Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - August 7, 2012
“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone,” the 17th century philosopher Pascal famously said. Four centuries later, however, research asserts a direct correlation between openness and happiness. It turns out humans are social animals, after all. “Openness is the freedom to be one’s self,” one self-help blog states, representative of common belief. I concur. In my life, openness has been a prerequisite for almost anything good happening to me – from moving to the U.S. to meeting my wife to, most recently and fittingly, speaking at a TED conference focused on the theme of “Radical Openness.”
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - December 25, 2011
Rotman magazine, the print and online quarterly of the Rotman School of Management, has just released its new (Winter) issue, devoted to the theme “Open.” Openness has been a buzzword for a while, ever since Henry Chesbrough wrote his seminal book on Open Innovation, but, to apply Gartner’s Hype-Cycle terminology, now it seems as if Openness has finally reached a plateau of productivity after going through years of troughs of disillusion.
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - March 7, 2010
TED conferences, you might think, are happy affairs. You get up early, meet the most fascinating people, listen to jaw-dropping talks (each followed by a standing ovation), have deep conversations, and party until dawn – and all of that for four days in a row, safely remote from your usual daily routine. The reality, however, is more complicated. The event is a physical and mental stress test, an emotional rollercoaster ride that challenges you with constant over-stimulation, extreme cross-pollination, and tidal waves of acceptance and rejection as you navigate the social networks in the conference’s “social spaces.” To slightly paraphrase Heidi Klum: “With one group you’re in, with the next group you’re out.” And yet you will never hear anyone who was lucky enough to attend TED come back and not rave about their experience. Why is that? Daniel Kahneman, the mastermind of Behavioral Economics, provided the answer – at TED2010: TEDsters are happy because they expect to be happy. Let me explain, or rather, let Daniel Kahneman explain.
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - November 9, 2009
TED India just ended, and the TED team is already off to the next exhilarating project. On November 12, 2009, TED and others will be unveiling the Charter for Compassion, a document about the core shared values and moral code of every world religion, the “Golden Rule.” The Charter is the result of 2008 TED Prize winner Karen Armstrong’s “wish” (if you haven’t read Armstrong’s latest book, The Case for God, I highly recommend it – even, or especially, if you consider yourself an atheist and usually side with Richard Dawkins et al).
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - October 2, 2009
TED just launched its first-ever short film (30 sec to 3 mins) contest - with winners to be shown at TEDIndia this November. The TED Blog is taking the opportunity to feature some of the short films that played live at the conference in recent years.
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - September 19, 2009
Several frogs are in London this week to unveil the special TEDGlobal issue of our design mind magazine in a very special TED Salon on Monday, with the title "More Substance of Things Not Seen." The event will be co-hosted by frog and TED, and moderated by Sam Martin, editor-in-chief of design mind, and Bruno Giussani, European director of TED. More about that soon.
It comes in handy for the frog delegation that this is also the first week of the magnanimous London Design Festival, an eclectic assembly of design-related programs, exhibitions, and parties all over town.
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - February 6, 2009
I guess the format of BlackBerry-written conference posts resides somewhat oddly between blogging and Twitter, but in the spirit of presence, here’s a quick coffee break update from TED, thumbed in from my colleague Mary Anne Masterson:
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - February 4, 2009
These days conferences are thankful for not having the word “economic” in their names. Yet the difference between the World Economic Forum in Davos, which according to most accounts was a pretty somber affair (“how did we get into this mess?”), and the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference in Long Beach is not just a semantic one.
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - December 7, 2008
Blog Elektroniker
By Tim Leberecht - November 15, 2008
Demos, the UK-based “every democracy” think tank, is putting on an interesting event in London this week (November 18): How to make news and influence people: Media and journalism in the network age will discuss "the new politics of images" and "what kinds of news and photo-journalism are emerging to connect people with politics."
