I first heard of the TED conference after reading the book “Information Anxiety2″ by Richard Saul Wurman. The scope of the conference has expanded well beyond the original meaning of Technology, Entertainment and Design.
The basic concept: Invite some of the smartest people on the planet, and ask them to summarize their most important work in 20 minutes or less. There are a few A-listers, such as Al Gore and Bono, who for the most part say what they’ve said elsewhere, but the most remarkable finds are often people I didn’t know much about.
Membership in the organization costs several thousand dollars a year, but in line with their motto (“Ideas worth spreading”) they make video of the presentations available in a variety of formats, from YouTube to iTunes, and directly on their website. The videos are organized by a variety of themes and categories, such as “how we learn” and “jaw-dropping“.
Among my favorites:
- Hans Rosling’s visualization of poverty statistics
- Chris Abani, telling stories of our shared humanity
- Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor talking about experiencing a stroke
- Robert Wright explaining the historical trend towards cooperation, and why it should make us optimistic
- Lakshmi Pratury on the lost art of letter-writing
- Larry Lessig on why we need to rethink copyright
There always seem to be more videos in my queue than videos I’ve already watched. If you need an injection of inspiration, a booster shot of great brains doing great things in about the same amount of time it takes to make a decent breakfast, TED is the place to go.
