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Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Announcing: The new City 2.0 website launches today. Share your stories.
News TED Prize
In the next 30 years, two-thirds of our planet’s population will live in cities. Have you ever tried to envision the cities of the future?
Cities are enlivened by people, and people enable change. So today, we are launching our redesigned website TheCity2.org, a gathering place for all urban denizens to share stories, videos, ideas and innovations related to urban transformation.
Citizen-powered and story-driven, the City 2.0 site will showcase community driven, user-generated stories about what moves hearts and minds to take action to improve the way we share the planet. The new site features stories from some of our TEDxCity2.0 participants and City 2.0 prizewinners who received grants of $10,000 each to support their impactful work in areas like transportation, education, health, public space, safety and food.
The 10 prizewinners’ remarkable stories include grantee Emily May’s use of crowd-sourcing and social media to end street harassment, TED Fellow Gabriella Gomez-Mont’s desire to fight a health crisis in Mexico City by launching a citywide dance competition, and the Norwegian firm TYIN tegnestue Architects’ plan to build a community center in partnership with the residents of Bangkok’s largest slum.
Most importantly, the new TheCity2.org needs your story so we can learn from each other to make our urban spaces more vibrant, inclusive, and just. Please submit a story or inspiration from your city at TheCity2.org »
We are excited about how your passions and projects will help us reimagine the cities of our present and future together. This is your opportunity to contribute to a global community of city dwellers, urban entrepreneurs, organizers, dreamers and doers.
The new City 2.0 website was born from a groundbreaking TED Prize winning idea, focused on sharing concepts, designs, and resources to spark urban transformation worldwide.
Monday, January 28, 2013
War stories: Read Janine di Giovanni’s powerful coverage of conflicts around the world
Global Issues TEDx Journalist Janine di Giovanni has covered wars in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Iraq and most recently in Syria — and, yet, she has noted that they all seem to begin in the same way.
“This is how war starts—one day you’re living your ordinary life. You’re planning to go to a party, you’re taking your children to school, you’re making a dentist appointment,” says di Giovanni in today’s talk, given at TEDxWomen. “The next thing, the telephones go out. The TVs go out. There are armed men on the streets. Your life as you know it goes into suspended animation.”
In today’s gut-wrenching talk, di Giovanni describes some of the moments that have stuck with her over her years as a war correspondent, and shares what she has learned from covering many of the bloodiest conflicts of the last two decades. She says that her mind often wanders back to Sarajevo.
“I had the honor of being one of those reporters who lived through that [three-year] siege. And I say I had the honor and privilege of being there because it taught me everything — not just about being a reporter, but about being a human being,” says di Giovanni. “Even in the midst of terrible destruction and death and chaos, I learned how ordinary people could share food with their neighbors, raise their children, drag someone who’s being sniped at from the middle of the road, even though you yourself were endangering your life.”
In 2004, di Giovanni had a son. And in this talk, she explains why she opted to cover the war in Iraq despite having a baby at home. She also shares why, less than a week after speaking at TEDxWomen, she headed back to Damascus to continue covering the conflict in Syria.
“I believe it needs to be done. I believe a story there has to be told,” she says. “What I see is incredibly heroic people fighting for things — like democracy — that we take for granted every single day … All I am is a witness. My role is to bring a voice to people who are voiceless … To shine a light in the darkest corners of the world.’”
To hear what an important and heart-breaking job this can be, watch di Giovanni’s talk. And below, read some of the incredible stories that she has written about wars over the years.
“Christmas in Sarajevo,” The Sunday Times, Dec. 1992
On Christmas eve, the city of Sarajevo was pitched into darkness except for the occasional flare from the tracer rounds and the sound of the sporadic shells. On this day, like so many others before, The Susko family went to bed at about 9pm their only escape from the unlit cold.
On Christmas day light snow began to fall again and the temperature dropped to -5C. Mario Susko awoke to the sound of shelling in the borrowed unheated room where he lives with his wife, Maria, and his daughter Alexandra, 17. Wrapped in blankets on the floor where he sleeps, he could feel the detonations, but for some time now the 52-year-old Catholic Croat has not felt frightened.
“After three weeks without water, one month without electricity and eight months of total siege, I no longer feel fear,” he says. Keep reading »
“From the Kosovo Frontline,” March to June 1999
It was the heaviest night of the Nato bombing here in Kosovo. The commander with the kind face, a former hero of the war in Bosnia, told me and the soldiers in my tent to sleep with our boots on.
He was right. At 3am, the blackness of night was shattered by the terrifying crack of a Serb MiG dropping cluster bombs on us. “Go. Go. Go,” ordered the Swede, a former UN soldier. We tumbled in the darkness to a nearby muddy ravine and threw ourselves on to the ground. It was not easy, the trench is used by soldiers as a latrine. Keep reading »
“Goodbye to All That,” The Times Magazine, December 2004
I am not a big television fan, but recently a friend rang and told me to watch Prime Suspect. It was a two-parter in which Helen Mirren was investigating the murder in London of a Bosnian refugee who had witnessed a brutal massacre during the Balkan conflict. I watched it. The next night I stayed home to watch the second part. There was an actor I knew from Sarajevo playing the bad guy, and there was Helen Mirren, slowly going mad as she became more and more embroiled in the case. Eventually, she became obsessed. She disobeyed her boss, sacrificed her job and flew to Bosnia at her own expense to investigate the massacre. Strange behaviour. But I recognised that look in her eyes.
My friend rang me after the second part ended. “What was it with Bosnia,” he asked, “that made people so obsessive?” I could not answer, but I have been thinking. I began reporting the Bosnian war in 1992, and while I am fortunate enough not to have been injured or to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, not a day goes by in which the conflict does not enter my mind. I met my husband in Sarajevo. I forged some of my closest friendships in Bosnia. And, in a horrible way, my most powerful memories come from those years. Keep reading »
“Dark Days in Sierra Leone,” The Times of London, May 2000
West of Petitfu Junction, where the road turns to red dust and the bush grows darker, the villagers fly white neutrality flags over their mud shacks. It is their way of saying that they are peaceful civilians, a feeble protection from the Revolutionary United Front rebels, who are quickly advancing into this territory.
Further up the road that leads to Port Loko, there is real panic. The people who live in this bush are simple people who farm potatoes, grow rice and tap the palm trees for oil. This area was once held by the RUF, and the rebels know what the rebels will do if they come back. So the people are fleeing, walking quickly in the heat of the day, or pedaling on rusty old bicycles, their children walking alongside them. Keep reading »
“Nobody’s Children,” The New York Times Magazine, February 2002
Early morning, Mogadishu. The wet equatorial heat is rising from the chewed up streets, and the gunmen are already working. Truckloads of militiamen, hanging off the back of pickup trucks cruise the neigbourhoods of South Mogadishu. They chew quat, the bitter narcotic leaf imported from Kenya; wave Kalashnikovs above their heads, and stand defiantly in position behind anti-aircraft guns chained to the back of the trucks.
The American marines used to call them Skinnies, and it still makes the gunmen laugh, because it makes them seem innocent and sweet, like a cappuccino at Starbucks, which they are not. They are young men, some of them boys. They wear dark Gucci-style sunglasses, bandannas around their heads and Homeboy gear – jeans slung low, t-shirts, flip-flops. Some of them are barely into their teens, their weapons bigger than their tiny frames, but they know how to shoot and kill and ambush and raid. Keep reading »
“A Civil Tongue: South Sudan Tries to Learn English,” Harper’s, March 2012
When South Sudan, the world’s newest country, was born in July 2011, after nearly half a century of on-and-off civil war that left as many as 2.5 million dead, it was greeted with enormous expectations. A contest for a new national anthem was sponsored. Beauty pageants for Miss South Sudan were held. Carpetbaggers and scalawags from all over East Africa and as far as China, India, and even the United States descended on the capital, Juba.
Last autumn, I visited the country during a brief respite before another flare-up of looting and massacres that killed, as of this writing, an estimated 3,000 people. Driving past a quarry every morning, I saw exhausted-looking women wearing ripped nightgowns and rubber shower caps over their heads crouched roadside, pounding large rocks into smaller rocks, inhaling noxious dust. Keep reading »
“The Last Days of Iraq,” Vanity Fair, April 2003
On Ash Wednesday, a few weeks before war was declared on Iraq, I went to mass in St. Mary’s Church on Palestine Street in Baghdad. The mass was in Armaic, the ancient language of Jesus, and around me the Iraqi Christians knelt and prayed for peace. On their faces was etched all the fear and anxiety of the past few weeks as the diplomatic process unravelled and the world fought over whether or not their country would be bombed. A few of the women, wearing lacy white mantillas on their heads, were crying.
Towards the end of the mass, three American peace activists, stood and addressed the congregation. Over the past few months that I had been in Baghdad, there had been a flurry of pointless peace activities, beginning with the arrival of the actor Sean Penn in December, to a host of human shields from Seattle and Michigan, to men of the cloth spreading words of faith. One of the priests, from Washington D.C. said slowly, “We hope we carry the hopes and fears of the people of the world in the quest for peace.” It was meant to be reassuring, but the congregation looked wary. Keep reading »
“Gateway to Jihad: Pakistan’s Phantom Border,” Vanity Fair, June 2008
It has been more than 60 years since Pakistan was carved out of India by the British as a moderate, Muslim nation, a refuge rather than an Islamic state. For most of those six decades, Pakistan has been a friend of America’s. Since 9/11, it has been a so-called partner in the war on terror.
Up to a point. Newsweek recently called Pakistan arguably the most dangerous country on earth, harboring as it does a lethal combination of mostly foreign-born al-Qaeda terrorists and a native-born Taliban movement that is supported by its Taliban brethren across the border in Afghanistan. (American intelligence calls them “Big T” and “Little T.”) Given that the border is ridiculously porous and difficult to patrol, Pakistan has become a kind of haven for potential terrorists eager to be set loose into the wider world. Keep reading »
“On Reporting from Syria,” The New York Times, October 2012
I took the first of several visits to Syria in June 2012, legally, with a rare journalist’s visa, to report from the government side.
I flew from my home in Paris to Beirut, then got a driver and traveled to Syria. Damascus, the world’s oldest inhabited city, seemed to carry on business as usual — though there were already the car bombs, and the wounded soldiers in the hospital. I could look out the window of my hotel, the Dama Rose, and see women in bikinis drinking beer to hip-hop music at pool parties, then see the smoke of bombings in the background. I had worked in the Middle East for two decades since I was a cub reporter, but this was my first time in Syria. Keep reading »
“Denial is Slipping Away as War Arrives in Damascus,” The New York Times, October 2012
Rifa was growing frantic. Her husband had called to say that he and her brother were stuck on their way home from work outside the Syrian capital, normally a 25-minute drive. There was fighting in a northern suburb, he said, and traffic was frozen.
Tensions rose as the hours passed. It is never good to be out after dark in Damascus now, especially trapped in a traffic jam, unable to flee. Finally, Rifa’s husband called again. They had escaped and returned to their workplace to pass the night, another concession to their changing world. Keep reading »
And read much more from di Giovannie at her website, JanineDiGiovanni.com.
Monday, December 3, 2012
7 powerful stories of recovery after injury
Cross-country skier Janine Shepherd was Olympics-bound in 1986, with many thinking that she was a strong contender to earn Australia’s first-ever medal at the winter games. But everything changed on a training bike ride through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Shepherd was hit by a truck, and broke both her back and neck.
Doctors did not expect Shepherd to survive. And when she made it through surgery she received some jarring words.
As Shepherd recalls in today’s talk, filmed at TEDxKC, “The doctor came over to me and said, ‘Janine, the operation was a success … but the damage is permanent. They’re central nervous system nerves. There is no cure. You’re what we call a partial paraplegic and you will have all the injuries that go along with that. You’ll have no feeling from the waist down. At most, you might get 10 to 20% return.’”
To hear how Shepherd recovered, learning to walk again with only a slight limp, watch her incredible talk. As she explains, the key for her was realizing that she was more than just the circumstances of her body, and that she could create new dreams. For example: becoming a pilot. Shepherd took her first flying lesson in a full body cast, but within a year had earned her private pilot’s license. A commercial pilot license and instructor’s rating followed. Shepherd even went on to become the youngest — and only female — director of Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).
Shepherd’s is a powerful story of recovery. After the jump, watch more TED Talks from speakers who beat their physical odds and learned about their own incredible strength in the process.
Ed Gavagan: A story about knots and surgeons
Years ago, Ed Gavagan was brutally stabbed while walking down a New York City street. In this talk, he shares how watching two medical students practicing their knots on the subway reminded him of the surgeons who saved his life. A powerful love letter to medical skill from TEDMED 2012. [Read much more on his story.]
Giles Duley: When a reporter becomes the story
Fashion photographer Giles Duley found his calling when he began traveling the world and documenting the stories of the forgotten and marginalized—a boy with autism, street teens in the Ukraine, refugees who’ve spent years in camps, the injured in the South Sudan. Duley’s life, however, changed when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan and lost both his legs and arms. At TEDxObserver, he tells his story.
Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight
Brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor became her own research subject when she had a massive stroke and experienced a shutdown of all her mental functions. In this talk from TED2008, she shares the incredible story of feeling herself exist on two different planes.
Simon Lewis: Don’t take consciousness for granted
Simon Lewis spent a month in a coma after a terrible car accident in Los Angeles. In this talk from the INK Conference, he shares how the experience of coming back gave him a whole new appreciation for consciousness — and for the plasticity of the brain, the incredible balance found in our bodies and for our capacity to communicate with others.
Aimee Mullins: The opportunity of adversity
Aimee Mullins is a record-breaking runner … who was born without shinbones. In this talk from TEDMED 2009, Mullins shares why the term “disabled” is no longer appropriate: because we will all face adversity of some kind, whether physical or otherwise. She shares a powerful message — that it’s not about whether you will meet adversity, but how you will approach it.
Joshua Prager: My personal half-life
In this harrowing talk from TED@NewYork, Joshua Prager describes a life-altering bus crash and its paralyzing effects. He shares a moment that was particularly meaningful for him—the exact minute when he had spent more than half of his life afflicted—and how he chose to spend it. [Read a TED Blog Q&A with Prager.]
Friday, July 27, 2012
Playlist: Stories of survival from the TED2013 Talent Search
Amsterdam, Bangalore, Doha, Johannesburg, London, Nairobi, New York, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, Tokyo, Tunis and Vancouver. TED headed to 14 cities on six continents for the 2013 Talent Search, looking to bring you fresh perspectives for TED2013. Despite the fact that the 293 speakers who participated in the search came from wildly different backgrounds, we couldn’t help but notice some themes emerge in their talks. Here, their moving tales of survival.
Vanessa Berlowitz: How to survive filming extreme nature documentaries
TED@London
Producer Vanessa Berlowitz has spent 22 years making wildlife films for the BBC. She’s camped out in a live volcano and traveled frequently to polar regions, where you can throw a cup of boiling water in the air and have it freeze before hitting the ground. She gives tips on making it through both, as well as for avoiding bear attacks.
Rupinder Bains: Living with Crohn’s disease
TED@Vancouver
In 2011, Rupinder Bains was supposed to die. While she started out her hospital stay being concerned about missing spring break, she had soon had 10 surgeries and whittled down to 74 pounds. In this powerful talk, she reveals had a radical surgery led her to remission.
Hyeonseo Lee: Escaping North Korea
TED@Seoul
Hyeonseo Lee calls growing up in North Korea like living “in a virtual prison.” She recalls witnessing her first public execution and beginning to doubt her government, before deciding to leave in 2008. In this talk, she describes the difficult journey to China and eventually to South Korea.
Eleanor Longden: Learning from the voices in my head
TED@London
When Eleanor Longden headed to college, someone joined her—a voice in her head, narrating her life in third person. She explains how she fought the voices, and a system ready to write her off as “crazy,” to get back her sense of self-worth … as well as a Masters in psychology.
Sarath Champati: Eye to eye with wild animals
TED@Bangalore
Ecotourism enthusiast Sarath Champati recalls coming face to a face with a wild tiger, and soon after with a wild Sambar deer. Instead of getting eaten alive, it sparked what Champati calls a “25-year love affair with wild animals.”
Rosie Garthwaite: How to survive in a war zone
TED@Doha
Former British Army officer Rosie Garthwaite saw her future as a journalist and headed to Iraq in 2003. She quickly learned that missteps could get herself and members of her team killed. In this talk, she gives away knowledge she’s learned about staying safe in war zones, as well as tips gleaned from a Somali pirate and a hostage negotiator.
Lee Swan: What I lost on the way to the North Pole
TED@Johannesburg
Chocoholic Lee Swan took part in the Polar Race, becoming the first South African woman to make it to the magnetic North Pole. She explains how she navigated her way through the 650 kilometer race … and won.
Ana Maria Saad: My story of mental illness and awareness
TED@SaoPaulo
A filmmaker, producer and screenwriter, Ana Marie Saad recalls falling into deep depression as a result of being sexually abused. She explains how meditation helped her through, and how she started an NGO to help lessen the stigma of mental disorders.
Richard Turere: My invention that outsmarted lions
TED@Nairobi
Richard Turere, now 13, has been tasked since age 9 with keeping his family’s cattle safe. While he calls lions “my enemy,” he knew that he would never be able to take one on in a hand-to-paw fight. And so he created a brilliant light system that scares the animals away.
Stayed tuned for more playlists from the TED Talent Search, coming at you over the next month.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
What’s it like to give a TEDx talk? Speakers tell their stories
Barefoot Foodie onstage at TEDxBGSU. Photo: Enoch Wu
If your New Year’s resolution is to give a TEDx talk yourself — or to silence your inner monologue that thinks “I can’t do public speaking” — read a few of these stories, written by people who got up on the TEDx stage this year. They’re brave, prepared, and honest about what it takes to take the stage.
For instance, here’s a dialogue that Brittany Gibbons, the Barefoot Foodie, had with a friend before TEDxBGSU this fall:
I don’t know how to be good at this, Andy.
You will be amazing.
Or this could be the biggest thing I fail at, ever.
Unlikely. Nothing could beat you half slipping into the grave hole at my grandma’s funeral.
Well that’s for sure, they should mark those better.
Janice Tanton felt the same way before speaking at TEDxCalgary:
It took me two weeks to think through whether or not I could do this — to break through the safe, quiet solititude of my cocoon-like studio and step into the stage spotlight to share.
… and she came through with a deep insight into why we feel this way:
Fear, in my opinion, is just a misguided form of creativity.
Security expert Jeremiah Grossman has given hundreds of public presentations. But when he started to lose his anxiety and nervousness about public speaking … it felt wrong:
Had I finally overcome? I’m not an introspective person so it wasn’t until very recently that I think I figured it out. In 2011 my public presentations weren’t pushing the envelope as much as in years past. The content was good to be sure, but it also focused on “safe” business level subjects and incrementally advancing work from previous years. In short, I really wasn’t putting myself out there as far as I’m used to. In my case, the feeling or fear and terror arises when pushing forth an idea or a concept and unsure if people will think its uncompelling or totally idiotic. A chance you take.
That’s about when I got a call from the TED offering a speaking slot in TEDxMaui. We got to talking about my work and discussing an idea worth spreading. It didn’t take long. Then all of a sudden I’m thrust right back into fear and terror mode, but now that I understand it, the feeling is almost comforting. It signals that I have an opportunity to take things in my industry, in our industry, to a new level — or of course drive right off a cliff. Either way it’ll be a good show! :)
“Everyone should give a TED talk,” writes Doug Johnson, after being inspired at TEDxPhiladelphiaED:
So here is my question: Could you give a TED talk inspired by a personal passion for what you do? What would it be about? What would others learn from it? What makes you look forward to the next day even after a rough time at work? What do you take time to reflect on?
(Doug gave a TEDxTalk himself last year at TEDxASB, so he knows what he’s talking about. He says: “These TED talks are tougher to do than one might think.”)
Verena Delius spoke at TEDxBerlin, and in her prep, she discovered the upside of the 18-minute limit:
TED limits your talk to a maximum of 18 minutes. This leads to clearer thoughts, a clearer structure, stronger take-aways and a more concise train of argumentation of the speakers. You can´t spend too much time on irrelevant points that don´t bring across a message and you have to focus on the important points.
And in a guest post on Jeff Goins‘ blog, John Yates shares “Four Keys to Speaking at Your Next Local TEDx Talk.” Here’s one of his insights after a day at TEDxNashville:
1. Be an amateur: David Mead, a Nashville singer-songwriter, told a story of his friend who was humble enough to admit he had never heard of the Beatles, which deeply resonated with me. I thought: How many times have I missed out on learning amazing new things, because I wanted to appear as an expert?
Do you have a story of speaking at a TEDx — or insights from attending one — that you’d like to share? Hit the comments below, or write a blog post and let us know about it!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Playlist: The truth about stories
(TED is on its annual two-week vacation. During the break, we’re posting playlists from the TEDTalks archive. We’ll be back with new talks on August 29th.)
Elif and Chimamanda’s perspectives bring us to look at stories through the eyes of those who weave them and Jonathan offers his own story up as one who covets the tales of others. This collection reminds us to examine the bigger picture behind the fiction. While artists are urged to find their niche and unique point of view, it’s still just that: a single point of view.
Elif Shafak: The politics of fiction
“If we have no connection whatsoever with the worlds beyond the one we take for granted, then we too run the risk of drying up inside. Our imagination might shrink, our hearts might dwindle and our humanness might wither if we stay for too long inside our cultural cocoons.”
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Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story
“To insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
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Jonathan Harris collects stories
“I love this idea of the partial glimpse into somebody’s life.”
Playlist by the TEDPartnerships team.
Monday, July 4, 2011
TEDTalks at 5: Speakers tell their stories
TED.com video exists to celebrate great speakers, thinkers, doers — people with ideas that are passionately held and clearly put. For our speakers, putting their videos online has, in many cases, amplified their work beyond imagination, provoking new connections and directions to their careers and even their lives.
As we approached the fifth anniversary of TEDtalks online, we asked our speakers: “How did your TEDTalk impact you?”
Read a few of their answers below. And if you’re curious, download a text doc with all the speakers’ replies, an amazing document.
Several speakers told us that having their TEDTalk online caused a major shift in their work and goals. Like Hans Rosling:
It is not a feeling, it is a fact, that my TED talks are more important than the rest of my professional life.
My TED talks have been seen by about 7 millions. That is on average 12 min x 7,000,000 persons = 80 million person-minutes = about 1 million person-hours.
Compare that to an average of 20 one-hour lectures per week for 40 weeks per year to a class of on average 50 students and you get 20 x 40 x 50 = 40,000 person-hours of attention per year. I did that for 30 years, so it is a total of 1.2 million person-hours of attention in lecture.
Add 100 scientific papers, each read by 100 persons during one hour, that is 10,000 person-hours of attention.
Add a textbook written with three others that requires 20 hours to read and it has been read by 5,000 giving a total of 100,000 person-hours of attention.
Add 40 year of team work with 5 persons during 40 hours per week during 40 weeks a year. A total of about 60 000 person-hours of attention.
Pre-TED professional life reaches 1.37 million.
TED-life gave five-fold more attention
Hope there will never be a post-TED life.
TED Prize winner Neil Turok writes:
The talk I gave at TED2008 was simply transformative. I spoke about the importance of mathematical skills in modern society and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). I expressed the wish that the next Einstein be African.
The talk gave huge and immediate visibility to our then-small AIMS project, which was struggling from one funding crisis to the next. When I proposed a plan to create 15 AIMS centres all over Africa, this generated enthusiasm and, ultimately, funding.
And our alumni, many of whom saw the talk online, were inspired by the thought that an organisation like TED, representing the most forward-looking thinkers, creators and entrepreneurs in the world, cared about them.
Alain de Botton writes:
I can honestly say that doing a TED talk changed my life. Though I’ve been writing books for a decade, it brought me a whole new audience, a different but compatible sort of audience, and a truly global one.
The quality of the debate around a talk is also mind-boggling. People look to TED not just for information, but also for guidance, for a source of wisdom and direction in a confusing world. I never do blurbs, but this is an honest gush.
Sunitha Krishnan writes:
The publication of my TED talk was the greatest boost for the anti-trafficking mission. Thousands of individuals were inspired to respond in their own personal capacities in their countries against human trafficking.
For me personally, the most humbling times were when I got mails from men and women who have been sexually abused disclosing for the first time.
The impact on my organizational growth cannot be described in words. Today, if Prajwala has a huge global following, it is the result of the publication of my TED talk.
Aaron Huey writes:
My TED talk lead to a huge chain reaction that continues to this day and will extend well into 2012.
My talk was on American POW camps (Indian reservations), and my TED wish was this: “Give back the Black Hills.”
For this TEDx event in Denver, I’d originally been asked to talk about my work as a National Geographic photographer. But I knew that with a platform like TED, I had to do more than just a slideshow of pretty images. The TED platform inspired me to move into new territory and to choose a side on an issue I had been documenting for years.
After the TEDx talk the emails and phone calls started coming in … Everyone wanted to know what to do, and how to take it to the next level.
The Lakota began using the talk to educate people about the treaty issues. Teachers in high schools and universities around the country contacted me to say that they have started using it as curriculum.
And at least one large project has began as a direct result: A collaborative street art project that will appear in over a dozen American cities with art from Shepard Fairey (the most prolific street artist in America who also designed Obama’s HOPE campaign image) and Ernesto Yerena (activist artist known for his work on the Alto Arizona campaign). Find out more >>
The poster/billboard campaign was all funded through crowdsourcing.
More radical collaborations will continue into 2012.
Erin McKean writes:
In short, because of my TED talk:
– I went from being a traditional lexicographer to a startup founder
– Every day, more people visit Wordnik.com than ever bought most of the print books I ever worked on
— There are 10x more words on Wordnik than are in the OED
— We’ve built a huge word graph and a meaning discovery engine that takes the static knowledge about words and makes it a real dynamic tool for connecting people to relevant content
… and so much more!
Impact of my TEDTalks?
Imagine never having to make a cold-call for anything, ever again. Imagine putting your best ideas out into the world and having the world help you make them better. To say that TED changed my life would be an understatement. Thank you all for the opportunity.
Alison Carr-Chellman writes:
My talk on boys and gaming to re-engage learning went live from the TEDxPSU event to the global TED website in January. It dramatically changed my work overnight.
My work prior to TED was generally split into several ongoing projects, but almost all of my time now has moved into the boy culture space, with an invitation to participate on the commission for a White House Council on Boys to Men, and appointment to the advisory board of the Boy’s Initiative. I have spoken on the radio and delivered several parent-and-teacher-education seminars; talking more with these populations has helpde me evolve my ideas on boys, schools and games. I have a book proposal under consideration for a popular-press book, something I never imagined as an academic.
It is thrilling and humbling to realize that the one thing I probably will ever do in my career that will reach more people than any article, or conference presentation, academic book, or research study I may publish, that one thing is my TED talk. It was a talk of a lifetime, and I hope it will move people into deep consideration for the issues boys face and into action on behalf of young boys in schools.
Steven Pinker writes:
My TED talk on the decline of violence led to something much, much bigger. In response to the interest aroused by the talk, I put my research on language and social relationships on the back burner, devoted the following four years of my life to the topic, and ended up with an 850-page book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, which will be published this fall.
Elizabeth Gilbert writes:
On a professional level, speaking at TED brought an entirely new audience to me and my writing. After the publication of Eat, Pray, Love, I had been rather firmly pigeonholed into the category of Chick Lit Author, and while that isn’t anything to complain about (as any pigeon can tell you, some holes are quite cozy), that categorization certainly drove away some readers from my work. My TED talk brought those readers back, almost offering them up a badge of intellectual legitimacy, or permission to consider me anew. I always smile when I see those people at my speaking events. They’re the ones who say, “I never imagined I would like your writing, but then…” (I can always fill in the rest of the sentence without fail: “…but then I saw your TED talk.”)
On a more personal level, the opportunity to speak at TED gave me a chance to refine an idea I’d been quietly brewing for years. With the deadline for the talk approaching, I was forced to tumble down my idea from something scattered and instinctive and inarticulate into something smooth and brief and firm, which I could then toss into the audience. That clarion moment — the moment in the middle of my TED talk, when I felt my idea actually leave my hands and go flying out into the world — was one of the most gratifying and powerful experiences of my life. Thank you for giving me that chance.”
David S. Rose writes:
I have been blown away by the number of entrepreneurs from around the world who have emailed, tweeted and come up to me in person to tell me that my TEDTalk on “How to Pitch a VC” was instrumental in helping them raise funding to bring their vision to life. Without question the posting of that video has, to date, resulted in a greater direct impact on more people than anything else I have ever done, in any context.
Sophal Ear writes:
I can’t count the ways in which my TEDTalk about Escaping the Khmer Rouge has had an impact. I get messages and meet people who constantly tell me what it means to them on a deep, personal level. It’s simply been transformative.
For me, the talk itself was an incredible opportunity to honor my mother in person, while she was still alive, for saving my four siblings and I from the Killing Fields.
As you may know, my mom passed away eight months after I gave my talk (four months after my TEDTalk went online) very unexpectedly. I know that when she was alive, she was terribly proud of having had the opportunity to stand up in that auditorium in Long Beach to take a bow and receive a standing ovation. She watched the TEDTalk with me and it was really our TEDTalk.
Jennifer 8. Lee writes:
I’ve been recognized on the streets of Vancouver during the Olympics, at a banquet in Sydney and by my bank teller in New York City’s Koreatown — all because of a talk I gave on General Tso and his chicken on TED.com.
Wade Davis writes:
The TED talks that I have been fortunate to have posted by you have been indescribably helpful for my work. The success of the TED talks has only gone to show that the Beatles were right in that last refrain on Abbey Road, What was it? Something like the more you give, the more you take.
Becky Blanton writes:
People want to belong and be counted, not as statistics, but as human beings. I had no idea that speaking out about my being homeless would not only touch so many people, but inspire them. The response I’ve received since my TEDTalk was released moved me to totally re-evaluate and reinvent my perception of how stories connect storytellers and viewers/readers. I learned the most powerful stories, ideas and dreams don’t just inform, enlighten or educate us — they touch us at our very core about what it means to be alive. TEDTalks — like all stories that convey ideas, concepts and possibilities through the lens of human experience — truly are the most powerful stories of all.
Luca Turin writes:
Any scientist who watches TED lectures must surely feel that a] nothing is too difficult to convey in 12 minutes if you put your mind to it and b] we scientists owe it to the people who feed and water us to give it a try.
Kiran Sethi writes:
Once the talk went live — the idea literally traveled and infecTED the world!
As shown by this lovely reader response from Susann Meyer:
TED has changed my life, it really has. When I first discovered TED I was fascinated and I couldn’t stop watching the videos. One day, I saw Kiran Bir Sethi’s talk about how she teaches kids to take charge. I was blown away and I wanted to meet this woman. I emailed her instantly and asked if I could do an internship at Riverside School. She replied with the words: “when can you come?” and I was blown away a second time. I arranged everything and I actually went to Ahmedabad in September 2010. I got the chance to soak up the energy at Riverside, meet lots of very interesting people, and redefine my idea of education.
Since then, I am changed and I keep on changing. My vision was reshaped and I rediscovered my passion for education, which was in hibernation due to the often too uninspiring and dull routine of a university student. I know again why I have always wanted to be a teacher or work in the field of education. I want to be part of “bringing on the learning revolution!”
Rives writes:
I do sometimes wonder if I hold the record for fan tattoos based on a TEDTalk.
But for me, the most charming and unpredictable result of my first TEDTalk going online is hearing cover versions of it from young people.
At first I was a bit vexed. When I performed my poem “Mockingbird” in the final session of TED2006 I included a “freestyle” section where I quoted about 20 speakers from the previous four days. That’s the gimmick — the poem is designed to be a live performance and I’ve never spoken it the same way twice. When my talk went up on the new TED.com later that year I figured: How the heck is this relevant if you haven’t sat in on the talks I’m tipping my hat to?
But high school speech and debate competitors like to tackle it. And when they do, they sometimes like to send me videos of them tackling it — from the US, from Australia, from Ireland. And since they’ve memorized the TEDTalk version of “Mockingbird,” when they get to the freestyle section — where they really should be quoting their fellow speakers — I hear “my” codified lines coming back at me in the words of Al Gore or Burt Rutan or Sirena Huang or Matt Groening.
Imagine — somewhere there is a video of an Irish teen quoting a video of a poet quoting a scientist who is paraphrasing the inscription on a clock tower bell from his student days: “It is the voice of life that calls us to come and learn.” And so it all makes perfect, lyrical sense somehow.
And TED speaker Sebastian Wernicke updated his legendary stats-based analysis of what makes a great TEDTalk. See his findings …
Read many more speaker responses here >>
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Basetrack revisited: A TED Fellow tells war stories from inside
Groundbreaking media experiment Basetrack sought to rejig how America’s wars are reported. TED Fellow Teru Kuwayama harnessed the communication tools of our time to present embedded reportage in a whole new way. Following the deployment of 1/8 – 1st Battalion, Eighth Marines – to southern Afghanistan, Basetrack’s embedded media team collaborated with soldiers to tell the stories of their daily lives, funnelling photos and updates onto an interactive online map. Enhanced with a live newsfeed, Twitter, and Facebook, dispatches were bidirectional, information-rich, and intimate, connecting Marines and Corpsmen to their families and the public. Basetrack provided an unprecedented platform for those the media typically overlook in war – combatants and their families.
Basetrack promised a real shift in the way soldiers’ experiences are conveyed to the world, but in early February, the Marine Corps pulled the plug on this experiment in layered communication. Though perplexed, Basetrack’s participants and supporters believe it’s only a matter of time before the platform’s value is recognized and accepted.
Undeterred, Teru and his team now plan to insert themselves within one of the more consequential constituencies in their area of operations – the Afghan civilian population. We await their forthcoming tour of duty with anticipation.
Image: Teru Kuwayama in Afghanistan, October 2010. Photo by Tivadar Domaniczky, Basetrack
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Brain area for empty news stories discovered
Scientists are heralding a breakthrough in brain scan technology after a team at Oxford University produced full colour images of a human brain that shows nothing of any significance.
‘This is an amazing discovery’, said leading neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield, ‘the pictures tell us nothing about how the brain works, provide us with no insights into the nature of human consciousness, and all with such lovely colours.’…
The development, which has been widely reported around the world, is also significant because it allows journalists to publish big fancy pictures of the brain that look really impressive while having little or no explanatory value.
‘These scans are fantastic,’ said Lawrence McGinty, Science Editor for ITV News, ‘not only are they bright and colourful but the graphics department have even converted them into 3D and can make them spin around the screen while I stand in front waving my hands about. None of this helps to explain anything, but it does it so much better the old black and white pictures. They were rubbish.’
Link to ‘New brain scan reveals nothing at all’ (via @michaelmeadon).
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (James H. Silberman Books)
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable.Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives theyve transformedpeople whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed.Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.Hardcover, 448 pages. Published March, 2007Price: $17.00
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