And make sure to tune into the TED Blog staring Monday, February 25, for our live coverage of TED2013. We’ll be writing about every speaker, as well as all the action on-site in Long Beach, Califorinia.

Arthur Benjamin does "Mathemagic" Arthur Benjamin does “Mathemagic” Armed with standard calculators, audience members at TED2005 race mathemagician Arthur Benjamin through a dizzying maze of digits – and lose. At 8:05, he matches audience members’ DOB with the day of the week they were born.

Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life Game designer Jane McGonigal’s SuperBetter helped her recover from a head injury. At TEDGlobal 2012, she passes on the healing to the audience, granting them 7.5 extra minutes of life. At 13:00, watch the life-extending action begin.

Michael Sandel: The lost art of democratic debate Michael Sandel: The lost art of democratic debate For philosophy professor Michael Sandel, lively debate is the key to a strong democracy – so he calls on the attendees of TED2010 to bring it back. Throughout the talk, audience members share thoughts on Aristotle and on a then-recent Supreme Court decision.

Charles Hazlewood: Trusting the ensemble Charles Hazlewood: Trusting the ensemble “Did you know that TED is a tune?” asks conductor Charles Hazlewood at TEDGlobal 2011. Starting at 8:48, he leads the audience in rousing chorus inspired by the letters T-E-D.

Beau Lotto + Amy O’Toole: Science is for everyone, kids included Beau Lotto + Amy O’Toole: Science is for everyone, kids included Neuroscientist Beau Lotto pulls the audience into some moments of playful discovery onstage at TEDGlobal 2012. In this talk about the joy of scientific inquiry, his slides show off a language gotcha!. At 12:35, he calls a fellow TED Speaker up to be experimented on.

Evelyn Glennie: How to truly listen Evelyn Glennie: How to truly listen Music can be heard with your whole body, says Grammy-winning deaf percussionist and composer Evelyn Glennie. At TED2003, she asks the audience to listen differently, to rethink music and, at 12:15, to clap the sound of falling snow.

Keith Barry: Brain magic Keith Barry: Brain magic One after another, audience members are bedazzled and baffled by Keith Barry’s psychokinetic hijinks at TED2004. He creates phantom sensations, guesses names of ex-boyfriends and narrowly misses one very sharp object.

TEDxBeaconStreet brought you today’s talk from Steven Schwaitzberg, “A universal translator for surgeons,” as well as Colin Stoke’s “How movies teach manhood.” But the organizers behind the event know that the speakers on stage only scratch the surface of the stories to tell in the greater Boston area. “We place equal value on our speakers and audience,” explains organizer John Werner. “We look for proactive ways to build community and broaden the TEDx experience beyond the day of the event.”

One example: as people registered for TEDxBeaconStreet 2012, they were asked to tell a fun fact about themselves. Facts for almost all of the 1600 attendees were compiled into a gigantic list—more than 12 pages long—which was emailed out before the event. Below, read a small selection of it. Werner says that audience members loved getting to know each other in this way, and that people reached out to him for an introduction to a person whose fact sparked their interest.

The TEDxBeaconStreet organizers also asked each attendee to choose words from a list that best described themselves. They then created a word cloud showing the most popular answers.

And finally, they asked software engineer Daniel LaLiberte, who currently works at Google on Google Charts, to create a visualization of 400 members of the TEDxBeaconStreet community. Take a closer look at it by clicking through on the image below. Each person at the event is represented by a white circle, and the words they chose to describe themselves are colored circles. Click on a circle to see how that person or word intersects with others in the audience. Take some time to play with this unique tool »