Community and Making the World More Fun: Baratunde Thurston at TEDxMidwest

Baratunde Thurston, an accomplished author, speaker and comedian delves into the idea that community is found everywhere. He uses his journey through a Chicago winter storm to illustrate how community can involve anyone and often exists under the most absurd circumstances.

Baratunde Thurston is the CEO, co-founder, and hashtagger-in-chief of Cultivated Wit. He wrote the New York Times bestseller How to Be Black and served for five years as Director of Digital for satirical news outlet, The Onion. When he's not delivering keynote talks at gatherings such as SXSW Interactive, LeWeb, and Personal Democracy Forum, he writes the monthly back page column for Fast Company and contributes to the MIT Media Lab as a Director's fellow. He co-founded the black political blog, Jack and Jill Politics, has advised the Obama White House, has more than 10 years experience in standup comedy and more than 30 years experience being black. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)