TED.com Highlights
The Future Of Touch
Jeff Han did not invent touch-screens, but when he demonstrated his touch-screen technology in 2006, it came before Apple, Microsoft and others pointed their bows into the realm of multi-touch. In today's iPad-centric world, the demonstration loses a bit of its punch, but only a little. Click here.
Make Love, Not Porn
Advertising executive Cindy Gallop discovered that the trends of sex among younger people are changing, thanks to the influence of pornography. Thus she started a campaign to explain that sex doesn't have to imitate skin flicks. Click here.
Swimming On Everest
After conquering the cold seas of Antarctica, South African swimmer Lewis Pugh went to a very different place for an icy swim: a lake left high in the Himalayas by a receding glacier. His account will take your breath away. Click here.
The World's Deepest Caves
Contrary to popular belief, there is still a lot to explore on Earth, especially deep underwater caves. Bill Stone and his crew are pioneers in this field; creating technology and forging paths that will even help us explore other worlds. Click here.
How To Live Before You Die
Not all of the TED videos are its own. The site also features videos from other sources that are worth watching. One is this speech by Steve Jobs to Stanford University graduates, talking about pursuing your dreams and finding opportunity in setbacks. Click here.
In 1986, well-to-do types who could afford a ticket flocked to Monterey, California. Here they would be able to see select (and interesting) speakers give short discussions along the lines of Technology, Entertainment and Design - or TED. It was a pretty elite event - and still is. As many writers have pointed out before, TED is where Al Gore or Bill Gates talk for free, and guys like Richard Branson and the founders of Google pay to watch them. Tickets cost £4 000 (R40 000) and are sold out a year in advance. It would not be unfair to say that TED is a peer to other 'top-of-the-pyramid' conferences geared towards the rich and influential. The very first Apple Macintosh - the original PC - was introduced at the inaugural TED.
And so it would have remained, if there wasn't a change in 2005. Three years prior, media mogul Chris Anderson bought TED, mainly for its reputation. There were no plans as such to open it up and give access to everyone. But themes around the potential of a 'good' Internet, forming the base philosophies behind entities like Wikipedia and Creative Commons, began to resonate more in many TED lectures. Anderson decided that the TED talks should be shared and the modern TED.com came into being.
Cutting-edge nature
TED videos are special - they have a niche-appeal feel usually reserved for things like a really thoughtful podcast that attracts several thousand visitors. But a good TED video can snap up several million views, comparable to a healthy run on YouTube. And yet it is not the stuff of memes, wacky mishaps or homegrown talent. TED talks vary in length, but there is a universal top ceiling of 18 minutes. This works well - the speakers bring their ideas forth in enough detail yet with equal measure of spark. It mimics the unthinkable: a really informative pamphlet that leaves you feeling smarter.
Some credit has to go to the exotic variety and quality of speakers. It was at TED where Al Gore first debuted the presentation that became An Inconvenient Truth. James Cameron, director of Avatar and Titanic, spoke about what inspires his movies and career in exploration. Julian Assange defended WikiLeaks during an interview on the conference stage - long before the sagas of cable leaks and rape accusations. Topics can be very soft and non-consequential, such as a short, yet invigorating, talk about serious Lego collectors, or the mental and performance benefits of allowing people to doodle during meetings. There is also no discounting the cutting-edge nature of some talks, taking viewers to the new frontiers of science, interfaces and ideas. But the oft-referenced presentations by Hans Rosling, miraculously making both statistics and graph presentations very interesting, give a real sense of what makes these videos so popular. TED talks at their best don't just jazz up the mundane - they challenge whether anything could really be mundane at all.
Geek factor
TED talks at their best don't just jazz up the mundane - they challenge whether anything could really be mundane at all.
TED talks
Whatever the reason, TED found an instant audience when the videos were released online for free. Millions across the globe are experiencing insights once reserved for those who could beat TED's gauntlet of admission requirements and fees. And instead of devaluing the concept, it made TED stronger, better and bigger than ever before. One example is TEDx, a grassroots DIY TED-themed conference that anyone can apply to host - effectively bringing the TED platform to the people. There is still an elitist twist to it all. TED.com's content - the videos, as well as the forum-style 'conversation' comments - is undeniably geeky. But geeky in a 'lend me your ear and I will blow your mind' kind of way - an invitation to the willing. It has become a pillar in the Internet ideology where ideas are free and the more ideas we share, the stronger and better all ideas become. In fact, the TED slogan says it all: Ideas Worth Spreading.
First published in the November 2011 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
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