photo credit:picture taken from my personal account in Foursquare
Do you remember the picture above? This is the first slide of the two days workshop organized by SAP Business Women's Network in October 2013. It is also one of the main reasons three women from SAP Labs Bulgaria became organizers of TEDxMladostWomen 2013. In this blog post I want to share the history behind it.
When our local BWN chapter leader Monika sent to the most active women in female community in Sofia invitation for two days BWN workshop my first thought was "Oh my God. We are going to meet other women who are part from other chapters all around the world. I will be on the same meeting with Nicole McCabe. This is unbelievable." It happened that I was the only one person with free time slot to attend the first day workshop. When the meeting started I felt so proud that I am part from it that I wanted to share with the whole world my excitement so I checked in Foursquare adding the picture above. During the break we have exchanged few mails with Moni who was on business trip and was interested on how is workshop going on. Immediately I have received a message from Deni Simeonova who is the former license owner of TEDxMladosWomen in Sofia. It was saying "I saw the picture you have shared in foursquare. Do you want to lead the organization of the next TEDxMladostWomen event in Sofia this year?".
I couldn't believe it. I was attending TEDxMladostWomen last year and I was in contact with Deni in the last few months asking her to update me when can I expect the next release but I did not expected such a proposal. When I think about it I feel like I want to burst into tears because this was the first time in my life someone has given me not expected possibility only because of my personal attitude to topic but not because I have achieved something extraordinary.
I did not accepted the proposal immediately no matter that deeply in my heart I knew that I want it. Most probably this was because of my fear of failure. I started to ask Deni questions. So we have spent few days in night talking on Facebook about it. I wanted to know more before taking the hard for decision. During our conversation Deni shared that she is not able to organize the event for second consecutive year because of her new job in European commission in Brussels but she wanted to find someone who is very much into the topic. I have found out also that one of the sponsors of the former event has refused to support her in very last days and she has paid the bigger part of event's expenses with her personal fund. I think that this was the fact that made me take the final decision that I am in. I admired this not very tall but extraordinary strong woman who has done her best to make TEDxWomen come true for the first time in Bulgaria.
I knew that I have to build the team, find sposnors and speakers and I had only six weeks until event day. TEDxWomen is a local TED event which features TEDWomen talks and mandatory streaming session from original event in San Francisco and had be organized not later than 24 hours after TEDWomen. Deni advised me to find women from female community in SAP Labs Bulgaria. I remember very clear her words "propose this to everyone you know and choose people you really trust". So I did it. I shared the proposal in local community. I also asked my personal friends to join. As a result seven women confirmed that want to be involved into the organization. There were also tree women from former event organization who would be part from the team too which was fine because of their previous experience. We run behind time so I kicked off the preparation with no live meeting. I just created a secret group in Facebook and we started to talk on the thing we have to achieve. We used to meet each other weekly after work in winery bar downtime only to go through check list and to ensure that there is not anything forgotten. One week after the beginning we knew who will be the people that will do their best to make the event come true. On the first live meeting we have decided that only four women will stay in the group. One of the reasons was that we have shared confident information about the speakers and the sponsors so we had to ensure that this will stay between women who trust each other. 
Speakers
When we started to looking for speakers I did not have a clue what we are looking for. Each of the organizers shared women we admire in facebook group and we started to have phone calls with them. Then I have found what my criteria is. I wanted to invite people who are talking with their hearts in every single word they say. I did not want to invite people who are there for personal or business interest. As a result we have invited an inventor, a culinary blogger, a writer on women too.
On sponsorship
When I went to Rumiana Trencheva (CEO of SAP Bulgaria) asking to sponsor TEDxMladostWomen event she didn't even think about it. The answer was "You have my support". Rumiana was a guest in Meet Successful Women initiative I was leading and I suppose that apart from her wish to support TED event the trust we have built then made her taking her decision very fast. My talk with Radoslav Nikolov (VP of SAP Hana Cloud Solutions) was two weeks before the event date and was very interesting because he tried to test me asking "You still do not have the final list with speakers. This means that you might fail, right?". I said "Yes, that's right. We might fail but we will not." I received his support as well.
Behind the scenes
Elena
Volunteers
When we got together all speakers for the first time we have invited the volunteers as well. Then Lora, a girl from the office mailed me and asked me "Can I come on the meeting?". I said "Yes, of course." After that meeting Lora started to message me giving me advises on how we can better promote the event in social media. Two days later I went to her room and said "Lora, do you want to join the group of TEDxMladostWomen organizers? I need you." She replied "Of course I want. This is what I have always dreamed about". This is how the team was completed with the fifth very right person. I started to trust Lora from first sight. I just felt that she wants the success of the event so I only gave her the chance to exhibit her talent.
Surprises
Three days before the event day we had rehearsal to check the speakers preparation when we have found out that one of the speakers (the only man of course) is not ready with his presentation. He didn't have any concept on what he wants to talk about. I was angry because we have put a lot of effort and there were a chance to fail because of this. I was totally exhausted. Another woman in our group took the responsibility to help the speaker to prepare. So he did.
The event
You can find photos from the event here. The videos are still not translated in English but you can check them here.
I will not miss to share with you photo we have taken with colleagues from SAP Labs Bulgaria:-)
Post event invitation with colleagues in the office
After the end of the event we have decided to share our experience with colleagues in the office. It was a small improvised winery cocktail after that and my personal feeling was that people are excited not only from what we have managed to achieve in very aggressive timeline but also celebrated together with us the excitement we still had.
When I think about TEDxMladostWomen I feel that I am grateful for the chance to be part from the fabulous adventure.
Eli and Lora, Thank you that you were on the trip together with me:-)
Magdalena