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Questions! Encouragement! Color! Action! TEDYou Session 1

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Jessi Arrington, speaking at TEDYou during TEDActive 2012, February 28, 2012. Photo: Marla Aufmuth / TED

TEDActive 2012 begins the first day of TED sessions with vibrant and explosive TEDYou talks. Jason Silva says it well: “Gravity and antimatter shaped the early universe, but the future will be building toward an infinitely powerful mind.”

JD Schramm, “Leveraging Your Rookie Status”: Stanford University director and educator JD Schramm talks about the value of being a rookie through a story about his first date with his trapeze-swinging husband. Schramm urges us, “Embrace being a rookie! Take your own leap of faith! … And if you mess up, call it a rookie mistake, and move on.”

John Bates, “How to Accept a Compliment”: In his brief and breezy talk, theBlu.com evangelist John Bates tells us that we can become the most generous people in the world — very simply by saying “thank you” when receiving compliments.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal, “Wandering”: Author Amy Krouse Rosenthal gets a standing ovation for a sweet personal story on the importance of wandering, of “gentle meandering.” She concludes that we can either see all the moments of our day as ordinary and mundane — or: We can see them as miracles. She happily chooses the second and urges us to do the same.

Scott Watson, “The Ancient Art of Karaoke”: Karaoke is fun, but is it functional? Yes, says Walt Disney Imagineering CTO Scott Watson, who tells us that evolutionarily, we’ve been singing longer than we’ve been talking. He brings the audience into a rousing chorus of the Cheers theme song, “Where Everybody Knows your Name.”

Jason Silva, “The Beginning of Infinity”: We need to reinvent how inspiration is packaged, says futurist and filmmaker Jason Silva. He hopes to do this through his films — “shots of philosophical espresso” — and ultimately to redesign the canvas of life.

Chel O’Reilly, “Value of Things We Cannot Comprehend”: Blogger Chel O’Reilly weaves a beautiful story about her deaf grandmother who begat a multi-generational family of musicians, and shows us the world is full of valuable things we cannot comprehend.

Jacob Soboroff, “Why Vote Tuesday? We Shouldn’t”: No one seems to know why we in the US vote on Tuesdays. Director Jacob Soboroff emphatically answers the question: “Absolutely no good reason whatsoever.” Soboroff believes that if we moved this national day to a weekend day, we could get the results we wanted: More people voting.

Jessi Arrington, “This Is Your Brain on Rainbows”: Color lover and graphic designer Jessi Arrington’s favorite color is rainbow. In her bright and energetic talk she show us how she will be remembered as someone who was “never afraid of color.” Arrington wants us to feel color the way she feels it and helps us do so by leading the TEDActive audience in a full spectrum rainbow parade.