2010 Monthly TEDxCorporate Plan Any Comments? #TED #TEDx

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I coordinate an internal corporate monthly TEDx "seminar" series. Each month we have a mini-TED meeting complete with music, fun video shorts (~2 min), and a 2-3 TEDTalks. The meeting is an hour long, and we try to leave time for discussion.  Over the past few days, I've planned out the year ahead as 12 different monthly themes. What do you think? Other suggestions?

 

Understanding TED

Over the past month, I have had a few people comment that they didn't know how to get started with TED Talks. Even though they were directed to the TED site, they didn't know what it was about and how to begin.  Of course one answer is to dive right in by clicking and viewing a few of the talks from the main TED.com site. However, the next few posts will provide a few suggestions to help you learn about TED and navigate the 500+ TED talks freely available online.

Understanding TED -
TED is primarily known as an annual conference originally focused on Technology, Entertainment, and Design. During it's 25+ year history the TED conference has expanded the range of topics covered and now includes presentations from a variety of disciplines and organizations including science, humanities, the arts, non-governmental organizations (NGO's), and business. TED has also grown beyond a single conference and now includes TEDGlobal, and other conferences such as TEDIndia. The New York Times describes TED as having "the most compelling, passionate, informed speakers you ever heard." For those who are not able to attend TED, TED.com serves as the venue where the passion and ideas from the TED speakers are shared freely with the world via the TEDTalks. The TED site explains the conference and supporting website well:"The annual conferences in Long Beach and Oxford bring together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free." 

If you want to learn more about TED I suggest viewing a couple of short videos: A Taste of TED and the TED Fellows Video. The TED Fellows video provides further insight into the TED conference experience and also serves to introduce another facet of TED - the TED Fellows program.  Sharing the fascinating TED presentations with the world is all part of the TED mission.

A Taste of TED

Intro to TED Fellows

Up next, a few TED Talks to start with...
 

Great flash mob - Black Eyed Peas on Oprah 24 Kickoff Party

 

Good references for TEDTalks for Teachers (as well as others)

Great Post categorizing TEDTalks by discipline
TED Talks Demystified for Teachers


Full listing of TED Talks in this Google Spreadsheet

 

Art & Fun with Post-It notes. Check it out.



 

Excellent Video on the Social Media Revolution (hat tip to @isilayerol)

 
Hat tip to Clementine aka @isilayerol for posting this.
 
Very interesting statistics regarding the current state of affairs in the Social Media Space.
 
 
 
 
 

Magical finale to TEDxBoston now posted. Take a look, you won't be disappointed.

Ben Zander conducted the Youth Orchestra of the Americas for the final portion of TEDxBoston.  Ben always gives the audience and the orchestra 110%. It was a wonderful way to end the conference. Truly magical - especially the last piece where essentially all the attendees are dancing in the lobby of the Fidelity building.

 

This is one of my favorite #TEDxBoston Taks - George Whitesides: Zero Cost Diagnostics

I was fortunate to attend TEDxBoston a few weeks ago, and was very impressed by the self proclaimed wonk, George Whitesides. Professor Whitesides is a chemistry professor at Harvard who has help found 12 different companies and has over 50 patents to his name. His TEDxBoston talk described pushing the boundaries of technology, but not in the usual manner of developing some new innovation that will cost a lot of money. In fact, he's using his vast experience and expertise to develop extremely low cost medical diagnostics for all, especially useful in developing countries. I hope you'll take 18 minutes to view his remarkable presentation.

 

Prepping to Introduce Summer Interns to #TED

This week we'll be sharing TED with a group of about 70 summer interns during an appreciation luncheon. I think of it as a virtual gift - letting them know about the TED conference, TED.com and sharing a couple of TEDTalks.  It's the first time I'll be showing TEDTalks to a captive audience, which is different than a TEDx event where attendees self select. I'm curious to know how many of the interns may already know of TED and will ask that question. And then we'll have to ask for their reaction after viewing a couple of the talks.  We plan to share the talks from Dean Kamen and Sir Ken Robinson below.  I think the key take away messages will be to follow your passion and be willing to take some "perceived" risks.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dean_kamen_previews_a_new_prosthetic_arm.html


http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

 

Sept Fast Company cover mentions "Google's Mythic Future" - where's the article? Huh?

I've gone through Fast Company's September issue page by page and can't find any article related to the cover comment "Google's Mythic Future". Is it me?  Or did they make a last minute change and forgot to update the cover page art, or is it a diabolical plan to get folks like me to carefully review each page?  If it's the latter, it worked!

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cheminformatics scientist at Fortune 100 company; coordinator of monthly corporate TEDx series; eman

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