The TEDBlog has moved!
After two years on Typepad, the TEDBlog has moved! It's now integrated (using Movable Type) into the new TED.com, at blog.ted.com. Be sure to visit us for 'live' TEDGlobal coverage, June 4-7.
04 June 2007
09 May 2007
A good day for the world. The Encyclopedia of Life is launched.
Those of us in Monterey for TED2007 this year watched in awe as E O Wilson unveiled his inspiring TED Prize wish to create an Encyclopedia of Life. (You can see his talk here... or download it in HD.)
In Washington DC this morning, we saw the first big step toward granting the wish. Five major scientific institutions, backed by a $50m funding commitment led by the MacArthur Foundation, announced the launch of a major global effort to launch the Encyclopedia. The press conference included a video message from Britain's Environment Minister David Miliband who said the "full weight of the British government" was behind the project. Ed Wilson told journalists today's announcement was a dream come true.
As Ed hinted in his speech back in March, this broad-based effort to plan the launch was already underway. But I am proud to tell you that members of the TED community, inspired by Ed's wish, played a key role in realizing what happened today.
In particular I'd like to salute the effort of Avenue A-Razorfish who in three short weeks were able to visualize a stunning design for the Encyclopedia and incorporate it in a video that is the centerpiece of the newly launched website. Please take a couple minutes right now to watch this video. It does a spectacular job of explaining the purpose and vision behind the Encylopedia. It is here at www.eol.org. This work was done entirely pro bono, and is a wonderful example of the TED Prize at work. Everyone at the launch today was blown away by it.
The video includes spectacular photography some of it contributed by TEDster Frans Lanting. And the website itself was contributed by an individual inspired by Ed's wish. Programmer Ray Ratelis owned eol.org, a valuable web address which he freely contributed to the project.
Many more TEDsters are meeting next month to assist the project in brainstorming its architecture, technology and design. It's proving an exhilarating example of the power of collaboration.
There are already many stories up online about the Encylopedia. Here's the official announcement.
02 May 2007
Nora York brings a new performance to New York May 3rd
Nora York — an adventurous jazz singer and genre-crossing performance artist — lit up the stage at last year's TED salon with her stunning original song, "What I Want" (watch it now on TED.com). 
She returns to the New York stage this week with STACKED! : a retrospective evening of her hybrid and recombinant musical works. York will take us on a musical treasure hunt through her world, where Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrx, Verdi and York converse and surprise. Performance at Joe's Pub, Thursday May 3rd at 7PM. TEDsters will surely be in the house (Tickets available online.)
24 April 2007
2008 TED Prize Nominations
Yes, it seems as though we just announced the 2007 wishes (and, in fact, we did), but it's once again time to start the search for next year's TED Prize winners. We're looking for three more remarkable people that can tap into the energy of TED and do something extraordinary that will contribute to the future of life on Earth. The nomination form is now online, where there's also much more detailed information about what makes a good TED Prize winner. Please use the contact form if you have any questions.
16 April 2007
New TED.com and TED's June Cohen featured in today's New York Times
Today's New York Times carries an article by E-Commerce reporter Bob Tedeschi about the new TED.com:
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
June Cohen, director of TED Media, said putting conference presentations on the Internet helped increase exposure.
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: April 16, 2007
THOSE who don’t have $6,000 or enough prominent connections to get into a TED conference can take heart. The price of admission just went to zero, provided you can settle for a more remote experience.
The TED organization (TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design) runs an invitation-only conference in Monterey, Calif., every year for movers and shakers in business and nonprofit circles.
Yesterday, TED introduced a Web site that offers about 100 of its TED Talks, the polished 20-minute presentations for which the conference is renowned.
The new site will generate more advertising revenue for TED, but more important, conference leaders said, it will expose TED’s content to millions of people who would otherwise never attend the event.
In so doing, TED is at the vanguard of a trend in the conference industry, where organizers have begun to exploit assets that in years past evaporated as soon as speakers left the stage.
“I’m so struck by it anytime I’m at a great event,” said June Cohen, director of media for TED, a nonprofit business based in New York. “That was so wonderful, but now it’s gone. It’s a shame they’re not captured and preserved.”
Ms. Cohen said TED’s organizers began posting last June a handful of free videos from past conferences on TED.com, with “fairly aggressive goals for how I thought they’d do. But we blew past those pretty quickly.” By January, the number of TED Talks on the site had grown to 44, and they had been viewed more than three million times.
Article continues after the jump...
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The New TED.com launches today Monday April 16th
This morning we are proud to announce the debut of our brand-new TED website. The site has been completely redesigned to focus on our award-winning TEDTalks, video and audio recordings of great presentations from TED Conferences by speakers including Malcolm Gladwell, Jane Goodall, Julia Sweeney, Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett Bono, Bill Clinton, Jeff Bezos, Stefan Sagmeister, Eve Ensler, Nicholas Negroponte, Peter Gabriel, Al
Gore, Tony Robbins, Anna Deavere-Smith, Hans Rosling,
Jeff Han and 90+ others, including 30 talks never available to the public until today.
Please check out the new user interface, listen to, watch or download new talks and create your own profile on our member profile pages. It's all free. And if you like what you see, tell your friends via email or via your blog. If you have critiques, issues, feedback or suggestions, please contact us.
June Cohen, Director of TED Media led an incredible team of people including TED's Jason Wishnow, Director of Film and Video and the incredibly talented Emily McManus, Marla Mitchnick and Michael Glass; and the web design firm Method.
We are grateful to BMW, who returns as our inagural sponsor of the new TED.com, bringing a message about its vision of a world powered by hydrogen.
The complete TED.com announcement press release after the jump...
Continue reading "The New TED.com launches today Monday April 16th" »
04 April 2007
2007 TED Prize winner Bill Clinton on TEDTalks
Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, Bill Clinton says he's trying to build a better world to hand to his daughter. Unequal, unstable and unsustainable, our world must correct its course, and private citizens ("like me") can be powerful forces for change. His Clinton Foundation, fresh from its success negotiating down pharmaceutical prices in the developing world, is now running a pilot health care system in Rwanda, based on the work of Dr. Paul Farmer in Haiti. In 18 months, it has shown potential as a model for the entire developing world. Clinton's TED wish: Help him build this system in Rwanda, to bring world-class health care to a people who have overcome deadly hatred to rebuild their nation. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 25:52)
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2007 TED Prize winner E.O. Wilson on TEDTalks
As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; and yet we're steadily, methodically, vigorously destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 24:21) NEW: Watch this talk in High Resolution (480P)
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2007 TED Prize winner James Nachtwey
Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, James Nachtwey talks about his decades as a photojournalist. A slideshow of his photos, beginning in 1981 in Northern Ireland, reveals two parallel themes in his work. First, as he says: "The frontlines of contemporary wars are right where people live." Street violence, famine, disease: he has photographed all these modern WMDs. Second, when a photo catches the world's attention, it can truly drive action and change. In his TED wish, he asks for help gaining access to a story that needs to be told, and developing a new, digital way to show these photos to the world. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 23:41)
NEW: Watch this talk in High Resolution (480P)
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21 March 2007
Google and TED sword-swallowing demographer team up to think outside the X and Y axes
Google has acquired Hans Rosling's Trendalyzer software, which the Swedish demographer and his team at Gapminder have developed since 2005 to generate more useful visualizations of facts and figures. Rosling has met the Google founders at TED2006, where he gave a thought-provoking speech on the nature of statistics and the general misinterpretation of them (see short summary and video of that speech). At TED2007 ten days ago he gave another insightful speech, ending it with the now-famous sword-swallowing moment (yes, Rosling is a serious demographer but also -- another deadly serious activity -- one of the few sword-swallowers active in Sweden). Photo Robert Leslie/TED:
Marissa Mayer of Google comments the acquisition on their blog:
"Gathering data and creating useful statistics is an arduous job that
often goes unrecognized. We hope to provide the resources necessary to
bring such work to its deserved wider audience by improving and expanding Trendalyzer and making it freely available
to any and all users capable of thinking outside the X and Y axes." The
Trendalyzer team will join Google in Mountain View to work on
developing the tools; the non-profit Gapminder Foundation
-- whose goal is to "to promote a fact-based worldview by bringing
statistical story-telling to new levels" -- will instead continue
operating out of Stockholm.
(Via IHT Metamedia)
Technorati Tags: Hans Rosling, Google, Gapminder, TED2006, TED2007
15 March 2007
Celebrating "Spectacle"
Architect David Rockwell joined forces with Chee Perlman and Kevin Kelly (TEDizens, all) in San Francisco last night, to celebrate Spectacle, the gorgeous book he created with Bruce Mau, exploring the phenomenon of public performance. Photos by Robert Leslie.
10 March 2007
TED2007: Day four wrap-up
Quotes of the day:
Explorer Bill Stone: "The traditional approach to space exploration has been to carry all the fuel you need, and to carry everybody back in case of emergency. But to prime the pump that will take us beyond, boldness is required: the first expeditionary team must travel to the Moon without the fuel to come back, and produce it there. It can be done in 7 years, and I intend to lead that expedition. There was a time when people did bold things to open new frontiers. We have collectively forgotten that. Now we are at a time when boldness is required again."
Multientrepreneur Richard Branson: "I guess I was a maverick." (Talking about his school years)
"New philanthropy expert Katherine Fulton: "There is a new moral hunger that is growing."
TED2007's over. TED2008 will take place February 28 - March 1 in Monterey.
TED2007 Day Three: things that knocked my hat in the creek
Wow! Day Three at TED2007 ROCKED! A magical day which got crank-started by a truly electric presentation on the perils of Local Warming.
This was a day which just can't wait for the TEDTalks to come out. Daniel Goleman made a wonderful connection between emotional intelligence and the empathy which will be required -- by all of us -- to make more informed, broader-scope consumption and action decisions in the future. Later in the day Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles Eames (and a true design thinker in his own right) made the same point in a different way -- humanity has got the information now; we just need to start making better choices.
Today (actually, yesterday, since once again I find myself blogging at 4 in the morning -- funny that...) was one of those classic TED days where almost everything was mind-blowing,where just about everything knocked my hat in the creek. Highlights for me were JJ Abrams and his Mystery Box; Jeff Skoll and his enlightened humanity; Deborah Scranton and her movie The War Tapes, which every global citizen must see and experience; Will Wright and his latest "game" which I couldn't help but think was the fortuitous answer to the TEDPrize wish of 2007 TEDPrize winner E.O. Wilson; Jaime Lerner as a vibrant example of the power of pure enthusiasm; Eames Demetrios for giving us the gift of previously unseen movies which exposed the vernacular power of iterative prototyping, as well as a parable of a banana leaf which pretty much sums up TED 2006+2007 in a nutshell (you MUST watch this TEDTalk when it comes out!); and of course Tracy Chapman and Isabel Allende for their artistry and authenticity.
It was a good day.
Above, all, I want to express my personal gratitude for Thomas Dolby and the musicians of the Jazz Mafia for the musical punch they give to all of TED:
09 March 2007
TED2007: Day three wrap-up
Quotes of the day:
Economist Emily Oster: "Not having sex is like an investment, so you value it more the longer you expect to live in the future." (About AIDS in Africa)
"Lost" creator JJ Abrams: "Mystery is more important that knowledge."
Participant Production's Jeff Skoll: "I asked John Gardne how to best use the money I made co-founding eBay, and he told me: Bet on good people doing good things."
MoMA design curator Paola Antonelli: "I'm Italian, and in Italy design is normal."
ARUP head of foresight Chris Luebkeman: "We brought CO2 emissions for power and heath to zero: it's good, but not good enough." (About designing a new sustainable city in China)
Former Curitiba mayor Jaime Lerner: "Cities are not the problem: they are the solution."
Designer Eames Demetrios: "The role of the designers is about anticipating the needs of the guest and make them feel good."
Nokia's Jan Chipchase: "This is pure street-up innovation." (About the use of cell phones for money transfer in Uganda)
TED2007: Sketchblogging the conference
Lorna Herf is an illustrator and designer from Los Angeles attending TED and she's been blogging on lornamatic in a pretty original and compelling way - she's sketchblogging the conference. Check out her blog. Here are her "notes" from four speakers: Carolyn Porco (session 1), John Doerr (session 3), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (session 3) and Michael Pollan (session 5):
TED2007 Day Two: things that knocked my hat in the creek
Oh boy, Day Two of TED2007 was so full of interesting stuff that it bled in to Day Three, which is why I find myself here at 4am in the morning writing this blog post. Again, I'll make no attempt to talk about everything (see Bruno's posts for that point of view), just a few things which stuck out for me.
Day Two for me was, above all, a day of vivid imagery.
John Maeda gave an elegant talk via a stream of beautiful images covering everything from a life responsibility curve to good tofu to cheese puff drawing tools to sushi. He showed us everything we ever needed to know about simplicity with just two photos of cookies, one small and one large, and two photos of piles of laundry, one small and one large. You want the large cookie but the small laundry pile, and that's simplicity in a nutshell.
Microsoft brought us some amazing demos, including one of Photosynth, which synthesizes a scalable image based on a search of flickr for all images of a specific subject, such as the cathedral of Notre Dame (photo credit Jurvetson):
Theo Jansen showed us videos of his wind-driven walking creatures, and also had an actual working machine/artificial animal walking across the stage -- effortlessly stepping to create, in effect, a virtual wheel. Here's a photo, but also be sure to see the video here:
2007 TEDPrize winner James Nachtwey's haunting images reminded us all how much needs to be done in the world. And how lucky all of us in the TED community (which means YOU!) are to be in life circumstances which allow us to dream. In the midst of so much talent, drive, imagination, as well as the wealth which results from the confluence of those three factors, it's easy to forget that this mode of existence is a far, far cry from the reality of so many citizens of our planet. We heard many macro- and micro-economic statistics today. But no statistics trying to describe life a less than a dollar a day can compete with Nachtwey's imagery of people's bodies wasting away from starvation. See a few of them in this video:
A day of vivid imagery, indeed.
TED2007: Day two wrap-up
Quotes of the day:
Former US president Bill Clinton, TEDprize 2007 winner: "Help me in creating a better future for Rwanda by assisting my foundation, in partnership with the Rwandan government, to build a sustainable, high quality rural health system for the whole country, that can then be a model for other countries. We have a chance here to prove that a country that almost slaughtered itself out of existence (while none of us, most of all me, did anything to help) can practice reconciliation, reorganize itself, focus on tomorrow and provide comprehensive healthcare to its citizens."
News photographer James Nachtwey, TEDprize 2007 winner: "I am a witness and I want my testimony to be honest and uncensored. I also want it to be powerful and eloquent and do justice to the people I'm photographing."
Biologist E.O. Wilson, TEDprize 2007 winner: "I've come on a special mission on behalf of my constituency, the millions of trillions of insects and other small creatures, to make a plea for them. Please keep in mind that if we would wipe out insects from the planet - which we are trying hard to do - the rest of life would disappear within a few months."
Author Michael Pollan: "Looking at the world from other species' point of view is a cure for human self-importance."
Former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold: "I have this picture up on my computer screen, and a woman comes up and asks whether that's a Jackson Pollock painting, but no, it's a picture of penguin shit on rocks."
VC John Doerr: "I'm scared. I don't think we're gonna make it." (About climate change)
Former Nigerian Finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: "There is an Africa that you don't hear often about, the Africa that's changing, the Africa of people that are taking their destiny into their hands."
TED Media Director June Cohen: "The newest digital technologies are returning us to the most ancient form of media — one in which a natural order is restored; our individual stories take center stage, with the rest of the world as a backdrop."
Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig: "We have to recognize they kids different from us. We watch TV, they make TV. It is technology that has made them different."
08 March 2007
TED2007 Day One: things that knocked my hat in the creek
I had my mind blown in a thousand different directions by TED2007 today. My big impression was having felt the future, in myriad ways. From hallway conversations to the content of speaker presentations to the feeling of just being a part of it all, it was a fabulous first day.
My assignment, as handed down by the head office of TED, is to tell you about the thing which blew my mind the most. However, I'm going to take the easy route and talk about everything buzzing in my mind right now. All the speakers were wonderful, but here are my personal highlights. So bear with me; here we go:
- Philippe Starck: Proof positive that tangents are but the arcs of greater circles, Philippe gave us a very big picture look at life, beauty, meaning, the universe, and brushes for one's toilet and mouth. No photos, no precious design shots, just him and the space around him dancing around the stage in a virtuostic lesson in what it means to be a charismatic speaker. Strictly nonlinear in presentation -- and likely uncomfortable to some -- his time on stage tickled me pink, and was formidable! Watch for the TEDTalks on this one. You need to see it to understand it all.
- Hans Rosling: How does one go about topping your previous world-changing effort? Hans Rosling did it. With equal parts killer interface design + serious storytelling + oodles of data + approximately a third of a meter of reliable Swedish steel, Hans Rosling pulled it all off.
- Murray Gell-Mann: Was the field of particle physics ever presented in a more human, accessible way? Elegance personified. I loved every minute of this. It was like being in the room with a triumvirate of geniuses: Newton, Einstein, Gell-Mann. Wow.
- Jeff Han: Okay, I want one. Please. I want one.
- Steve Miller: As part of TEDUniversity, told stories about Tiger Woods to reveal some elegant points about how to set standards of excellence and then rise to meet them.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: A moving essay on jazz, leadership, responsibility, and the need to look deep within to find excellence. Inspiring.
- Raul Midon: A degree of artistic achievement which made we weep, so powerful was his music. The high point of Day One. And recipient of my TED Quote of the Day Award: "Feel the fear, but do it anyway".
Onward! Tomorrow bodes to be another amazing day.
photo credit: Jurvetson
07 March 2007
TED2007: Day one wrap-up
Quotes of the day:
Cassini imaging team head Carolyn Porco: "So there are possibly liquid water, organic materials and excessive heat on Saturn and its moons. Which means that Saturn could be a place were life is possible. If we can demonstrate that Genesis has happened not once (Earth) but twice (Saturn) then we can infer that it has happened hundreds of thousands of times across the solar system. If we can demonstrate that Genesis has happened not once [on Earth] but twice [including Saturn] in the solar system, then by inference that means it has occurred a staggering number of times across the universe in its 13.7 billion year history".
Nobel prize of physics Murray Gell-Mann: "In fundamental physics, beauty is a very successful criterion for choosing the right theory".
Psychologist Steven Pinker: "The truth is that our ancestors were far more violent that we are, and today we are probably living in the most peaceful times in history".
Computer scientist Jeff Han: "We basically have to un-teach people what they have learned so far about computing, and convince them that they can use several fingers, that several people can work on the screen at once".
Architect Philippe Starck: "I believe in general that my job is absolutely useless; but now, after Carolyn and these guys, I feel like shit".
Statistician Hans Rosling: "Bring me my sword!" (Rosling is a serious demographer but he is also -- another deadly serious activity -- one of the few sword-swallowers active in Sweden, and he ends his speech swallowing a Swedish bayonette).
Bloggers at TED2007
The original version of this post contained links to a few bloggers that were at TED2007 and were likely to blog part or all of the conference. I've updated the list, post-conference, on March 16, adding more bloggers and links to some press coverage.
Blogs:
Bruno Giussani - LunchOverIP and HuffingtonPost
Chris Suellentrop - Wired blog
Esther Dyson - HuffingtonPost
Ethan Zuckerman - My Heart's in Accra
Kate Trgovac - MynameisKate
Jack Myers - MediaVillage
Jordan Ayan - Marketing with Technology
Loic Le Meur - LoicLeMeurBlog
Lorna Herf - Lornamatic
Michael Cerda - Cerdafied
Renee Blodgett - DownTheAvenue
Sam Perry - Conferenza
Scott Mattoon - What Happens Downstream?
Steve Gundrum - Noteworthy
Steve Jurvetson - SJ's Flickr page
Tom Guarriello - True Talk Blog
and the Vox TED gallery
Press:
BusinessWeek: The talk of TED
BusinessWeek: Forget Davos, I'm booked up for TED
San Francisco Chronicle: TED Conference open for new ideas
San Francisco Chronicle: Breaking down TED, from a sword to a soiree
The Economist: Davos for optimists
The New York Times: Award Honorees Describe How They Hope to Improve the World
The New York Times: Where artists and investors plot to save the world
If you're hungry for more, see the TED2007 tag on Technorati or try a search on Google News.
Who We Are
- The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference is an annual event where leading thinkers and doers gather for inspiration. (More at TED.com) The TEDBlog covers the same ground, on a rather more frequent basis.
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What We're Reading
Chris Anderson: The Long Tail
Wired Magazine Editor Chris Anderson (not to be confused with TED Curator Chris Anderson) has expanded on the thesis in his original article to create a must-read book for anyone remotely interested in business, marketing or communication in the Internet age. It shows clearly how and why millions of new businesses and voices are flourishing in our new connected economy.
Daniel Gilbert: Stumbling on Happiness
In one of the most brilliant pieces of science writing we've come across, Harvard Professor Dan Gilbert turns our ideas about happiness -- and ourselves -- upside down. Stumbling on Happiness isn't just profound. It's also unbelievably readable and funny. We urge you to give the book a try. It will change the way you think about yourself.
Cameron Sinclair: Design Like You Give a Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises
From one of this year's TEDPrize winners comes a book bursting with intriguing -- and often beautiful -- examples of how designers and architects around the world have created innovative housing for those most in need of it. You can't read it without feeling inspired...
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