3rd Annual TED x Telluride Live: Register Now!

12 Mar 3rd Annual TED x Telluride Live: Register Now!

If you are big and broad with an outsize public persona, you make a good target. Ask TED. In case you missed it, this story by David Hochman appeared in the Style section of the Sunday New York Times. Seems some folks are lobbing rotten tomatoes at Chris Anderson, curator of the world-renowned TED Talks,  take for example this attack from an insider, Benjamin H. Bratton, associate professor of visual arts at the University of California, San Diego, who proclaimed at his TED Talk: “Spreading ideas via short orations adds up to little more than ‘middlebrow mega-church infotainment.” Yikes. Has the TED stage become a glorified version of a Talking Heads couch and nothing more? Decide for yourself by reading the New York Times article.

Chris Anderson, Mr. TED. Image courtesy of the New York Times and photographer Karsten Moran.

Chris Anderson was sitting in a very low-power pose. Off to the side at an all-staff meeting at TED’s Hudson Street headquarters in January, he was folded forward with his hand on his neck, a posture that communicates self-protection according to the 2012 TED Talk on body language by the social psychologist Amy Cuddy (15.7 million views).

By letting his employees give mini TED Talks on what they were working on, Mr. Anderson was allowing for what Alain de Botton, in his 2009 TED Talk (2.9 million views), called “a kinder, gentler philosophy of success.”

When Mr. Anderson finally took the floor himself with tousled hair in an untucked black button-down and jeans, he appealed to virtue by raising the question, “What are we building today that honestly is going to impress historians in two thousand years’ time?” It could have come straight from the playbook on “practical wisdom” outlined in a 2009 TED Talk by the psychologist Barry Schwartz (1.9 million views).

At 57, Mr. Anderson, the British former magazine publisher and Internet entrepreneur who took over the organization in 2001 and built it into a multimedia colossus, is in many ways the embodiment of his famous ideas organization. Like the TED Talks millions love, and some love to rip apart, Mr. Anderson is high-minded but sometimes inaccessible, forward thinking to the point of “whoa,” and so earnest it can be easy to smirk.

But as the 30th anniversary TED Conference this month in Vancouver, British Columbia, approaches, Mr. Anderson, forever mild-mannered, is quietly celebrating all he’s accomplished with those three red letters, even as some sniff that the organization has become the Starbucks of intellectual conglomerates.

Continue reading here…

And, if you happen to be in Telluride, attend the 3rd annual TEDxTellurideLive talks. They take place all day Tuesday, March 18, 9:30 a.m. – 8:45 p.m. However, if you plan to attend, you must register at www.tedxtelluridelive.com. The event is expected to fill quickly.

“We canʼt think of a more perfect place to hold a simulcast than Telluride. Telluride is a sophisticated small town filled with intellectually curious people who thrive on dynamic ideas,” explains event organizer Katrine Formby about why she and her husband Bill decided to become involved in TEDxTellurideLive for the third year.

TEDxLive events allow communities around the world to simulcast one day of the TED Conference being held in Vancouver this year. The theme is “The Next Chapter.” The exciting speaker line-up has already been announced. Check out Tuesday’s speakers by going to http://conferences.ted.com/TED2014/program/guide.php 

TED means business:

TED, a giant nonprofit which started out small in 1984 in the marina town of Long Beach, California, is now a global enterprise dedicated to “Ideas Worth Spreading” – and cashing in on, which is why a large slice of the audience is comprised of suits from venture capital firms, who sign up early every year to mine the pearls from the speakers on the podium, who get 18 minutes to sell their story. But that is generally no biggie for some of the greatest minds in three worlds – Technology, Entertainment, Design – hence the now illustrious (and controversial) acronym.

The two annual TED Conferences have welcomed speakers such as Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-lweala, Isabel Allende and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The TED2014 Conference takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia, along with the TEDActive simulcast in neighboring Whistler. TEDGlobal 2014 will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

TEDʼs media initiatives include the following: TED.com where new TEDTalks are posted daily; TED Conversations, enabling broad conversations among TED fans; and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed; and TEDBooks, short e-books on powerful ideas.

TED has also established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world for the better are given the opportunity to put their thoughts into action.

Then there is TEDx.

What is TEDx and TEDxTellurideLive?

In the spirit of “ideas worth spreading” and “trying something new without fear,” another offshoot of the main conference is a program called TEDx.

The TED Conference provides general guidance for TEDx programs, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized. Our local event is called TEDxTellurideLive. At the Palm Theater, attendees get to watch the Vancouver talks in real time. Since it is always TED’s goal to spark deep discussion, breaks become just as important as the talks themselves.

TEDxTellurideLive is produced by Bill and Katrine Formby (who hold the TED license for Telluride) with the help of many local volunteers including their core group of organizers:  Jim Bedford, Amy Cook, Eric Cummings, Ginny and Stu Fraser, Janet Kask, Amy Levek, Luci Reeve, Dean Rolley, David Swedlow, Marta Tarbell and Teresa Westman.

“You will notice that there are TONS of speakers this year because TED is celebrating 30 years of  talks. The idea is two special ‘All-Star’ sessions Tuesday afternoon. Each of these ‘All-Star’ sessions has 11 speakers. All speakers have been on the TED stage in the past. Each speaker will update the audience on what he or she is doing now since their last TED talk,” explains Katrine. “I think TEDxTellurideLive will be an especially rich experience this year because of the addition of these special sessions. On Tuesday (March 18) if someone attends all the sessions, they will hear a total of 37 speakers. Pretty incredible, no?”

For more information about the free March 18, 2014 event in Telluride, Colorado, email TEDxTellurideLive@gmail.com or call Amy Cook at 1-800-332-8151.