Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - September 23, 2009
TED Curator Chris Anderson – who had 844,821…wait 844,833 followers the last time we looked – tweeted about it yesterday, and we’re thrilled that the word is now out about the new special TEDGlobal edition of our design mind magazine, “The Substance of Things Not Seen."
We officially unveiled the new issue on Monday with an intimate TED Salon ("More Substance of Things Not Seen") with 120 TEDsters and friends at the Unicorn Theater in London. Hosted by Bruno Giussani, TED’s European director, and Sam Martin, editor-in-chief of design mind, the evening featured three TED Talks.
Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - September 21, 2009
Yep, today is the big day, and we’re thrilled to present our most ambitious and heftiest design mind magazine so far – and a very special one indeed. The new issue is devoted exclusively to the TEDGlobal 2009 conference (the twin conference of the annual TED conference in Long Beach) that took place this past July in Oxford, England, with the theme “The Substance of Things Not Seen.”
It is the first time a publication was invited to fully cover a TED conference: In collaboration with the TEDGlobal speakers and attendees, frog’s designers, technologists, and writers produced art, essays, and interviews that translate the conference’s theme into a rich magazine, trying to make visible “The Substance of Things Not Seen.”
Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - September 17, 2009
Giddy. That’s the best word to describe the design mind editorial team as we gathered in London’s Paddington Station to take the train to Oxford this past July for the TEDGlobal conference. Jacob Zukerman, intrepid art director, Tim Leberecht, stalwart publisher, and yours truly, worried editor, were meeting Antonia Ward, our British guide and local wordsmith, at the statue of Paddington Bear (pronounced “bare” in American English and “bey-ah” in Antonia’s UK English — yes, we’d already given each other plenty of good-natured guff over our accents).
One might expect there to be a statue of Paddington Bear in Paddington Station — the bear has been a popular literary character for English kids for generations — though one cannot be sure why, other than the similarity in name. What one would not expect is for the bear to be so small and so tucked away behind a partition, divorced from the main concourse, almost hidden under the nearby escalator. Did the sculptor botch the job? Did Michael Bond, the man who created Paddington Bear in 1958, have a falling out with executives at London metro? And indeed why is Paddington Bear in Paddington Station? Could it really be as obvious as the name, or is there more to the story?
Such is the inquisitive mind of a reporter, which was exactly what I was there to do, what we were all there to do — to investigate all sides of the TEDGlobal conference, onstage and off, find speakers to interview, parties to attend, ideas to chew on, and friends to make. In short, we were there to take part in the very theme of the conference, “The Substance of Things Not Seen” — and then figure out a way to mash it up into words and pictures for the next issue of design mind.
Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - July 28, 2009
The last speaker at TEDGlobal, Franciscan monk Brother Paulus Terwitte, described how at the previous night’s party he was having a conversation with another TED attendee that was suddenly interrupted when the other person’s cell phone rang, upon which he excused himself and left. Brother Paulus waited for a few minutes, “but he never came back.”
Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - July 27, 2009
The frog team just returned from the TEDGlobal 2009 conference in Oxford, UK, and it was an exhaustively inspiring week. TED is like a boot camp for ideas: You’re seriously sleep-deprived, constantly over-stimulated, and both humbled and mesmerized by remarkable attendees who all share a belief that “the glass is half-full” (even in the UK…).
Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - July 20, 2009
This morning I was fortunate to go on a private tour of the Bodleian Library, Oxford University’s official biblioteque and one of the world’s greatest book depositories. There were eight people, including me on the tour, so it was truly an intimate and special look.
Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - July 19, 2009
The frog team just arrived in Oxford, England, and we’re sitting in our charmingly Spartan dorm rooms at Keble College, awaiting a spectacular TEDGlobal conference.
Blog TEDGlobal
By Various frogs - July 13, 2009
Before the main sessions begin on Tuesday July 21, TEDGlobal kicks off with a series of outings on July 20, and I’m looking forward to going round Bletchley Park, ‘historic site of secret British codebreaking activities during WWII and birthplace of the modern computer.’
Particularly as we’ve just come to the end of Shed Week here in the UK (no, really) and Hut 6 at Bletchley Park has just won the Hut Category in the awards for Shed of the Year 2009.
