TEDBlog April, 2011 Archive
29 April 2011
Fellows Friday with Gerry Douglas
Interactive Fellows Friday Feature!
Join the conversation by answering Fellows’ weekly questions via Facebook. This week, Gerry asks:
What is it about your favorite video games or computer programs that make them intuitive and easy to use?
Click here to respond!
There are several electronic medical records systems already in existence. Why not just use one of them?
Healthcare in a developing world setting is different than the developed world for a variety of reasons. For example, the ratio of patients to doctors in the US is about 400 to one. In Malawi, it’s about 50,000 to one. So, if you’re lucky enough to actually get to see a doctor as a patient in Malawi, the time you spend with that doctor is about three to five minutes. There’s no time for doctors to have some computer in front of them that’s going to take a lot of work to document and require a lot of learning to become proficient in.
Everything we develop at Baobab Health is based on the assumption that the user has no computer experience, no keyboarding skills, and that they’ve got three minutes with their patient. And they’re not going to do anything that they wouldn’t normally have done on paper anyway.
Big electronic medical record systems like Epic’s, or even the open-source VistA, are built for Western healthcare systems, and are designed to address specific needs. Interestingly, the development of electronic medical record systems in the West has largely been driven by billing and reimbursement, and medical-legal issues. Baobab, on the other hand, focuses primarily on creating systems that address the user’s value proposition, and put patient management first.
What specific characteristics are unique about Baobab’s product?
I always talk about the work we’ve done not as a system or a product, but a philosophy. The philosophy is this notion of point of care. The idea is that you have the technology in the room with the doctor and the patient at the same time.
Using point-of-care is like having another colleague in the room with you that you can interact with. It dynamically reconfigures to guide health care workers through the process. Think of a GPS that dynamically reconfigures as you make different turns, versus directions that are printed out on paper. If you make a wrong turn while reading those directions, you’re out of luck. That’s the difference between point-of-care and paper documentation in the healthcare setting.
28 April 2011
TEDTaxi: A new idea-spreading device from TEDxBuenosAires
Brilliant video from TEDxBuenosAires: How can we connect the ideas of TED with the citizens of Buenos Aires? We called on the city’s most remarkable speakers: Taxi drivers. Watch what happens.
28 April 2011
“Lots of soldiers are social workers with guns”: And other highlights from our chat with Sam Richards
Sam Richards, whose “Radical Experiment in Empathy” prompted a lively conversation all last week, sat in on TED Conversations today for two hours to answer questions about how to find empathy for people unlike us, and how we might prejudge someone — even a TED speaker … The conversation was thoughtful, honest and deeply optimistic. Thanks to all who took part! Check out some highlights below, and if you’re inspired to, feel free to post a new question — Richards will be checking back in to keep the conversation going.
Sam started the chat by asking “How does the presenter impact the reaction to a talk? So how might people’s reactions to my talk be different if I was retired military?”:
Bob Sampron: Sam, I think the way you phrased the question points to the role of irony in a presentation. When retired military talks about empathy, it’s similar rhetorically to an executioner calling for an end to the death penalty. A passivist is expected to advocate for empathy. A person who makes war his profession is not. Because the opinion is unexpected, it gives the remarks a special relevance in the audience’s mind. Whether it should or not is another story. Move
Sam Richards: I’m sure many people will disagree with my depiction of some soldiers as “social workers with guns,” but this is what I see so often. in fact, honestly, I teach many, many vets and ROTC cadets and have had close friends and family members from the military and I see again and again that people want to do good and often join the military to do good. “I wanted to stop the genocide in Somalia,” is what one student recently told me. This isn’t all people, of course, and trust me when I say that I’m totally aware of that. But I see soldiers with kind and soft hearts again and again.
***
Sam Richards: Most people who have reacted negatively to this talk have said one of two things: 1. I’m a nutcase anti-American liberal academic (or some version of that :-) or, 2. This is elementary thinking — that the talk is meaningless because nobody should find themselves incapable of empathizing with Iraqis. Any thoughts on the second critique?
Laurie Mulvey: In answer to #2, Empathy (like other “soft skills” such as listening) seems like something we all do naturally and easily. My experience doing conflict resolution work for the past 15-20 years is that these are profoundly difficult things to do (and to even know how to do) in the moments when it’s most necessary. And that’s exactly why #1 occurred so often in response to your talk.
***
Mark Meijer: Empathizing is easy. Empathizing when it matters is hard. There is such a thing as an amygdala hijack, which basically means that whenever we are overwhelmed by the emotional urge to react to something imminent, everything else goes right out the window. This includes reason and empathy. And one might be surprised how often this occurs.
Sam Richards: I like how you write “empathizing when it matters” here. Yes, like in our day-to-day lives — with our friends and spouses and children and parents. How is it so easy to feel empathy toward someone across the world from me and yet I have a difficult time feeling it with my neighbor?
***
Debra Smith: I first saw you on TEDX youtube and I brought up your talk in two separate threads on TED conversations before you were a speaker on this site. One thread asked for great talks that no one had seen yet. I share that to indicate that I had absolutely no information about you or your expertise before I watched your talk for the first time. I was attracted by the title of the talk and I found your presentation to be compelling and persuasive. You do have a natural charisma but I feel that I evaluated it and loved the talk based on the merits of what you were saying. It was courageous and I thought quite controversial to take such a stance in the climate of the USA today. In hindsight, I would have been more shocked and impressed if you had been retired military because I would have surmised that you had a spirit of independent thought that had survived the indoctrination of the armed forces. Move
Sam Richards: So you simply went into the talk with an open mind and walked away with something from within that “open environment” that you created. Very cool.
28 April 2011
Last day to vote: TED is nominated for 5 Webby awards!
Last day to vote: We’re happy to announce that TED has been nominated for five Webby Awards this year, four for TED.com and one for TEDTalks. (And we’re thrilled to be in such excellent company too.)
Between today and April 28, you can vote for TED in the People’s Voice voting campaign. Sign in here using your Facebook profile, Twitter or email, and then hit the following links below to vote for the Webby categories where TED is nominated.
TED.com
Radio/Podcasts
Best Visual Design – Function
Education
Best Use of Video or Moving Image
TEDTalks
Variety
The 2011 Webby Awards will be webcast live on June 12 >>
28 April 2011
A next-generation digital book: Mike Matas on TED.com
Software developer Mike Matas demos the first full-length interactive book for the iPad — with clever, swipeable video and graphics, and some very cool data visualizations to play with. The book is “Our Choice,” Al Gore’s sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth.” (Recorded at TED2011, March 2011, in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 4:35)
Watch Mike Matas’ talk on TED.com where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 900+ TEDTalks.
28 April 2011
Chat live with Sam Richards today, 1-3pm Eastern
Sociologist Sam Richards will be sitting in on TED Conversations today from 1-3pm Eastern time, looking forward to engaging TEDsters on the questions he brought up in his astonishing TEDTalk, “A Radical Experiment in Empathy.” Use your TED.com username and password to log in, and pose a question, share an experience, or join a thread with Sam and the TED community.
Watch his TEDTalk above, and imagine what you might want to ask …
28 April 2011
Love languages? Follow @TEDTranslations
Our newest Twitter feed, @TEDTranslations, tracks the latest TEDTalks available for our worldwide volunteer translator corps — plus news of interest to language fans. TED’s Open Translation Project has created more than 17,500 translations in 81 languages. Find talks in your language to work on, and browse talks that have already been translated and are ready to share!
Follow @TEDTranslations >>
27 April 2011
Using nature to grow batteries: Angela Belcher on TED.com
Inspired by an abalone shell, Angela Belcher programs viruses to make elegant nanoscale structures that humans can use. Selecting for high-performing genes through directed evolution, she’s produced viruses that can construct powerful new batteries, clean hydrogen fuels and record-breaking solar cells. At TEDxCaltech, she shows us how it’s done. (Recorded at TEDxCaltech, January 2011 at Pasadena, CA. Duration: 10:26)
Watch Angela Belcher’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 900+ TEDTalks.
Photo: Dominick Reuter
26 April 2011
Thanks to everyone who entered TED’s Full Spectrum video auditions
We’re amazed!
Thanks to everyone who made a video for TED’s Full Spectrum auditions. We’ve been screening video all week (and sat up last night watching the submissions roll in).
We held this audition to give a chance to the undiscovered talent we know is out there — and especially talent that can help us continue to reinvent the ancient art of the spoken word. At TED2012, our whole theme will be devoted to this. We’re calling it “Full Spectrum” — the rich use of technologies, formats and styles to make an impact on an audience. And so far, what we’ve seen is pretty thrilling. Finalists will be notified by May 9, 2011.
AND! If you missed the deadline for the video audition, and you still have a killer idea for a TEDTalk (by you or someone else), you can always share it with us. Just use our Suggest a Speaker form. It asks for all the information we need to evaluate your nomination. Read the FAQ first, for a few tips for success.
If you have an idea worth spreading, we’re always interested in hearing from you.
26 April 2011
The security mirage: Bruce Schneier on TED.com
The feeling of security and the reality of security don’t always match, says computer-security expert Bruce Schneier. He explains why we spend billions addressing news story risks, like the “security theater” now playing at your local airport, while neglecting more probable risks — and how we can break this pattern. (Recorded at TEDxPSU, October 2010 at Penn State University in University Park, PA. Duration: 21:05)
Watch Bruce Schneier’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 900+ TEDTalks.
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