no more than 18 minutes apiece. The time limit, a hallmark of TED talks, means presentations are short enough to hold people’s attention but long enough to say something that matters, according to TED organizers.

Speaker Steve Fredlund — a business consultant and trainer in the Minneapolis area who will speak on Thursday — started a humanitarian nonprofit, taught health skills in Africa, and runs an online poker community.

Though his credentials intimidate some, anyone can have good ideas, Fredlund said.

Alpena’s TEDx conference will be his second TED experience, after he appeared in Arkansas in March 2020 in front of an empty house because of COVID-19 restrictions.

He applied as a TEDx speaker because he thought he had an idea worth sharing, Fredlund said.

During Thursday’s conference, Fredlund will share his take on how humans can intentionally cultivate “those vibrant, but fleeting moments when we are full of life and energy” and, in turn, create more vibrant communities.

Such ideas challenge communities and, he hopes, start important conversations around the dinner table.

Fredlund will be nervous walking onto the big, red dot used at TEDx conferences around the world, which will be spread on the Alpena stage on Thursday.

Sharing ideas means risk, and that risk frightens even experienced speakers like him, Fredlund said — but taking that risk opens doors, ignites fuses, and makes communities stronger.

Everyone has ideas worth sharing, he said.

“Walk out on the big red dot of your city council meeting. The big red dot of your school PTA. The big red dot of your family living room,” Fredlund said. “Share your story. Share your idea.”

If you go

WHAT: TEDx Alpena

WHEN: 1-5:30 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: The APlex, 701 Woodward Ave.

HOW MUCH: $55 per person, with corporate and student discounts available

INFO: For more information or to purchase tickets, visit Facebook.com/TEDxAlpena. Tickets will be available at the door.

Selected topics planned by TEDx-Alpena speakers:

* Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from a Small Town Perspective

* The Power of Connection

* Are You Driven Like an Avenger?

* Art After Dark

* We Are Better Together – Engaging the Power of Professional Communities to Inspire Change

* Heal Your Life