Ted Conversations

What a circus is for the eyes, what a rock concert is for the ears, A Ted conference is for the mind.

Ted is a place I go all the time. This organization spends the bulk of its time searching for people all over the world with something interesting to say, as well as selling tickets to the events where they appear. There was such a demand for these tickets that only the elite could afford to go, so they branched out with Tedx, self organizing conferences all over the world, following the same format.

 A lot of  the conferences have the speakers pitching their "great idea" to the audience. They knew some of the audience were venture capitalists, research grant approvers, art patrons, and entrepreneurs.  The richest people on earth, open to new ideas. So they poured their heart and soul into their pitch. It was when The Ted organization started posting the recordings to an online database that things took off.

Environmental issues and how to solve them, new technology, scientific research, clever hacks, ivory tower diatribes, amazing insights, and Hot air pontifications. Good ideas, bad ideas, and insane ideas that. Just. Might. Work.  All there. Sortable, and databased.

It was this ability to sort that I really like. You can avoid listening to what you define as a blow-hard, (and so can I, even though my definition may differ.) You can choose to watch only Teds about "technology", rated as "mind blowing", uploaded in the "last week".

They just launched conversations, a part of Ted devoted to highly moderated chat rooms in order for people to engage in debates, problem solving, and in general allowing people to contact and have a conversation with like minded individuals on whatever their shared interest is.

This is ground zero for designing the future.

I'll be there.