TEDx Austin recap 2 months out

I attended Austin's 2nd TEDx event in February. It was an overwhelming experience—twelve full hours of absorbing new ideas and meeting new people. As time passes, I'm finding that there were 3 presenters I'm still reflecting on two months later:

• Dr. Brené Brown
• Osama Bedier, and
• Dr. Lionel Tiger

Dr Brown is research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Her (pre-recorded) presentation was about the decade of qualitative research she's been doing on shame and connectedness. I found her presentation the most emotionally engaging. Unfortunately, hers is the only video I can share at this time.



While Dr Brown's talk hit me on an emotional level, Osama Bedier's presentation appealed to me because of its storytelling. Given the rather complex and somewhat vague topic for his speech—the creation of a new form of money—Bedier managed be both clever and memorable. His thesis was that the progress of financial instruments is intricately connected to (for good and for bad) technological innovation. Much like James Burke in his PBS history show Connections, Bedier illustrated this point by tracing the surprising link between the Space Shuttle and the width of two horses' butts. Funny stuff.

Finally, I mention Dr Tiger's presentation. Not because I enjoyed it—quite the opposite in fact—but because it was controversial and poorly argued. Dr Tiger compared society to a zoo of our own design. He then argued that the quality of a zoo can be judged by the ability of its animals to successfully reproduce. He intermixed statistics about college rapes, the high rate of boys given ADD/ADHD drugs, the dearth of college courses studying men (as compared to the number that study women), and the increasing trend of unwed motherhood in our society. And somehow he concluded that feminism was to blame for the decline of males. I find myself debating Dr Tiger in my head—which in my book is a good thing ;0)

Hopefully all the videos from the event will be released soon...

Introducing TED Books

This may be the future of publishing—ebooks by intellectual luminaries explaining a great idea in 20,000 words or less for a mere $2.99. As Seth Godin pointed out in a recent talk on the new dynamics of publishing, the fact that most hardcover books have been between 200 and 400 pages (and cost $24.99 for that matter) is no more than a historical accident—that's how lengthy books needed to be to be worth publishing. But that was way back in 2010. With ebooks, page count has no economic impact. As a non-fiction reader who has read many an 'idea' book that starts off strong but then just repeats itself for the last hundred pages (yes, Thomas Friedman I'm talking about you), I say, hurray!

Read more about TEDBooks here.

TEDx Austin attendee

I was so excited to hear that I will be attending the second annual TEDx Austin conference on February 19. I've been a big fan of TED Conference online videos for years (see one of my favorites from the author of Eat, Pray, Love below). Meeting and hearing presentations from Austin's top thinkers/doers is going to be so inspiring.

This year's theme is Right Now and although the speakers will not be announced ahead of the event, the event website did give some hints as to what 'right now' is about:

• The “Erin Brockovich” of our out-of-control (and increasingly harmful) industrial food complex
• A documentary film maker thrust into a big conversation around how to dislodge entrenched Energy interests
• An industry veteran with a compelling new vision on how to fundamentally build a more humanistic internet experience
• An innovator creating the future of money
• A cultural anthropologist who’s devoted to understanding the current state of manhood (and the future of boys)

I am intrigued.