Thread: Just thought some might enjoy this...

One of the things that defines me personally is a very high respect for creative thinking and to that end I have been fortunate enough to attend TED on two occasions. John Maeda is thoroughly entertaining to me in this presentation on his thoughts on simplicity. TED is an incredible experience of free thought and idea exchange and has been very enriching to me. One caveat to this is that, as Maeda himself makes light of, he is well entrenched in academia and clearly is able to engage in such thinking without having to answer to many conventions...

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j...mple_life.html

TED is a wonderful program, and the TED Talks website is an incredible asset.

Wow, what are the chances... Over the summer a guy I was working for recommended watching the TED talks and I finally started out watching them tonight. I've watched 4 thus far, and they are great. I would bet that anyone could randomly watch any talk and find it engaging. Go watch one now. I dare you.

Thanks for posting this! I never heard of TED until now and still have to figure out exactly what it is/means, but this post has given me the curiosity to check out that video and look into it further. What I've seen so far looks kind of intriguing!

By the way, I just read that the TED conferences are invitation only. How did you get yours?

Your quite welcome Alex!
I was recommended for membership and subsequently applied during my time in school. A professor of mine happened to have the ear of William McDonough who came to talk to our Intro to Industrial Design class. I ended up having a conversation with him later that included my thoughts on how disingenuous I felt recycling to be at the time. It seemed to me that it would be much better if what we recycled was being used for the same exact thing it had been used for when it began life. Little did I know McDonough was in the process of finishing a book with a friend of his on the same subject. The conversation proved very enlightening for both of us and he recommend to my professor that I apply for a TED conferance membership (which I held provisionally as a student until I graduated, sadly, I no longer have it). I am sure thanks to McDonough, I was there in 1998 when Billy Graham spoke and it was quite amazing to be a part of some of the conversations that happened afterwards...

I consider my self very lucky to have attended TED. It was 8 days of my life that are some of the most influential I may ever experience. A membership then was about $4,000. Now I think it is higher, but the hard part is getting one. I am very glad that they post some of the talks now. I wish they posted them all.

Originally Posted by Philadelph

Thanks for posting this! I never heard of TED until now and still have to figure out exactly what it is/means, but this post has given me the curiosity to check out that video and look into it further. What I've seen so far looks kind of intriguing!

By the way, I just read that the TED conferences are invitation only. How did you get yours?