My friend Richard Tierney attended this year's TED Conference, which features amazing speakers on a variety of subjects--each one gets 20 minutes to share their insights. I asked him to be a guest on this blog, to point you to some of the best presentations to watch at the Ted site. Here is part one of his report:
I’ve been a big fan of the TED Talks site ever since Jurgen first sent me a link to Ken Robinson’s talk on how schools kill creativity.
Since then I’ve probably watched on of the talks online a couple of times each week. My favourites include Eva Vertes on a possible cure for cancer and Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce (trust me) and Richard Branson.
So my flight to Denver was filled with anticipation, but also the question, “Why am I paying so much money to watch something I could see for free?”
There is something about watching in a group which alters the experience, I remember turning to the woman next to me at the end of Jill Taylor’s speech and saying nothing, but exchanging a “Fucking Hell!” kind of look which said it all, and over the four days we returned to the subject several times. Of the talks which are now online, the standout for me was this remarkable story of brain damage as seen from the inside. She not only had a wonderful piece of insight, she had the training to interpret her experience and the story telling skills to share it with others. Quite a combination.
As an attendee I will get sent a full set of the videos, some told me they had an event a couple of months after TED when they show DVDs of their favourite speeches to a room full of people. That’s something I might do. It’s also – naturally - about the people you meet. One person I met was Jill Souble which meant I took a look at her performance from a couple of years ago once I returned. Sadly her co-performer Julia was unable to attend this year.
(More to come soon from Richard...)
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