20 February 2007

NASA: Back in orbit?

Worth a read: Fascinating Op/Ed piece in today's Times by Carolyn Porco on the brightening future for human space travel, which has been faltering since the Nixon era. TED2006 speaker, Burt Rutan, had a lot to say about this in his TED talk, which provocatively began: "Houston, we have a problem. We're entering a second generation of no progress in terms of human flight in space."

Porco, who will speak at the opening session of TED2007, is a planetary scientist who leads the imaging team for the Cassini mission to Saturn; she'll share a selection of stunning images from the edge of our solar system.

Technorati tags: Burt Rutan, NASA

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16 February 2007

Gore's SOS -- Save Our Selves

Along the social absorption route, there is always a point where complex issues and inconvenient messages percolate into the pop-culture sphere and start being considered self-evident, possibly triggering changes in behavior and other individual or collective responses.

For the climate crisis that point may be nearing. It may even have a precise date: this year's 7th of July (7/7/7). A group of environmental activists surrounding former US vice-president Al Gore (see his speech at TED2006) has just announced plans for a worldwide event, called LiveEarth, featuring big live concerts in cities on seven continents (another "7") broadcast on television, radio, online (by sponsor MSN) and on cell phones (yes, one of the concerts will be broadcast from Antarctica, that will be a first) to mobilize global action to face the climate crisis. The initiative will use as its identifier the international SOS Morse code (three dots, three dashes, three dots - see logo at right), re-interpreting it as a continuous distress call where SOS stands for "Save Our Selves". "The climate crisis will only be stopped by an unprecedented and sustained global movement", Gore said announcing the initiative (watch the video), which he called "a mass persuasion campaign" that will also outline (through the websites) ways in which individuals, companies and politicians can take action.

LiveEarth is of course modeled on the 1985 LiveAid (to raise funds for famine relief) and the 2005 Live8 (to raise pressure for debt relief and eliminating poverty) international concerts. It was imagined by Kevin Wall, who produced Live8. More than 100 artists will appear - including Sheryl Crow, Bon Jovi, Red Hot Chili Peppers, local acts (to attract local audiences), etc.

For Gore, LiveEarth will be a spectacular way to extend the message of his film "An Inconvenient Truth" (which is nominated for an Oscar later this month) and of his Climate Project (training volunteers to give his slide show). But of course it won't go without controversies -- starting with the question of whether he's just building up a run for US President in 2008 (which he dismisses: "I have no intentions of running"). The other focus of criticism will be the environmental impact of the multicontinental concert (air travel, mass audiences producing mass waste, energy consumption, etc). Wall and Gore say they're using LiveEarth to design a "Green event standard" that could become a "model for carbon-neutral concerts and other live entertainment events".

(Cross-posted on LunchOverIP)

Technorati tags: Al Gore, climate change

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14 February 2007

A poetry reading, inspired in part by TED

This Thursday in New York City, poet Amira Thoron will read from her beautiful manuscript, "Elegy for a House." An excerpt:

Water seeks its own level;
there is a leak we cannot find.
All summer we watched a horizontal crack
crawl along the bathroom wall,
the light blue paint bubble and pock.
I dream of this house again and again

What's the link with TED? Well, Amira attended our TED salons in New York this fall. Here's what she told us, via email: "I got inspired to do this reading because of going to those two TED events, and I am back to writing again, as well. Those events woke me up and inspired me! It was the way each of the presenters expressed themselves in their own unique way that made my own voice wake up inside me, and not only remember itself, but declare, 'Oh yes, I do that too!' So thank you so much for your part in this!"

I've heard Amira read before from this work, which charts architectural and emotional landscapes with a poet's pen. It's an inspiration in its own right. The reading will be held at the Alicia Mugetti store in Manhattan: 675 Madison Ave (b/w 61st & 62nd) 2nd Floor. Thursday Feb. 15th at 7 PM.

And if you're in need of a creative jolt yourself (but can't make it to the reading), two of the talks from those salons -- performance poet Rives and author Steven Johnson -- are already online (with more to come).

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09 February 2007

Playwright/Actor Anna Deavere-Smith on TEDTalks

Anna Deavere Smith brings the TED audience to their feet as she brings to life a series of quintessential Americans. The chameleon-like Deavere Smith transforms herself in and out of character, as she embodies legendary author Studs Terkel, followed by convict Paulette Jenkins, a Korean merchant in Los Angeles after the '92 Riots, and finally a rodeo bull rider. The monologues — adapted verbatim from tape recordings — are drawn from interviews she conducted for "On the Road: A Search for American Character." Each is a response to a probing question, such as, "What is a defining moment in history?" (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA Duration: 23:50)

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Technorati tags: Anna Deavere Smith

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07 February 2007

Theme for TED2008 unveiled

We're really excited about this. A conference devoted to "The Big Questions".  The questions we have in mind are here. A mix of the profound and the quirky. But all, in our admittedly biased opinion, pretty darn interesting. To attend the conference (which is held February 27-March 1, 2008 in Monterey, California), you'll need to become a member of TED. We've just opened registration for 2008, but to have a chance of getting through you'd probably need to send in details in the next seven days. Despite the steep fee ($6,000) it looks like we'll be sold out within a week or two. However, we do plan to release much of the content free online in due course. 

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05 February 2007

And in walked emotion

Yes, that's a NASCAR racer pictured above, and yes, you're still on the TEDBlog.  If you think there's something incongruous about mentioning NASCAR and TED  in the same sentence, I'd like to ask you to imagine NASCAR as an interesting place where a corporate strategy focusing on technology, entertainment, and design goes to create stories to grow a brand.

Later in February, history will be made when a Toyota Camry hums around the steep banks of Daytona International Speedway.  This will be the first time that a Japanese car maker has competed at the highest level of competition in NASCAR.  Of course, the Camry racing in NASCAR isn't the Toyota you and I can buy -- it's a pure race car with a motor that you can't get feeding power to the rear wheels.  So it's more of a Toyota "Camry", but it looks the part, and it gives current and soon-to-be Toyota fans something to hoot and holler about in an irrational kind of way.  Because there's nothing more irrational than the form of entertainment called motorsport.  Which is why it's such a great way to shift a brand to focus on emotion on top of a base of extreme technical competence.

Racing in NASCAR is part of of a larger trend of emotional design sweeping the entire Toyota-Lexus-Scion range.  To be sure, Toyotas have always been designed, and designed well, but in their quest for zero defects, more viscerally exciting design elements never made it to production.  Back in the 90's a famous designer told me that he feared for every other automaker if and when Toyota figured out how to market to the irrational part of the human brain.  Well, that time has come.  All of a sudden the Camry is a really interesting car from an aesthetic point of view, what with its just-crawled-out-of-a-dark-and-mysterious-swamp front face.  And how about that FJ Cruiser, the first Toyota in decades to post its windshield at a near vertical angle?  As an exercise in pure visceral styling evocative of the original FJ Land Cruiser, it out-jeeps Jeep and Hummer.  So far this emphasis on emotion seems to be working to drive sales, so with all the petroleum going into FJ's and NASCAR Camrys, Toyota is going to have to move a lot of hybrid-electric Prius units in order to maintain its karmic balance...

Up until I started writing this, I never once thought of TED's themes of technology, entertainment, and design in the same train of thought as NASCAR.  But there you go -- with NASCAR, as Toyota seems to know, all three get combined into one incredibly attractive package, which goes a long way to explaining why NASCAR is such a huge phenomenon.  And why understanding it is important to anyone working across these domains.

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01 February 2007

A bold design for the Arab world from architect Zaha Hadid

Architect Zaha Hadid, scheduled to speak at TED2007 in March, today unveiled plans for a stunning performing arts center in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The center encompasses five individual theaters, and will be one of five major cultural institutions on the new cultural district of Saadiyat Island. "It's an inspiration from nature, and an organic design," Hadid told The New York Times in "Celebrity Architects Reveal a Daring Cultural Xanadu for the Arab World." Hadid will speak during the final session at TED2007: Imagined Futures.

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