TED2006: a bit of background before it starts

I'm off to Monterey/California for TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design, 22-25 February), one of the world's best conferences. Yes, I'm a bit biased, having produced the first European TED, called TEDGLOBAL, last year in Oxford. But my bias is really marginal. TED is a special event for the speakers it gathers: this year, the list of 45 or so includes former US vice-president Al Gore, designer Amy Smith, aircraft engineer Burt Rutan, philosopher Dan Dennett, futurists Erik Petersen and Nat Irvin, photographer Gregory Colbert, anthropologist Helen Fisher, military strategist Jim Crupi, SixApart founder Mena Trott, musician Peter Gabriel, cave researcher Penelope Boston, Nobel laureate Paul Berg, "Why people believe weird things" author Michael Shermer, 11-year old violinist Sirena Huang, and of course the insanely funny Tom Rielly who will do the traditional comic wrap-up - and I apologize if this sounds like name-dropping: it's just an amazing program (I will try to blog most of it).
But TED is also special for its audience, a big part of which could as easily be on stage (the founders of the big Internet companies are regulars, as are top researchers, amazing writers and bloggers, great designers and architects, globetrotters and local entrepreneurs, and so on: they call themselves TEDsters); for its relentlessly perfectionist organization (having worked with the TED team I'm well positioned to say so), for the great global community it gathers, and for its history. TED was started in 1984 when founder Richard Wurman observed the beginning of a powerful convergence between technology, entertainment and design. The first event featured the unveiling of the Macintosh computer and of the compact disc, as well as Benoit Mandelbrot talking about fractals. But the finances didn't go along with the great lineup of speakers, so it took six years before Wurman tried it again, this time with success. TED has been held in Monterey every year since. For the last three years it has been run by British media entrepreneur Chris Anderson, who sold his publishing house and in 2002 bought TED from Wurman. Chris runs it now as a part of his non-profit Sapling Foundation.
The name of the conference is a bit misleading: the event has grown to be much broader than the three original fields of technology, entertainment and design, encompassing science, media, education, politics, military strategy, literature, spirituality, energy and environmental issues, and more (see the list of speakers above - which, by the way, only have 18 minutes for their speech and are never paid for it). Chris is also adamant in not letting the sponsors take over the event: sponsorship is never linked to a speaking slot, and TED doesn't feature an annexed exhibition: there is a "display room" but it's more about providing relevant and new content to attendees than pushing products. Auto maker GM, for example, is a sponsor: last year, attendees could sign up to test-drive around Monterey a GM prototype hydrogen car.
TED has developed in several directions recently. Last year, it awarded the first TEDprize, which goes to "people with the potential to change the world". It was given to the U2 singer (and Africa advocate) Bono, to the Canadian nature photographer Ed Burtynsky, and to medical-devices inventor Robert Fischell. The price is significant: winners (selected among candidates nominated by TEDsters and the general public) get a USD 100'000 check and the chance to express wishes in front of the TED audience, asking for help in making the wish come true. Bono asked for help in connecting every school and hospital in one African country (Ethiopia) to the Internet - and because that audience features alot of people from Silicon Valley, a group spontaneously formed and individuals and companies committed support; there was a serious push, but teachers, doctors and government pushed back, so the project is being reassessed, and something similar is now going on in Rwanda. Bono also asked for help "in building a social movement of more than 1 million American activists for Africa": done, too. Fischell asked for help in designing a light and portable version of an anti-migraine device he had invented - and with an audience full of designers, that's been done, with the help of Ideo. Finally, Burtynsky showed some of his stunning photographs of man-modified landscaped, and wished that they could be used to "make people think harder about our planet's future".
They were images of devastated landscapes (such as the uranium waste desert that he photographed in Canada and that I'm reproducing below), modified rivers, mountains of discarded tires, soulless giant cities, etc: illustrations of how we have changed the world and the grim future that we are preparing.

The campaign calls for "changing the world again", this time to make it greener, sustainable, prosperous, dynamic - and it is on the Worldchanging website. Why Worldchanging? Because at TED last year Burtynsky asked the audience for advice on how to turn the emotional impact of his pictures into action, and one of the answers was: encourage them to visit and support Worldchanging - a great blog covering the "sustainable future" and highlighting related models, solutions and ideas, and definitely one of the must-read sites of today. So I invite you to take three minutes of your time, go to the campaign page, look at the short video they put together using Burtynsky's pictures (and Michael Montes' soundtrack), forward the link to as many people as you can, link to it on your blog, and - if you can - contribute even modestly to the Worldchanging fundraising (I just did). (The video by the way has been projected on big screens in the streets of Hong Kong these last days).
The winners of this year's TEDprize, who will be expressing their wishes at TED, are: Cameron Sinclair, the founder of "Architecture for Humanity"; public-health advocate Larry Brilliant (his most recent work is on bird flu); and Jehane Noujaim, the filmmaker behind "Control Room", the controversial documentary following events at Al Jazeera at the beginning of the Irak war.
TED did a few more things last year. As said, it launched TEDGLOBAL, the first European TED, which took place in July in Oxford and which I produced. It was intended to internationalize TED (the list of speakers at the beginning of this post suggests that TED's main weakness - and probably the only one - still is its Americano-centrism): attended by 375 people from over 20 countries, featuring great speakers from all over the world, blessed by fantastic weather, TEDGLOBAL was a success. The UK Sunday paper Observer called it "a G8 of the mind". Many people have asked me if it will take place again. Not this year; but TED is exploring options for 2007.
Last fall TED also launched its blog and introduced the idea of a TED University, a kind of pre-conference series of master classes by leading experts (they will take place this coming Wednesday morning) which will probably have an extension online.
A measure of the success of a conference is certainly the rate of returning attendees. TED's is up there at the top, despite the high participation fee (USD 4400): last year, during the last day of the conference, Chris announced that the tickets for the main hall (500 seats) for 2006 were all gone (the conference has a second "simulcast" room where another 500 people can sit and watch the speakers via a live video link - and it is also always full). In 2007 the conference's theme will be "Icons. Geniuses. Mavericks", and here is how Chris explains it: "Instead of a subject-matter theme, we will simply put on stage fifty remarkable people, and let them share whatever it is they are passionate about". With four days to go before the TED2006 gathering starts, there are only a couple dozen passes left for the main hall for 2007...
More on all of this starting Wednesday.

(tags TED2006 - TED 2006 - TED prize)