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Lessons from TED2012, part 2: 3 questions for CIOs, one idea per speaker, and more

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Vijay Kumar and his autonomous flying robot. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

People watch TED to find insights across many different disciplines — and over this past week, bloggers have been sharing what they learned, what insights struck them, at TED2012. Below are a few. (Find more writing about TED2012 in last week’s roundup … and read what our speakers learned.)

At CIO Dashboard, Chris Curran draws three questions for IT leaders from three unlikely sources >>

One question from the post:

Is Your Company Full? Activist, writer and former Greenpeace CEO Paul Gilding argues that we are consuming the Earth’s resources so fast that our population growth rates require more than one Earth to sustain it — in other words, he says, “the Earth is full.”

As we continue to struggle with IT spending to keep our businesses running in the present while investing in our future, I think it’s worthwhile to ask if our companies are full. In other words, are you already at capacity and need to rethink what you are doing with your available resources?

Aaron Dignan from Undercurrent writes this tour-de-force: An idea for every* TED speaker >>

One great idea (of many):

Climatologist James E. Hansen – The level of discussion about climate change in weather-nerd forums is too technical. Partnering with the folks at Wunderground, Accuweather, and other forums would make a more accessible version of that space. A “Buzzfeed for Climate-Change” could spark a huge shift in understanding.

Brainzooming found 8 takeaways on extreme creativity >>

Takeaway #6:

6. How readily are we looking for places with the least information and heading directly there to build up knowledge? One of the tasks Vijay Kumar demonstrated with the autonomous aerial robots was their ability to enter unknown or damaged buildings in dangerous situations and create building maps as they encounter new sections. Kumar said the robots know to look for places with the least information, going there first to build maps. His statement stayed with me. We may know to go to the places in life with the least information, but how readily do we? Some people are explorers by nature and do it without a second thought. Others are reluctant and never learn or do as much as they could to create new knowledge.

If you’ve found new insight at TED2012, tell us about it! Post a link to your blog in the comments below: