Baby boomers versus the rest ... are you a pessimist or optimist about the future?

We had a great debate last evening about "the boomer generation", and how they compared with today's young people. We drew a few contextual differences: The boomers were the first to see such massively broad social changes affecting everyone in their generation, and not just a select few. Here's a mix from different parts of the developed world:

• equality of race and sex became a real goal
• colonialism started to die
• the contraceptive pill made sex free and easy
• tertiary education became broadly available
• mass consumerism was everywhere
• "own your own home" arrived, via cheap mortgages paid from increasingly disposable income
• the military draft ended - after centuries of being the way that armies were raised
• a "cold" not "hot" war was the military paradigm ...
• ... aided by the early forms of the European Union, which supplanted centuries of war with less harmful bureaucracy and red tape
• air travel for leisure became a normal activity, available to ever more people
• social support programs were broadly available in health and education ...
• ... yet there was still little apparent change in the "age of dying" - retirement was still expected at 65 for men ... and death by 75 or so.

This all clearly left the boomers as both a blessed and marked generation. Despite today's upheavals, and the recent financial mess, is there the same breadth and complexity of social change today - and what does it mean? We have more and more technology - and business globalization is a "done deal". But I'd argue that both had roots or parallels in the boomer generations, yet are not surrounded by the broader social changes noted above. There were telephones in every home, colour TV, cheap cars, supermarkets. Even in music, I've heard it argued that there will never be another Beatles. Musicians no longer make money on albums - they make it on concerts. The Beatles reached the entire world through albums, worked at a pace rarely seen by today's bands, yet stopped touring ages before they split. I'd suggests that many of the trends we see today have roots in that boomer generation, with three additions:

1. Today we all belong to non-geographic tribes - not just the Facebook tribe but the micro-Facebook tribes. Boomers were told what their country and therefore tribe was. Now we all chose tribes to suit the mood, it seems. Technology makes this possible, and it will only accelerate. Yet, I'd argue that the tribes are still just a natural implication of the 60's attitudes and aspirations, now made possible by technology.
2. The "I deserve it now, and then I'll move on" generation. Boomers were just crawling out of World War II, and had to be careful, and rebuild for the future. Yet, again, isn't this just the obvious next step in the consumer society? Like it or not, the boomers started this trend, even if they don't like what they see now.
3. Technology development has reached critical and sustainable mass - there's more power in my Blackberry than room sized machines had in the 60's. The boomers can't take all the credit for this, but technology in the home was one of their themes. Of course, we generate more knowledge in a year than generations did in times gone by. Research and development is so diverse and broadly democratized that virtually anything may be invented anywhere by anyone these days. I heard Bill Gates, private individual, talk about how he planned to change the way we power this planet at TED last week. He's not waiting for a State-driven Manhattan project. His buddy Nathan Myhrvold was happily shooting down mosquitoes with lasers (maybe he should run "Star Wars"?). Oh, and aren't they both boomers?

Even if you don't fully accept these contextual premises, one critical implication is clear. The boomers have a stranglehold on the world's financial resources, and that is unlikely to shift short term. It's pretty clear that today's boomers will not be handing down all this capital to their kids.

• First, we all live a lot longer - and with the crunch that now exists on pensions, the boomers will spend what they have accumulated to survive until they die (at 90? 100? 110?).
• Second, the boomers are now being forced to financially care for both their kids and their parents - who also are living longer ...

Here's an extract from today's Financial Times ... "... a third of the value of all UK pension benefits was held by those aged 55 to 64, the boomer generation that is approaching retirement. Those aged between 45 and 54 held a further quarter of the £3,500bn of pension benefits. The aggregate value of housing wealth held by those aged 50 to pension age – 60 for women and 65 for men – was £1,280bn, more than twice the housing wealth held by any other age group. The next wealthiest group were those between pension age and 75, whose housing wealth was £600bn." So, is it all doom and gloom for young people today? On the surface, yes. It is most unlikely that Government will be able to do much about this. With rare exceptions, Government "sweeps up" after the fact, rather than get ahead of the curve. And a good part of that is the boomer's fault, who are still very unlikely to accept being told what to do by the state - they will use their considerable political and financial power to exert peaceful regime change at every election. Yet there are equally clear causes for major optimism.

1. Kids are smart and will adapt - they, like all previous generations will innovate and thrive in ways that us older folks will have no inkling about.
2. Kids will be able pursue their dreams with more freedom. They have more information available, more education, more choices, more communication, more openness in society. Yes, we have domestic terrorism, and that is a relatively new and deadly threat. But we do not have the spectre of mass annihilation. If the Russian or Chinese nuked the US or Europe, all their money and markets would go with the nukes. Hardly a likely prospect - and certainly not the state of affairs in the Cold War.
3. Kids will live longer ... and the boomers will just die;-)

Thoughts?

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The Elephants in the Room at TED - an interesting cast ..... and a flame war

I was very taken with this post from "Scobleizer " (Robert Scoble) about TED.

My wife and I are big fans of TED, as we love its heady mixture of intellectual content, arts ("Technology Entertainment Design") and, dare I say it, fun and community.

But I realise that it has its detractors. I've heard it described as a "place where hippies with too much money go". Then again, I've also heard it described as "one of the most thought provoking events / movements on the planet".

And of course today there is now an old fashioned "flame war" going on between (on one side) comedian and TED speaker Sarah Silverman and (on the other) Steve Case and (TED curator)  Chris Anderson. She caused an interesting debate about subject matter, language etc. [my take - what would you expect, folks ... it's what she loved for ... ] which Chris compounded with a tweet that got wide coverage.

Hype, Hype all around.

So, when I opened my mail this morning, I see that Scobleizer's post ("The Elephants in the Room at TED") is being re-tweeted all over web. And here's why. It is perceptive, objective and, for me, completely "on the money" (pardon the pun, given the comment about rich hippies).

What did he say? Here's the first few paras from his post .. then read the rest here.

"Larry Page says hi, we say thanks for the phone! First, let’s get the elephant out of the way so we can talk about more important things. What is the elephant? No, it’s not Larry Page, co-founder of Google, seen above waving to the audience at TED after he gave them all a free Nexus One.

So, what is the elephant? That TED costs $6,000 and is hard to get into (next year’s TED is already sold out, for instance). They never give away more than 15 press passes, too, which means that most of the world’s press corp can’t get in. This always pisses off people, just as it did to Sarah Lacy, writer at TechCrunch.

I don’t have $6,000 and I doubt I’ll get invited next year for free and, even if I could gather $6,000, it’s sold out for next year anyway.

Freaking elitists!

But, let’s take the elephant head on: rich people can afford things you and I can’t. I can’t afford a Ferrari either. Even though I definitely appreciate them. I can’t afford a private plane, even though when I’ve gotten a ride in one I’ve always appreciated them and can see why I’d want one. I can’t afford an original Ansel Adams’ print, either, even though I am a huge fan and would love to have one.

So, let’s turn it around. You should know that in 2008 I took a similar stance to Sarah’s. That TED is unattainable for most people, and that it’s a closed society, etc. What did I do about it? I went to BIL, a free event that goes on at TED. I will attend that again next year because I seriously doubt that I’ll be able to get into TED. But I am trying to go one further, I will try to get the money together to buy BIL a video feed from inside TED.

But since attending I’ve changed my stance from the one I had in 2008. What is the one now? Jealous people should just keep their mouths shut. And I’ll include me in that stance.

Truth is, TED has opened up its content to the world. More than 500 talks have now been shared [free - mick] on TED Talks.

On the TED stage I saw that they had hundreds of events where the live feed was broadcast, including many into Silicon Valley (several VCs and entrepreneurs invited me to view TED with them at their houses, or work offices). Rackspace bought the feed too and lots of my coworkers were talking with me about the talks. So, getting access to the content might not be attainable by everyone in real time, but is certainly attainable eventually by everyone.

The funny thing is just a couple of weeks ago Sarah Lacy was at an exclusive venture capital event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I wasn’t invited. Neither were you, probably. Did she disclose the elitism of this event? No way. Does she disclose all the closed parties or events she gets invited to that me and you don’t get invited to? No way. One rule of closed parties is you don’t Tweet about them or you don’t get invited back."

Bravo - and onto TEDGlobal in Oxford this summer ...

Read the rest of Scobleizer's post here.

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Sir Ken Robinson, educator extraordinaire ....

Ken Robinson was one of the last speakers at TED2010 today. He was also one of the best, with a powerful yet simple message about change in the education system - valuing each of us for what we are, and not continuing with the "fast food, industrialised" approach we currently have. Each child is unique and should be treated as such.

I thought it might be fun to copy a few tweets which give an idea of his key points (and the great audience response)

@missrogue "Every day our children lay their dreams beneath our feet. We should tread lightly." Sir Ken Robinson #TED

@brainpicker Sir Ken Robinson: "Our education system is impoverishing our spirits as much as fast food is depleting our bodies" #TED

@brainpicker #TED Ken Robinson: It's not about scaling the solution to education, it's about a grassroots model of personalized solutions

@TEDNews: Sir Ken Robinson at #TED: We have built our education systems on the model of fast food. Standardized, not customized to local circumstances

@brainpicker #TED Sir Ken Robinson: People are often good at things they don't care for, but it's about passion. About what moves you.

@mickyates "A watch is a single function device - Ken Robinson's 20 year old daughter - so I don't want one" #TED

@Michaelgnovak: RT @brainpicker: #TED Sir Ken Robinson's book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, is a MUST read http://is.gd/8jUKl

@brainpicker "Human communities depend on a diversity of talent" Ken Robinson #TED #quote

Here's Ken's Huffington Post article from today on a slightly different - but related topic ..."Imagine a World Ending Slavery"

"As part of the work we do in education, my wife Terry and I are committed to promoting a world in which all children live in freedom. This is why we support the Tronie Foundation in its work to ensure that all children live free of exploitation and have the opportunity to laugh, play and go to school. Many estimates agree that there are now about 27 million slaves in the world, more than at the height of institutionalized slavery in the 19th century. These are men, women and children held against their will with the threat of violence and little or no pay to do what ever their owners demand. Often these are what are known as 3D jobs -- dirty difficult and dangerous -- that few people with a free choice would tolerate. It's estimated that roughly half of all slaves are children.

The good news is that there are people and organizations around the world fighting separately and together to end slavery in all of its forms. They range from government agencies to private foundations and the, often heroic, efforts of lone individuals. All are committed to ending practices that degrade all of us. One such organization is the Tronie Foundation.

Rani and Tron are acting from first-hand experience. They found their separate ways to the United States as children. Rani was sold and resold into slavery as a child in India and then into illegal adoption in the USA. Tron was shipwrecked off the coast of Vietnam after his father's desperate attempt to save him from being abducted as a boy soldier. As adults and parents, they are now committed to the global struggle to offer the gift of freedom to every child.

People around the world are ringing in a New Year. This could also be a new time of awakening. For the United States, freedom is a founding principle. Here especially we should support those who do so much to defend it on our behalf and for the children we all say we cherish. Take a look.

http://TronieFoundation.org/donate

Biography extract from his webpage:

"Sir Ken Robinson, PhD is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. ‘All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education’ (The Robinson Report) was published to wide acclaim in 1999. He was the central figure in developing a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, working with the ministers for training, education enterprise and culture.For twelve years, he was Professor of Education at the University of Warwick in the UK and is now Professor Emeritus. He has been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2003, he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts."

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"The Price in Human Suffering of Being Open-Minded" Sam Harris @TED 2010

A thoughtful summary of Sam Harris' excellent talk at TED this week. From Wired at Epicenter - by Kim Zetter - from TED

"In a well-meaning attempt to be tolerant of other cultures and religions we often blithely subvert our

values and morality, says Sam Harris, the outspoken critic of blind religious faith. We do this because we think that questions about good and evil or right and wrong cannot be answered definitively. But they can, he told a rapt audience at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference Thursday — and they should.

Harris is no stranger to the argument that, to put it more mildly than he might, religion does more harm than good. His 2005 New York Times bestseller The End of Faith attempted to draw a straight line from faith to human atrocities. His subsequent Letter to a Christian Nation took on the fierce pushback he received from writing his first book.

So it should come as no surprise that Harris ran with this theme at TED, expanding his argument beyond the faithful to the secular-leaning. Scientists and academics, who are wedded to facts and empiricism, he said, do something different when they talk about morality. “We value differences of opinion in a way that we don’t in other areas,” Harris said.

We know that there are fundamentally right and wrong answers to certain questions and issues, but do not trust our instincts, he said. These cast-aside tenets should respected and should be the basis of a universal morality, regardless of variations in cultures and belief.

Even within a single culture it’s easy to fall into a morally relativistic trap, he said. For example, Harris noted, there are 21 states in the U.S. where it’s legal for a teacher to beat a child with a wooden board to the point of leaving bruises and breaking skin. The rationale for this behavior is the Biblical quote about sparing the rod and spoiling the child. The obvious question, Harris said, is whether it is actually a sound idea to subject children to pain and violence and public humiliation as a way of encouraging healthy emotional development and good behavior.

He also pointed to the issue of women in the Muslim world who cover themselves in burqas.

“I’m not talking about voluntary wearing of a veil. Women should be able to wear whatever they want,” he said. But it’s not an option when not wearing a burqa is a punishable offense. And even more importantly, he said, what of those cultures which punish a brutalized woman, where “when a girl gets raped, her father’s first impulse, rather often, is to murder her out of shame?”

We should not feel constrained to assert what we think is an objective truth — that such behavior is wrong — for fear that it will be taken as subjective meddling or demagoguery, Harris argued. There is a moral imperative not to hold one’s tongue but rather to speak out.

“Who are we not to say [that it's wrong]?” he asked. “Who are we to pretend that we know so little about human well being that we have to be nonjudgmental about a practice like this?” We can no longer respect and tolerate vast differences of opinion of what constitutes basic humanity any more than we can take seriously different opinions about how disease spreads or what it takes to make buildings and airplanes safe, Harris insisted.

We simply must converge on the answers we give to the most important question in human life, Harris concluded. And to do that we have to admit that there are answers."

Here's the original post on Wired

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Maybe a new street sign is what the world needs now?

What's the best way to keep automobile traffic moving calmly and rationally through an intersection? It's not a stoplight, it's not a stop sign, and it's not a yield sign (who knows what to do at a yield?).

In Session 6, Gary Lauder suggests we "Take Turns."

Here's the street sign the world needs now. Half a stop and half a yield, the sign gives each driver a clear indication of how to behave. Below the red "Take Turns" shield is a small sign reading, "If Cars Are Waiting, Please Stop and Alternate." And if there are no cars waiting, just blow on through. (No more stopping at red lights at 4am, on a country road, when there's no one around for miles.)

Lauder has registered the sign with a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license -- so share it freely (just credit him, don't modify the sign, and don't sell it). And imagine a world where every street sign contains the word "Please."

From Ted 2010

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Sex, lasers and suspended animation: day two at TED - Amanda Gefter @ New Scientist

From New Scientist's Culture Lab blog - by Amanda Gefter, Books & Arts editor

"It's been another mind-boggling day here at TED 2010 in Long Beach, California, where some of the most innovative minds in science and technology have gathered to share their ideas to change the world.

The morning began with Michael Specter, New Yorker writer and author of Denialism (Penguin, 2009), who is disheartened by irrational and dangerous public attitudes towards everything from vaccines to genetically modified foods. What people often don't understand, he said, is the dicey relationship between causation and correlation--even really smart people, like those in the audience at TED.

"How many of you took your Echinacea and antioxidants this morning, even though data shows they do nothing more than make your urine dark?" he asked, as the crowd laughed their admission. "Hey, I get it! You want to pay $20 billion a year for dark urine? I'm with you! Dark! Urine!"

Philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris - known as one of the four horsemen of "new atheism" - offered up a controversial but empowering argument against cultural relativism, claiming that unlike what religious people often claim, science does have something to say about morality.

"When we're talking about values, we're talking about facts," he argued. "Values reduce to facts about conscious experience." His comments resonated well with Specter's earlier complaint: "Everyone is entitled to their opinion," Specter had said, "even their opinion about progress. But you know what you're not entitled to? You're not entitled to your own facts."

Epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani, author of The Wisdom of Whores (W.W. Norton, 2009), offered a serious yet highly entertaining look at why populations most at risk for HIV--such as sex workers and intravenous drug users--make the health choices that they make, urging us to demand public health policies based on scientific evidence and common sense. She also had a message for Pope Benedict XVI, who last year told African leaders that condom distribution will worsen the AIDS epidemic, presumably because they will inspire people to go out and have more sex.

"I don't know if the Pope watches TED talks online," Pisani said, "but if you do, I've got news for you, Benedict. I carry condoms all the time and I never get laid!" She reached into her pockets and tossed some condoms into the crowd.

Soon after, TED attendees were treated to a surprise talk by Valerie Plame Wilson, the former covert CIA operative who was outed by the Bush administration, who spoke about nuclear proliferation. "There is enough highly enriched uranium in the world to make 100,000 nuclear bombs," she said, and the only solution is to get rid of it all. This provided an interesting inroad to the afternoon's impassioned nuclear energy debate between Stewart Brand and Mark Jacobson.

And the day just got more interesting from there. The fabulously entertaining game designer Jane McGonigal began her talk with this statistic: online game enthusiasts now collectively spend 3 billion hours a week playing in virtual worlds. "Three billion hours a week is not enough to save the world," she said. "To survive the next century, we need to log at least 21 billion hours of game play every week."

McGonigal believes that gamers are "super-empowered hopeful individuals" who believe they can change the world. "The problem is that they believe they can change the virtual world, not the real world," she said. "That's what I'm trying to change. We need to make the real world more like the virtual world." She's trying to do just that by designing multi-player games that tackle real-world challenges like oil shortages and climate change.

David Byrne, frontman from the Talking Heads, discussed his idea that throughout history, the creation of music has been informed by the architecture of the venues in which the music was to be performed--not unlike birds whose songs evolve to best fit their niche environments.

After a moving and venue-appropriate performance by one-man-band Andrew Bird, inventor Nathan Myhrvold told the crowd about his endeavors to tackle the malaria crisis. Everyone has been trying to develop vaccines and distribute mosquito nets, he said, but why not also go after the mosquitoes themselves? In fact, why not shoot them out of thesky with lasers? He then put his pinky finger to his mouth, Dr. Evil style, before demonstrating a prototype of a laser that does exactly that.

And speaking of vaccines, epidemiologist Seth Berkeley is convinced that we are close to making a universal HIV vaccine and a universal flu vaccine thanks to his new approach of retro-vaccinology, a process where you start with the antibodies you want to produce and work backwards to find the right vaccine. New technologies will allow such vaccines to be made in simple E. coli cultures rather than the current cumbersome method of using live chicken eggs. After all, he said, what happens when an avian flu affects chickens?

To wrap up the evening, biologist Mark Roth talked a bit about sea monkeys. As every kid knows, when you order sea monkeys, they arrive in a bag that's been sitting on a shelf for who-knows-how-long, you toss them into some water and suddenly you have little shrimp swimming around. Everyone's amazed by what happens when you put them in the water, Roth said, but what I wanted to know was, what's going on in that bag?

Roth has been working on suspended animation and has achieved some remarkable things, deanimating mammals like mice until their hearts stop and their oxygen consumption hits rock bottom, then bringing them back to life where they are as healthy as ever before. Roth figured out that a winning combination of hydrogen sulfide and extreme cold could do the same for humans, an extremely useful fact to know in an emergency situation like a heart attack. Roth's suspended animation drugs are now in human trials.

One thing that's clear here at TED is that the future is going to look remarkably different from the past, thanks to brilliant minds like these. But forget the future. I just can't wait for day three."

Images: TED/James Duncan Davidson

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Jamie Oliver & TED Prize: Video of his speech "Educate every child about food"

An inspiring and passionate talk at TED 2010, as Jamie puts forward his wish.

"I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire familes to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity".

There is a debate about Jamie's ideas online at TED. Some felt he lacked facts, others that he over-dramatised. But however you cut it, the idea that obesity is preventable and that healthy cooking can have a profound, positive impact is compelling. It needs a concerted effort at home, in schools and across industry.

Jamie's speech is full of passion and challenge - and there can be no doubt one is watching a leader at work. A man with a vision, and the character to make change happen. We should all hope he succeeds. Want more detail? Check out his campaigns and his successes.

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Thought Experiments at TED - Helen Walters @ Business Week |Next

Another great post on yesterday's TED 2010 .... from Helen Walters at Business Week.

"Perhaps it was the title of the track: Mindshift. But three of the speakers in the first session at TED all threw out a thought experiment at the gathered crowd. A meme, I say, a veritable meme!

Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman, kicked off the event proper. He challenged us to imagine that after our next vacation, all our photographs would be destroyed. Then we’d take a drug that would mean that we wouldn’t remember anything about our holiday. Would we, asked Kahneman, still choose to go on the same vacation? His question was intended to illuminate the difference between the “experiencing self”, which lives in the present, and the “remembering self”, which keeps track of memories.

These two very different concepts cause very different responses—and are important considerations for those looking to study happiness, a deeply complex concept. It was a lyrical presentation and a thought-provoking way to start the day.

The next thought experiment came courtesy of French economist and poverty specialist, www.mit.edu/faculty/eduflo/short" target="_"blank"">Esther Duflo. “You have a few million dollars,” she said. “Maybe you’re a politician in a developing country and you want to spend it on the poor. How do you spend it?” Duflo used this set-up to add nuance to the discussion around aid and global poverty, throwing out some stark statistics as she did so. For instance, she said, nine million children under the age of five die every year. “That’s the devastation of Haiti’s earthquake every eight days. And entirely preventable.”

In Duflo’s eyes, individuals are so hampered by the scope and weight and sadness of the thought of global poverty that they end up not doing anything at all. “There’s no silver bullet, and it’s very frustrating,” she acknowledged. But, she added, even small measures can have a large impact. “So much of the discussion around poverty generates emotion and rhetoric that is more ideological than practical,” she said. “Just do an experiment.” An economist in tune with the “always-in-beta”, “launch-early; launch-often” mantra of our times.

Final thought experiment for the morning came from Michael Shermer, founding publisher of Skeptic magazine. Imagine you’re a hominid on the plains of America, he said, when you hear a rustle in the grass. Is it a dangerous predator, or is it the wind? Your decision, he said drily, is important. Get it wrong by believing that it’s wind when it’s actually a predator and you’re history. “You won a Darwin award. You’ve been taken out of gene pool.” Shermer’s point, in an entertaining presentation, was to show that human beings look for patterns, and have a tendency to infuse patterns with meaning.

Given the title of the magazine Shermer oversees, I imagined he was preaching to us all to stop being taken in by everything. Not the case. “If you’re too skeptical you miss the really good ideas,” he said. If you’re not skeptical enough, you’ll see patterns everywhere, and that way madness lies (here he used mathematician John Nash as an example of someone who had found too many patterns). “But just right and you don’t fall for too much baloney.” There’s a lesson there for everyone: question everything, but don’t be a cynic."

All images courtesy of TED/James Duncan Davidson

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Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Educate every child about food

From the TED Prize session: Jamie Oliver has announced his TED Prize wish.

THE WISH:
“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”

THE PLAN:
Set up an organization to create a popular movement that will inspire people to change the way they eat. The movement will do this by establishing a network of community kitchens; launching a travelling food theater that will teach kids practical food and cooking skills in an entertaining way and provide basic training for parents and professionals; and bringing millions of people together through an online community to drive the fight against obesity. The grassroots movement must also challenge corporate America to support meaningful programs that will change the culture of junk food.

THE NEEDS:

Help to establish the organization, with funding, office space and facilities.

Find partners to equip and run the community kitchens, and food suppliers to provide the fresh ingredients.

A partner to build and maintain a fleet of food theatre trucks.

Education experts, graphic designers, artists and writers to develop and produce creative, fun teaching materials.

Communications experts to create messaging for the movement.

Web designers and developers to create and build the website.

Establish a food range that generates a sustainable income for the movement.

Corporate partners to invest in cooking and food education for their customers and champion honest food labelling.

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Dr William Li's list of Antiangiogenic substances ... which slow down cancer

Fascinating talk at TED 2010 about the power of diet to hold back the growth of cancers ... by restricting the blood flow to nascent cancer cells. Food that is "antiangiogenic" will help ...

via conferences.ted.com

TED 2010

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TED2010 ... today's agenda ...

TED 2010 speaker list for today ... let's go!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
11:00 AM – 12:45 PM	Session 1: Mindshift	Daniel Kahneman Esther Duflo Michael Shermer Jake Shimabukuro	Behavioral economics founder Development economist Skeptic Ukulele virtuoso
2:15 PM – 4:00 PM	Session 2: Discovery	William Li Cheryl Hayashi Dan Barber	Cancer researcher Spider silk scientist Chef
5:00 PM – 6:45 PM	Session 3: Action. The 2010 TED Prize	Jamie Oliver The TED Prize Heroes Sheryl Crow	Chef, activist Provocateurs, storytellers, pioneers Singer/songwriter, activist

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Getting ready for TED 2010 ...

As we are getting ready to watch TED 2010 via live webcast, I came across this related post on the Social Media Workshop ...

TEDActive 2010: Desert Diaries - The Social Media Workshop

(TEDActive 2010. February 9-13, 2010, Palm Springs, CA. Credit: TED / Michael Brands)

Maybe it was news of the blizzard onslaught back on the East Coast that made our 20 Social Media Workshop attendees so nonchalant about the chilly air in the high desert this morning. But the weather today was nothing to shrug off, and it was admirable that it was faced with such pluck ... and then just awesome that everyone brought such interesting stories to share!

We brought a bushel of our own leads ...

• What's "raising awareness" really worth?
• Social media and the Super Bowl
• Can real viruses teach us how to make content "go viral"?
• The rise of social media is a return to the natural order
• What's the real effect of the Facebook "Cause"?
• Black holes don't "lurk"
• How to be a lady online

... and our friends brought even more of their own:

We learned how being a social media rock star has its ups and downs. We learned how Twitter can help you stay one step ahead of your political opponents. We learned about "whuffie." We learned about the difference between The Beatles' success after Ed Sullivan and Susan Boyle's success after Britain's Got Talent. (We learned a lot about Susan Boyle: she's authentic; she's archetypal; she was edited well.) A 10-second, one-act, one-man play taught us about the future of face-to-face conversation. We learned about the 7-38-55 ratio and heard a lesson that drilled home the importance of good writing. And we learned that "anything can happen at launch, including porn."

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Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Inspired by Nigerian history and tragedies all but forgotten by recent generations of westerners, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novels and stories are jewels in the crown of diasporan literature.

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John Wooden on true success - from TED

"With profound simplicity, Coach John Wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. In this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave his players at UCLA, quotes poetry and remembers his father's wisdom."

Here's the original video ...

 

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Live to be a thousand years old - "Beat the longevity escape velocity"

A brilliant talk at TEDGlobal 2005 by Aubrey De Grey ... still holds up today. Key point: bio-engineering will help all of us stay alive longer than you might think.

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"How to Live Before You Die" - Steve Jobs - worth a few thoughts as New Year approaches?

Steve's commencement speech at Stanford in 2005 seems to be doing the rounds this holiday season, not least thanks to TED making it one of their new, best of the web videos ...

He's maybe not the best speaker, but it is still well worth watching. Inspirational.

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Scott Kim takes apart the art of puzzles - from TED 2008

Fascinating talk which does open the mind, in the best TED tradition ...

"At the 2008 EG conference, famed puzzle designer Scott Kim takes us inside the puzzle-maker's frame of mind. Sampling his career's work, he introduces a few of the most popular types, and shares the fascinations that inspired some of his best."

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Itay Talgam: "Lead like the great conductors" - from TED Global

From TED Global. The idea that Leaders conduct an orchestra is a nice one, and this video show how different styles of conducting get different responses.

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Charter for Compassion

Karen Armstrong won the TED Prize in 2008 - and her idea, the "Charter for Compassion" kicks off in earnest on November 12th. You can find out more about the Charter at http://charterforcompassion.org/.

I am not a religious person, but I cannot but hope that the idea of establishing some form of Universal Truth and Justice will take hold.