So we’ve been inviting some of you to take part in TEDxCopenhagen 2010 and we’ve also had to turn some of you down. I’ve already covered the reasons why have this selection procedure but I’d like to take a moment to talk about our selection criteria.

Let me begin by reiterating that the application procedure is not about keeping TEDxCopenhagen exclusive (at least not in the most common sense of the word – this is not just an event for the rich and/or famous!) but about making sure the day is as inspiring as we can possibly make it. We know that we only provide the framework for this; it’s the speakers and participants who make TEDxCopenhagen what it is.

So the first thing we ask ourselves when we look at an application is “to what degree would this person help make TEDxCopenhagen 2010 amazing?”

There’s no denying that this can be a bit arbitrary. How do you predict how much any given person will contribute to a great day? And we only have the information the applicant provided: Their name, title, organization, website, twitter username and a bit of text about who they are and why they want to attend.

We’ve decided to look at two factors: How interesting and how interested does this person seem.

It’s pretty easy to suss out how interested a person is: Did they write two words or a novel? Does it seem like they have taken the time to look at the program (or however much of it was announced when they applied)? Does it seem like they wrote something especially for this or did they just copy paste their CV from LinkedIn?

How interesting a person seems is trickier: This is where we need to use our cognitive skills and why we can’t just make a simple questionnaire and have a computer pick out who gets to go to TEDxCopenhagen. Because what constitutes interesting?

In this context is has very much to do with the diversity of the audience we’re working towards. As you can maybe guess we get a lot of applications that are quite alike. With a bit of overgeneralization you could say that the typical applicant for TEDxCopenhagen is a 30-something man who lives in one of the bigger cities in Denmark and works in a creative field such as communications, advertising, social media or design. And while there are a lot of interesting people in this group we think the day can only be really great if we invite someone different to the party as well. So we will have a tendency to pick someone who falls outside of this demographic over someone who falls inside it.

Does that mean you can’t go if you’re a 30-something advertising guy from Copenhagen? Of course not! (Those going will meet several!) It just means that it might be a bit harder for you because you’re competing with a lot of other people who – in this particular perspective – look a lot like you.

But of course demographics aren’t all we look at when we decide who to invite to TEDxCopenhagen. We also ask ourselves: Would we personally like to pick this person’s brain over a cup of coffee during a break at TEDxCopenhagen? Did they start something? Are they working in an interesting field? Did they write something that made us curious?

This part is the hardest to define and the most random. But hopefully it’s also what makes TEDxCopenhagen different from a lot of other conferences. Going to TEDxCopenhagen means knowing that you’re going to meet a hand-picked group of smart, interesting people.

And if you didn’t get picked this year, please do apply again next year. It doesn’t mean we think you’re a bad person or somehow not worthy of going to TEDxCopenhagen. It just means that your application didn’t happen to spark our imagination this time round or that we already picked someone else who happen to have a profile that look enough like yours that we decided to pick someone else for the sake of diversity.

Sorry for the long, rambling post. But that’s it, folks: A look into how we pick the people who get to go to TEDxCopenhagen. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions we’d love to hear them. You are very welcome to comment below or email me at mikkelmarius@wemind.dk.

Mikkel Marius, TEDxCopenhagen team