TEDBlog November, 2010 Archive
07 November 2010
Re-Framing: The TEDSalon in London
What does it take to make an everyday object — say, a toaster — from scratch? And does anyone know how to make it, all the way from mining for iron ore to plugging it into the electric grid?
Those are the questions designer Thomas Thwaites sought to answer when he engaged in the Toaster Project. Last Tuesday, November 2, he shared his hilarious and insightful story with about 250 TEDsters who attended the third TED Salon, at the Unicorn Theatre in London.
Organized with the support of frog design — which is also a key TEDGlobal partner — and hosted by TED’s European director Bruno Giussani, the Salon featured twelve speakers.
Introducing Thwaites, Giussani reminded the audience of Matt Ridley‘s talk at TEDGlobal in July. Ridley showed photos of a stone ax and a computer mouse, and explained a key cultural difference between the two objects: one person knew how to make the stone ax, but there is no one who knows how to make a mouse from scratch: mining for the wide variety of raw materials, designing it, engineering it, etc. “To make a complex modern object, we need the unprecedented implicit collaboration of hundreds, or thousands of people,” said Giussani.
Thwaites’ toaster adventure offers an interesting illustration of Ridley’s point. He bought a cheap toaster, tore it apart and discovered that it was made of over 100 components and dozens of materials. He focused on four: iron, copper, mica and plastics. And went looking for them, hauling home a suitcase of iron ore, bottles of water from a copper mine, pieces of mica from a Scottish hill, and raw scraps of plastics (having been denied a visit to an oil platform where he could have gathered crude oil, the base of all plastics) which he melted in his backyard before gobbing the batch onto a wooden mold to make the exterior toaster housing. Thwaites did come up with a finished product (image below) — but when he plugged it in, it lasted for only five seconds.
The theme of the TEDSalon was “Re-Framing,” and looking at things differently and doing them differently (or attempting to, like Thwaites) was the common thread.
Opening speaker Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder of Kids Company and an outspoken champion of disadvantaged kids, spoke poignantly and convincingly about the failure of Britain’s welfare system (1.4 million kids abused each year, and 1.1 million living with drug-using parents, but only 38,000 children placed on the child protection register). She pointed at recent neuroscience and other research indicating that sustained child abuse and neglect have devastating impacts on a child’s brain, “often creating a lifetime of vulnerability.” Kids who live through regular traumatic events such as abuse, she said, “need a re-parenting opportunity” and the ability to re-experience love. With her organization, she’s developing a model for daylong street-level “sustained and loving care.” “Love always surprises the disturbed child,” she added.
Jon Kolko, a principal designer at frog, talked about the role of personality in creativity. He believes that people and products (even software) can have personality, individuality, and character — and that’s what makes them interesting and useful to us, what makes them “special.” Where does the personality in a product come from? From the capacity of the designers to be playful and take risks: “Does your organization let employees ask ridiculous questions and give them the runway to pursue answers?” he asked.
Exploration Architecture‘s Michael Pawlyn doesn’t shy away from risk. He thinks big — among theinitiatives he’s worked on, the Eden and the Sahara projects — and looks at natural systems for inspiration in solving problems. He discussed “three big transformations” that need to happen, he contended, in order for architecture to achieve long-term sustainability: a radical increase in resource efficiency; a move from linear approaches to close loops; and a shift towards a solar economy. “A world of beauty and efficiency awaits us if we use nature as a design tool,” he said.
Or it could be that the winning personality of an object comes from what isn’t there, “because often what isn’t there trumps what is,” said Matthew May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance. With brilliance and wit, he introduced the audience to the Japanese design concept of shibumi — which is the ability to achieve the maximum effect with the minimum of means.
JP Rangaswami, the chief scientist at Salesforce (until recently he held the same position at BT), then discussed his ideas on how companies ought to “design for the loss of control.” For 100 years “we sought to establish an illusion of control,” he told the audience. “Now, we have to start designing for community action and collaborative enterprise.” One way to do this, said Rangaswami, is to design for extremes and not just narrow ranges. Businesses also have to learn that failure is an integral part of success. (In fact, he said that “If one is designing for loss of control, there is no such thing as failure. There is only future profiling.”)
Opening the second session, economist Noreena Hertz addressed the influence of “experts” — like herself — and how we should view them with skepticism. “In an age of extreme complexity, we believe experts are more able to come to conclusions than we are,” she said. “I believe this is a big problem with potentially dangerous consequences for society, and for us as individuals.” She urged the crowd to rebel against this dynamic, by “being ready and willing to take on” the experts, by “embracing the notion that progress comes about not only in the creation of ideas but also in their destruction” (what she called “managed dissent”), and by “democratizing expertise,” which is “not only the domain of surgeons and CEOs, but also of shop staff.”
Hertz was followed by Martin Jacques, the author of When China Rules the World, a dense book on its way to becoming a global bestseller. By 2020, China will surpass the US to have the largest economy in the world: “Never before has a developing country had the world’s largest economy,” and never has a non-western country had that distinction. In other words, we have to understand China better, and according to Jacques we have to stop trying to view it through a westernized frame. “It’s a western illusion that when countries modernize, they westernize,” he said. “China is not like the west, and it will not become like the west.” He then offered three elements that can help to better understand China. First, China is a “civilization state,” not a nation state, which is what every country in the western world is. Second, Chinese have a much different conception of race than most other countries: Over 90 percent of Chinese think they belong to the same race (Han), “and while that helps in keeping the country together, it also promotes a lack of tolerance and cultural diversity.” Finally, the perception of the state is different. In the west, the state is constantly being challenged, but in China the state is “seen as the patriarch of the family, and is therefore embedded in society in a much different way”. Jacques closed his talk by pointing out that “The arrival of countries like China and India represents the most important single act of democratization in the last 200 years — the majority will be ruled by the majority. As humanists we must surely welcome this transformation.”
Michelle Gallen, a social media and technology expert from Ireland, recounted her story of having encephalitis and turning to technology to make up for her deficits. After many years of having to deal with insufficient tools, she embraced Web 2.0 (and now runs websites) but is frustrated by the way in which people “fritter away” the technology we do have, such as location-based applications wasted to “promote cafés and bars for crappy discounts and digital points” (Foursquare anyone?).
Literary critic Sarah Churchwell has been researching a book about 1922 and the cultural environment that produced Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby — and brought up amazing similarities between that season and modern-day celebrity culture. She made a convincing case for rejecting the idea that celebrity gossip is a measure of decline of society, “as if once upon a time humans were wonderfully high-minded and never told stories about each other.” In reality, she said, “Gossip is a measure of our interest in other people and therefore a measure of our humanity.”
Internet theorist Theresa Senft extended the theme into the idea of “famous for 15 people,” the notion that we are in a culture of micro-celebrity in which everyone is known to many more people than they might think — and that this dynamic has serious and far-reaching implications.
Mike Dickson, author of a recent book on generosity as a guiding principle called Please Take One, extolled the virtues of living a more generous life. Suggestion: next time you’re in line at Starbucks, offer a cup of coffee to the stranger behind you.
No TED event is complete without a live performance. The Salon attendees could listen to the amazing voice of Norwegian singer Kate Havnevik (photo above, during her performance) – also known for having composed some of the soundtrack of the TV show “Grey’s Anatomy” — and watch a preview excerpt of the film “Love the Earth” by musician Imogen Heap and eco-entrepreneur Thomas Ermacora. The filmmakers crowdsourced images of nature through Youtube and Vimeo, and edited them into a remarkable piece of collective art. Heap composed the score, which premiered on November 5th at the Royal Albert Hall with a live orchestra. The Salon was also the occasion for frog’s director of content strategy Sam Martin to debut the special TEDGlobal edition of design mind magazine, which covers last July’s conference in Oxford and extends, with many original contribution, its theme, “And Now the Good News”.
(Photos by Robert Leslie)
05 November 2010
A one-man orchestra of the imagination: Andrew Bird on TED.com
Musical innovator Andrew Bird winds together his trademark violin technique with xylophone, vocals and sophisticated electronic looping. Add in his uncanny ability to whistle anything, and he becomes a riveting one-man orchestra. (Recorded at TED2010, February 2010 in Long Beach, California. Duration: 19:20)
Watch Andrew Bird’s performance on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 800+ TEDTalks.
05 November 2010
Fellows Friday with Awab Alvi
Give us an update on your Pakistan flood relief efforts.
The group of off-roading enthusiasts with whom I was working, Offroad Pakistan, used our 4×4 vehicle experience to go deep into the regions of Sindh, to provide flood relief to the affected people. Since the start of the flooding disaster, we have done about ten flood relief expeditions — embarking on one almost every week since August — taking food and various flood relief items to people in need.
Our flood relief food hampers were proportioned to help sustain a family of five for about a week. In our effort we also have handed them essential clothes and toiletry items, since most had no possessions — their possessions all washed away in the floods.
I’m proud to note that our team has been able to raise a good amount of money. Online we raised about $30,000, while offline with friends and colleagues we were able to muster another $130,000 for our efforts. We have a little cash remaining on-hand, and are expecting to use it for a few more medical camps and food expeditions within the coming weeks.
Now that the floods have receded, what are the country’s major issues?
The NGOs, United Nations, and Pakistan’s army have done a spectacular job. Unfortunately, their impact is like a drop in the ocean, since the government is not stepping up to help the flood victims in any serious way. Rehabilitating the 5 million people needs a far more serious commitment by the Government of Pakistan then what we have so far.
For example, the government recently handed out rehabilitation aid in the form of $1,000 debit cards. These poor illiterate people have never used a debit card, let alone operated an ATM machine to make a withdrawal. The problems were made worse, since there were no businesses in the vicinity that offered commodities on a credit card transaction. This issue let loose a huge chain of corruption across the board. The money was siphoned off by hoodwinkers who were taking bribes for issuing the debit cards. Another set of bribes were taken to help these illiterate people to obtain the PIN code, and then finally also for assisting them in operating the ATM. Reports have it that at each step of the way, people were coerced into paying these considerable “assistance fees.”
Rather than helping the poor at this time of suffering, the government functionaries have made it their business to mint money from this misery. They are stealing and selling relief coming into their areas, and hoarding large sums of financial aid coming into the region from various donor agencies. Quite simply, the government has not done its part in this massive crisis. These people were really poor to begin with, and sadly they’re even poorer now. I’m sad to say it, but we may have let our people down.
04 November 2010
Rengineering a brain: Gero Miesenboeck on TED.com
In the quest to map the brain, many scientists have attempted the incredibly daunting task of recording the activity of each neuron. Gero Miesenboeck works backward — manipulating specific neurons to figure out exactly what they do, through a series of stunning experiments that reengineer the way fruit flies percieve light. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2010, July 2010 in Oxford, England. Duration: 17:35)
Watch Gero Miesenboeck’s talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 800+ TEDTalks.
03 November 2010
Watch the TEDWomen video
Watch the video above to get a feeling for the vibe of TEDWomen — and find many of the talks in this video inside a new Theme on TED.com: Women Reshaping the World.
03 November 2010
Saving the ocean, one island at a time: Greg Stone on TED.com
Oceanographer Greg Stone tells the story of how he helped the Republic of Kiribati create an enormous protected area in the middle of the Pacific — protecting fish, sealife and the island nation itself. (Recorded aboard Mission Blue Voyage, April 2010 in Galapagos, Ecuador. Duration: 17:15)
While TED.com is down today — find this talk and hundreds more on TED’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/TED
03 November 2010
TED.com will be offline for 6 hours starting at noon today, Weds., Nov. 3
TED.com is going offline today, Wednesday, Nov. 3, at noon EDT for about 6 hours. We’re upgrading some back-end software that will make it easier for us to add new features down the line.
But we respect that some of you will need your TED fix during that time. A couple of suggestions:
YouTube. Every talk we post to TED.com is cross-posted to TED’s YouTube channel — including today’s talk from Greg Stone: “Saving the ocean one island at a time.“
Downloads. If you’re giving a presentation today that uses a TEDTalk, download it now, in regular or high-res quality. Use the small gray Download button below the Talk video window to save individual talks.
iTunes. Around 100 TEDTalks at any one time are listed on iTunes as a video podcast and an high-res video podcast, and about 50 as audio podcasts.
BitTorrent, Boxee, Miro, the StumbleUpon Video player. These players pull from our cache, so they should be fine; let us know if not, by writing to contact@ted.com
iPad. If you have the TED iPad app, you might want to download and save a playlist before noon EST. (You won’t be able to download the app from the App Store while we’re down, but we’ll put it back up as soon as we’re live again.)
TEDTalks embedded in your own blog or site. Video will play, but captioning, sharing and rating won’t work while we’re offline.
The TED Blog. Embedded TEDTalks and all our other content will display here, but commenting is down. Come join us on Facebook if you’d like to start or continue a conversation.
Watch this space or our newsfeed on Twitter (@TEDNews) for news — we’ll let you know when everything’s back up.
02 November 2010
E-voting without fraud: David Bismark on TED.com
David Bismark demos a new system for voting that contains a simple, verifiable way to prevent fraud and miscounting — while keeping each person’s vote secret.
(Recorded at TEDGlobal 2010, July 2010 in Oxford, England. Duration: 7:03)
Watch David Bismark’s talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 800+ TEDTalks.
01 November 2010
All about next month’s InK Conference in India
The InK Conference (which stands for Innovation and Knowledge) is being run by longtime TEDster Lakshmi Pratury, who co-hosted TEDIndia a year ago. TED has signed a content partnership agreement with INK that will allow us to bring the best InK talks to TED.com.
TEDIndia in 2009 was a thrilling experience, attracting a sold-out audience of 1,000 attendees from 46 countries. It was planned as a one-time event to bring TED to South Asia, and we’re delighted at what it’s led to: a thriving community in India and Asia who are passionate about the spread of ideas, a host of TEDx events, a massive increase in the numbers of Indians watching TED online … and now InK.
The InK Conference is being hosted by Lakshmi at the beautiful Lavasa Retreat near Mumbai this coming December 10-12, and all of us at TED will be cheering her on. For TEDIndia last year, Lakshmi pulled together an astonishing speaker lineup spanning business, science, technology, nonprofit organizations and the arts -– and for InK she’s doing the same.
The theme is “Untold Stories,” and confirmed speakers include Simpsons creator Matt Groening, entertainment icon James Cameron, designer Philippe Starck, prolific author Deepak Chopra, scientific visualization pioneer Alexander Tsiaras, the world’s youngest school headmaster Babar Ali, academic and author Jennifer Aaker, innovative science teacher Arvind Gupta, Lego designer John-Henry Harris, technology mavens Joi Ito and Kevin Kelly, venture capitalist and philanthropist Kamran Elahian, visual communication expert Nancy Duarte, spoken-word artist Rives, surgeon Susan Lim , photographer Rick Smolan and award-winning innovator Tom Wujec.
Follow speaker news from InK via Twitter >>
Like the InK Conference on Facebook >>
InK is modeled on TED, and the talks will fit the familiar TED 18-minute format. We’re already excited at the prospect of posting the best of them. (Last year’s TEDIndia talks have proved to be big hits online, and we’re excited to continue this collaboration.)
As an organization, the InK Conference remains 100% independent of TED. Lakshmi and her team are fully responsible for the event. But we’re happy to be offering strategic advice and content distribution.
If you want to attend a live TED-like event in India, do consider registering for InK and joining up with thinkers and doers from a wide variety of industries, organizations and countries. There’s more information at www.theinkconference.com. It promises to be a wonderful experience. Stand by for some exciting new talks from a part of the world bursting with innovation, optimism and wisdom.
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