Well, imagine my surprise when I sat down this morning to eat my Wheaties and there on the front page of the New York Times Business section was Chris Anderson's picture and this very well-presented story on the TED Conference. (warning, this is a Flash presentation with audio, so have speakers adjusted before clicking.) Chris deserves a tremendous amount of credit for taking Richard Saul Wurman's brainchild and successfully making it his own. So successfully, in fact, that it's now next to impossible for newcomers to enroll. Wisely realizing the enormous power of the ideas presented at TED, Chris has made videos of the conference available here. I urge you to poke around. Prepare to be wowed.
TED starts on Wednesday and, as usual, I'm very excited. Over the years (this is my seventh TED) I've come to expect several things about the Monterey event.
- I'll learn something about something I've never heard of before.
- At least one speaker will be disappointing.
- I'll meet several new people who will impress me with both the breadth and depth of their knowledge and experience (last year, Larry Brilliant blew the top of my head off.)
- Somewhere in Day Two I'll start to feel overloaded.
- I'll try to blog the entire conference but will end up feeling totally inadequate when compared with Ethan Zuckerman and Bruno Giussani.
- The drum circle will be fun.
- The TED Prize winners will be inspiring.
- I'll get to renew acquaintances with people I only see once a year in Monterey and wonder why I don't maintain closer contact with them the rest of the year.
- I'll be reminded that California is very different from New York.
- I'll have my faith in humanity recharged as I spend time among 1,000 or so passionate, committed people.
- One or two moments will shine beyond all others (last year for me it was Hans Rosling (again, an autostart Flash presentation) who is returning to the conference on Wednesday...a gutsy thing to do, for sure!)
And that's why I keep going back.
I'll do my best to blog and vlog the event.
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