Playlist: 7 education ideas from unlikely placesGeoffrey Canada gives a very interesting analogy in today’s TED Talk: He compares the current education system in the United States to the era when banks were only open between the hours of 10am and 3pm. “Now, who can bank between 10 and 3?” asks Canada to a big laugh. “It went on for decades. […]
The future of the U.S. economy: TED fans join in the Robert Gordon/Erik Brynjolfsson debateLast week, TED speakers Robert Gordon and Erik Brynjolfsson joined us for a live, one-hour debate on the future of the US economy. It was a furious hour of typing, with both speakers contributing just over 1,500 words in response to a wide variety of user questions. A few highlights: Ryan Zeigler asks: Mr. Brynjolfsson, […]
Walking meetings? 5 surprising thinkers who swore by themIn today’s talk, Nilofer Merchant gives a startling statistic: we’re sitting, on average, for 9.3 hours per day—far more than the 7.7 hours we spend sleeping. “Sitting is so incredibly prevalent, we don’t even question how much we’re doing it,” Merchant says. “In that way, sitting has become the smoking of our generation.” But there […]
The future of work and innovation: Robert Gordon and Erik Brynjolfsson debate at TED2013Economists Robert Gordon and Erik Brynjolffson see very different things when they look at the stagnation of the U.S. economy in recent years. It’s almost as if they’re looking at an optical illusion image – one seeing a candlestick while the other sees two faces just inches apart. In today’s talks, they both outlined their […]
What motivates us at work? 7 fascinating studies that give insights“When we think about how people work, the naïve intuition we have is that people are like rats in a maze,” says behavioral economist Dan Ariely in today’s talk, given at TEDxRiodelaPlata. “We really have this incredibly simplistic view of why people work and what the labor market looks like.” When you look carefully at […]
Five big ideas from TED@IntelLast week, Intel hosted a unique event — an afternoon of TED Talks delivered by their very own resident innovators, thinkers and dreamers. Through a partnership with TED, they received guidance on event production and curation. The final product — TED@Intel, themed “the future in progress” — was a moment for the organization to celebrate […]
How to pick the charity that’s right for youIn 1994, Dan Pallotta created the AIDS Rides — a series of long-distance fundraising cycling journeys that netted $108 million for HIV/AIDS research and services within the space of eight years. Later, his Breast Cancer 3-Day walks netted $194 million in an even shorter period of time. Both had their best years ever in 2002. […]
“I was watching like no one was dancing”: Allison Hunt at TED2013“If you’re middle-aged and North American, you probably learned to dance when you were in a gymnasium in junior high.” Allison Hunt didn’t get that training, because her mother was always chaperoning the dances, and worse than that: dancing. What could be more embarrassing to a teenager? She says: “You know the expression, dance like no one is […]
What happens after the droids take our jobs? Andrew McAfee at TED2013The rise of droids Andrew McAfee starts his TED2013 talk by making a forecast: “In the world that we’re creating very quickly, we’re going to see more and more things that look like science fiction and fewer and fewer things that look like jobs.” It’s clear, he says, that big technology-driven changes in employment are […]
Race with the machines: Erik Brynjolfsson at TED2013Erik Brynjolfsson says growth is not dead. To make his case in session 1 of TED2013, he points out two moments in the past — one that took place 120 years ago and the other that took place about 15 years ago. One hundred and twenty years ago, the Second Industrial Revolution began. But while the tools […]
Why radical openness is unnerving and necessary: A Q&A with TED eBook authors Don Tapscott and Anthony D. WilliamsSecrecy and propriety used to define our cultural and professional lives. We kept trade secrets, held closed-door meetings, had whispered conversations and kept the details of our comings-and-goings to ourselves. That’s no longer the case. We have entered a new era — one characterized by openness — in which our world and our relationships have […]
On our reading list: The Icarus Deception by Seth GodinIcarus is a mythological character with incredible staying power. Everyone knows his story — his dad made him wings to help him escape the minotaur’s labyrinth, and warned him not to fly too close to the sun lest his wings melt. Amazed to be flying, however, Icarus didn’t listen and tumbled into the ocean. It’s […]
Favorites of 2012: On being wrong about business talksBusiness talks are boring. Among all the things I was certain of when I started writing for TED, that one was near the top of the list, just under ‘ice is cold’ and ‘brains are gooey.’ I worked as a physicist for a few years before switching over to writing (with a short jaunt in […]
Adam Davidson on the fiscal cliff, cable TV, $4000 suits, the giant pool of money and moreThe term “fiscal cliff” is controversial. So Adam Davidson, the New York Times Magazine columnist and co-host of NPR’s Planet Money, prefers to call it “the self-imposed, self-destructive arbitrary deadline about resolving an inevitable problem.” In today’s talk, filmed in TED’s New York office on Monday, Davidson explains what the fiscal cliff is and why […]
11 fascinating “peers incorporated” businessesRobin Chase, the founder of Zipcar, is proud of her company’s emphasis on sharing. But now, a decade later, “it’s really time to push the envelope,” she says in today’s talk filmed at TEDGlobal 2012. Chase’s latest venture, Buzzcar, provides an online platform for people in France to rent cars from their friends and neighbors. […]
