TED

TED.com began in 1984. Its mission is to spread ideas that matter. On all kinds of topics with all manner of talented, educated and informed people. TED sponsors public speeches or talks lasting 18 minutes or less. The presentations are in open forum and are available to anyone who wishes to listen and consider the topics.

TED believes spreading the ideas alone will change minds and attitudes. With those changes the world will also change and for the better.

TED is an acronym that stands for – Technology, Education, Design.

Think about those three terms. Wonder what they have in common? I think it is this:

• Open ideas that expand outwards
• Using ideas to create new ones, intentionally and actively
• Connecting ideas in one discipline with another and so on so a chain reaction of discovery occurs
• Effective learning and understanding results spontaneously in the mere sharing of these ideas and concepts
• An explosion of additional discovery happens as well as the ideas swell and shift in and out of additional topics and disciplines
• The future happens anyway, but now the people of the world make it happen more intentionally and productively 

Go to www.ted.com and open the world to thousands of talks freely given. Another level of this movement is the TEDx program. These talks are based in communities throughout the world and enrich interaction of citizenry everywhere by sharing commonsense ideas and actions that empower people in their everyday lives.

TED programs are produced in over 100 languages. The global community is thus welcome and included. We are in this together, all of us. And the future belongs to all of us as well. So we might as well talk about it and share it.

Another element held in common by Technology, Education and Design I think is creativity. If we view these three disciplines with fluidity, we can easily envision how they push, throb, and pull among each other. They begin to create without prodding and new forms of ideas and understanding form. Almost like in their wake. Movement begets movement, ideas beget ideas, and soon we really have something to talk about.

Yes, TED is a phenomenon. But it’s most important feature is its byproduct – brainstorming throughout the meeting places where people of good will and good minds willingly share their time, effort and ideas. Think this is a figment of my imagination? Wonder upon that no longer!

We have had think tanks in the corporate world for many decades. They grew out of university-based think tanks. The corporate ones, however, were for generating ideas that could be sold, used and made into vast profit centers.

University think tanks may have spawned the corporate for-profit think tanks, but school-based think tanks remained to work on technical problems and solutions.

The same has popped up in the non-profit sector, technology arena, and public problems/solutions work groups.

Look on the internet under www.hackerspace.org and you might be surprised what shows up. Geeks and nerds coalescing in work groups throughout the nation connected by internet websites. These are not hacker gangs breaking into computer systems belonging to other organizations. No, these are people attempting to invent, create and collaborate so other things can happen for the good of the universe. Simply that. Some people come together to find help in developing a business idea and making it ready for the market. Others come to determine how best to patch systems together so they can discover optional solutions to common problems. Still others want to merely tinker with what they know and expand that into more exciting thoughts and understanding.

Sound a little like TED? Well, why not?

Sharing ideas expands those same ideas usually. Why not intentionally do so and see where it gets us? Like maybe we will discover solutions to the conundrums others fear? Or shrink from?

Why not try and make a difference? Each day. By working with others. By trusting your own mind and its internal strength and power. And of course trusting others, too. Lordy how refreshing!

Well, don’t just sit there. Get connected! Get started. Now!

July 30, 2015