TED.com is about to go quiet for the weeks of August 1 and August 8, 2022, while most of the TED staff takes our annual two-week summer holiday. Yes, we all, or almost all, go on holiday at the same time. (No, we don’t all go to the same place.) We’ve been doing it this […]
Bullies never win — not even in the comments section. TED’s community manager, Katie Pierce, shares these tips on how to react to a comment-thread bully.
TED curator Chris Anderson’s guide to creating talks that are unforgettable. A great TED Talk is proof that a carefully crafted short presentation can unlock empathy, stir excitement, spread knowledge and promote a shared dream. Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience’s worldview. Done right, a talk is more powerful than anything in written […]
TED staffers travel a lot — to TEDx events all over the globe, to TED conferences in Canada, Brazil, the UK …. so we love to trade travel tips for making the most of work and fun trips. Here are 40 of our best — including some oddball but practical ideas for vacation travel (to use up those […]
There’s something so cool about finding a new podcast to love — each little download opens a door to new ideas, new jokes, new ways of seeing the world. Working at TED, as you might guess, many of us have strong opinions about this. Beyond the podcasts we all love: This American Life, Radiolab, The […]
Just like you, we at TED get inundated with email. And just like you, many of us think of an overflowing inbox as a guilt-inducing, anxiety-laden reminder of things left undone. As TED’s User Experience Architect, I like my inbox the same way I like my designs: simple, orderly, and communicating clearly what to do […]
I manage TED’s online community from my home on the West Coast, and while many of my interactions are with people based all over the world, the majority of my colleagues are based across the country at TED HQ in New York City. As anyone who works remotely knows, attending meetings as a giant videoconferencing head-on-the-wall isn’t […]
Taking great photos isn’t just about having a nice camera. I’m a firm believer that good photography comes from smart photographers who think creatively and know how to make the most of what they’ve got—whether they’re working with fancy DSLR or an iPhone. On TED’s design team, where I manage TED’s Instagram account, we’re always […]
In his talk, “Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is,” Chip Kidd (a TED Books designer in his own right) gives a wonderfully concise description of what book cover designers do. He says, “My job is to ask this question: ‘What do stories look like?’” For David Shoemaker, the designer who made the […]
Cocktail party trivia: Brainstorming was invented in the 1930s as a practical idea-generation technique for regular use by “creatives” within the ad agency BBDO. That all changed in 1942, when Alex Osborn — the “O” in BBDO — released a book called How to Think Up and excited the imaginations of his fellow Mad Men. […]
Before Danielle Thomson was our TED Prize researcher, she wrote trivia for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and spent years finding difficult-to-source info for The Late Show with David Letterman. And she has quickly established herself as our staff secret weapon. When one of us can’t get our hands on a piece of information […]
At our small, fast-moving nonprofit company, everyone does a couple of jobs — and productivity apps help us manage roles that shift between coding, writing/designing and running a full-scale conference twice a year. We asked the TED staff what apps they can’t live without. And beyond the classics—Instagram, Google Maps, Spotify, Uber, Seamless—we found some […]
Aaron Weyenberg is the master of slide decks. Our UX Lead creates Keynote presentations that are both slick and charming—the kind that pull you in and keep you captivated, but in an understated way that helps you focus on what’s actually being said. He does this for his own presentations and for lots of other […]
By Kari Mulholland The techniques that video editors use to shape their content reveal a lot about how people create meaning in the world. Editors have a deep understanding of how people think, feel, remember and learn, and we use this knowledge to build powerful, moving stories and experiences. The best editing decisions come from […]
Happy New Year! To celebrate the closing of the year, we asked people around the TED office what talks have inspired them to make a New Year’s resolution. Below, check out their answers. Hint: many found aspirations hidden in unexpected talks. And several might help you formulate the perfect resolution. [ted id=1569 width=560 height=315] One answer that popped up again […]
It’s something you have been asking about for a while: does TED have a daily email newsletter? Finally, the answer is yes. You can get the daily TED Talk sent straight to your email inbox every weekday morning, along with a playlist of the day. How do you sign up? Head to TED.com/newsletter. If you’re […]