In fact, the simple act of you taking a couple of minutes to read this blog is contributing towards the online buzz around TEDxMelbourne.

And because of people like you, we’re thrilled to report that we’ve reached more than 780,000 users online according to this nifty Amplify Effect tool.

Amplify Effect was an innovation experiment developed as part of AMP’s 2011 innovation and thought-leadership festival, Amplify. Not only does it track things like tweets and Facebook fans, but you can ‘like’ your favorite talks and grab a piece of code for each of our speakers to share on your own blog or website, amplifying the event even further.

We think it’s really cool, and a great way to measure any event’s reach and value.

Here’s TEDxMelbourne’s Amplify Effect results so far:

Can you help us reach one million?

View the details and help amplify TEDxMelbourne here

Naturally, there are plenty of other ways for you to spread TEDxMelbourne’s ideas worth spreading: like tweeting about your favorite talk, sharing our website with a friend or just saying ‘hi’ on our Facebook wall sometime.

^JK

She grew up in the Mallee (northern Victoria), where her family still lives. Graduating with honours from the University of Melbourne in both Engineering and Arts, Monique previously worked as an engineer/project manager in the infrastructure sector.

Her experience includes time in both the private & public sectors on projects as diverse as a renewable energy program for remote Indigenous communities, an urban regeneration project for an old mining town in the north of England and a new head office building for Sainbury’s in Cario.

In 1998 she was awarded the National Association of Women in Construction Young Achiever Award. She is the Chair of the Moreland Energy Foundation Limited, a Fellow of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership and an Associate of Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute.

In 2009 she was the Victorian Winner of the Hudson Private & Corporate Sector Award in the Telstra Business Women’s Awards, and in 2010 she was appointed an Australia Day Ambassador.

Monique has recently return to Australia after completing a two month Churchill Fellowship investigating the latest developments in innovative sustainable transport globally.

Monique is passionate about new ways of doing business that are financially, socially and environmentally sustainable, and she aspires to be a serial “eco-preneur”.

Amplify Festival attracts edge-thinkers and change agents to Australia from all over the world, and provides an immersive learning experience for AMP employees, customers, partners, and a growing public audience. In between festivals, Annalie curates monthly Social Business Salons to accelerate the technology transfer and adoption rate by business leaders.

In 2011, the US based Aspen Institute invited Annalie to become a Fellow of their First Movers Programme, designed to develop and connect global leaders working at the intersection of business growth and social innovation.

Prior to AMP, Annalie lead the Public Affairs function of BHP Billiton’s Aluminium Division in South Africa where her work won numerous international awards for social innovation. Annalie’s corporate career started with Deloitte as an accountant.

Annalie practices an open innovation approach, and shares what she learns through frequent public speaking engagements, via her blog Catalyst for Magic (recently named one of Australia’s top 25 business blogs by Smart Company) and on twitter as @maverickwoman, where she has been tweeting her magic from Twitter’s early days.

The former Victorian MP also co-founded and served as chairman and CEO of internet search advertising company LookSmart Ltd, one of the few Australian technology companies to be taken public on the NASDAQ Stock Market.

Evan has worked as a management consultant with leading global management-consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and was the founding Chair of the Board of Per Capita, a public policy think tank.

Holding degrees in Law and Commerce from The University of Melbourne, where he served as student body President, Evan has served on the board of the Brotherhood of St. Laurence, and was a Founding Director of GetUp.

Liza is Founder and CEO of Boston Digital, a curious new media agency based in Melbourne, founded in 2006 at the start of the social media revolution, positioned as an organisation of the future with strategic partners peppered around the globe forming a 24/7 virtual presence of digital excellence. Liza inspires Boston Digital to fearlessly take thought leadership in global markets with the vision to re-architect brand communications and customer experiences for the new economy, igniting a small army of digital natives from China, Argentina, Russia, USA and beyond.

Liza’s focus is on developing culture changing digital strategies, through harnessing the power of the networked economy and social web to transform organisations to identify and connect with informed, engaged and super switched on digital communities.

Liza studied Commerce and Arts at the University of Melbourne in residence at Newman College. Prior to founding Boston Digital Liza pursued a global Management Consulting career in industries as diverse as airlines, utilities, banking and finance in UK, Europe, USA and Australia. Liza has sat on a number of boards, including the Menzies School of Health Research, The Storeroom Theatre Workshop and The Ulga Tennison Autism Research board.

Pete is CEO of Deloitte Digital and Chairman of the Deloitte Innovation council. Prior to his role in Deloitte Digital, Peter was CEO of the Eclipse Group, previously known as one of Australia’s largest web development companies.

Recently, Pete was made an adjunct professor of RMIT University and has been described by media outlets as: “…a Deloitte Digital internet god, or maybe Mick Jagger’s illegitimate lovechild, we can’t quite decide.”

Pete has been featured in books such as Empowered by Josh Bernoff, As One by Mehrdad Baghai & James Quigley and recently authored Sitepoint’s latest release – Web  Design Business Kit.

Pete’s articles have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times (UK), The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, BRW and many others. Pete has also appeared on Sky Business News, Channel Nine and the ABC in addition to the 2010 Knowledge Cities World Summit, Battle of the Big Thinkers and TEDxCanberra as a keynote speaker.

Pete has worked with a number of high profile clients such as the Carlton Football Club, BHP, Telstra, AFL, NAB, ANZ, Google, Microsoft, Yammer and the Federal and Victorian Governments and is also a Board Member of Circus Oz and Emue Technologies Pty Ltd.

Social media was central to how Peter was able to have a huge impact during the black Saturday bushfires and then also how he supported the town of Flowerdale during the recovery. This included using twitter for real-time updates and attracting support and donations of goods and services and blogging the progress of Flowerdale. In recognition of his extensive work in this area he recently won a Forrester Groundswell award from Forrester Media (the first of its kind to be awarded outside of the United States) for best use of social media for social change.

A prolific tweeter, you can follow @rexster49 and be sure to find some inspiration in his revolutionary creed: http://deloittedigital.blogspot.com/2011/02/rexsters-creed.html

Dr Amantha Imber

Unlike many self-proclaimed “experts” in the creativity and innovation arena, Amantha has both the science (a PhD in organisational psychology) and the clients (including Coca-Cola, LEGO, Medibank Private, Red Bull, Deloitte, Vodafone, National Australia Bank, McDonalds and Westpac) to back her up. She has spoken in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the United States, and Europe helping turn people into innovation dynamos.

Amantha is a regular media commentator on creativity and innovation, and has appeared on Today, Mornings with Kerri-Anne, Insight, and ABC Radio. She writes a regular column on science-based innovation for Fast Thinking, is author of “The Creativity Formula: 50 scientifically proven creativity boosters for work and for life”, and has helped literally thousands of people solve problems more creatively and as a result, bring better innovations to market.

Matrix Thinking is now licensed in more than 26 counties and to one of the world’s largest consulting firms, Deloitte, and is delivered in this form as e-learning modules the world over. Not only does Roger talk on innovation and business building, Roger is also actively involved in business and over the years has created four companies based on his own ideas.

In 2004 Roger was an expert panellist on the ABC TV show the New Inventors, he does occasional spots on Koshie’s Business Builders TV show and in 2005 was appointed as “Chair of Innovation” at the prestigious “The Queens University” in Belfast. He does guest lecture spots in universities the world over, he also chairs two Syndicate Groups for the Australia wide organisation, The CEO Institute.

A stimulating, engaging and entertaining speaker, who walks and talks as he lays out the simple principles of thinking and business building – not a single overhead or PowerPoint for this fellow. You will be spell bound as you see opportunities materialise before your very eyes as Roger speaks and draws on a white board.

Most recently, Simon has been working on Shebeen, a not-for-profit bar, and Who Gives A Crap, a toilet paper initiative that uses 50% of its profits to build toilets in the developing world.

While Who Gives A Crap is still in concept development, Shebeen is about to launch its first venue in Melbourne. It will sell exotic beer and wine from the developing world, and the profit from each sale will support a development organisation in that drink’s country of origin.

MESSAGE OF CONDOLENCE FROM NSAA PRESIDENT

It is with deep regret that I announce that we have lost Victorian NSAA member Pat Naughtin, who passed away from bowel cancer on July 16th. Pat had been a member of NSAA for well over 12 years.

He has been a constant supporter of NSAA, and regularly made the trip up from Geelong to the meetings in Melbourne in his faithful VW (for which he had great passion). Pat’s speaking specialty was the Metric system and how Metrication Matters. It is interesting to note that VW have been using metric since the 1930s, and perhaps that is one of the reasons he loved them so much.

Pat spoke last year at TEDx Melbourne on how ‘Metric Saves Millions’. It was a very interesting and enlightening presentation http://tedxmelbourne.com/pat-naughtin-metrication/ He has spoken all over the world on this topic, and particularly in the USA (where they need it most!)

His materials were well-researched and based on scientific fact, but delivered with healthy Aussie humour. Have a read of his “Don’t use Metric Article” to see his style in action. Pat was a humble man who had a worldwide impact on the correct implementation of metric.

Pat was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer in March 2010, and since then has had chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and survived a large operation last year. Throughout he not only continued his correspondence and newsletters, he also gave talks to groups all over Victoria, some as large as 400 to 600 people, and some as small as 20, urging people to have a bowel scan.

Bowel cancer has one of the best survival rates if detected early. Pat’s Rotary club actively promoted scans and he helped in their promotion, but never had one himself. Pat’s widow Wendy has requested that in memory of Pat, to please have a bowel scan for your own health.

On behalf of all NSAA members, can I pass on our deepest condolences to Pat’s family, and also fully acknowledge the contribution that he gave to our organisation.
Thank you.

Tony Ryan
NSAA President