Benjamin Zander Conductor

Amazing speaker. Passionate, funny, brilliant. By mid way through I'm dying to go hear some classical music, and that's a hell of an accomplishment. Funny, he just said that he will not continue his talk until every single one of us loves classical music. So he starts playing piano...chopin is his first choice. OMG this man is fabulous. I though about cutting out an I'm so glad I didn't. He, in 15 short minutes has 1600 people listening for the E and loving every moment. This is the TED video you have to share with your kids and parents. Your parents will cry, your kids may embrace it in a way you hadn't thought possible. he says we all love classical but many of us just don't know it yet. He said something dramatic that will stick with me and applies to many aspects of life. He says that as a conductor, he can't make a sound. His mission is to draw the best out of his orchestra. To get the listeners and players to have "shining eyes". He says success for him is about how many shining eyes I have around me. More than any of the talks, I see shining eyes all around me.

After he was done and the longest and loudest ovation so far, he had everyone singing Ode to Joy. As he was trying to motivate the crowd to engage....He made a comment the meaning of which I hope I never forget...paraphrased...A true leader finds ways to get things out of people that they didn't even know they had in them!

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Chris Abani writer

Published since he was 16, in jail in Nigeria soon thereafter (i think i got that right!). After two more imprisonments he turned to poetry. His stories are amazing, he talks about the horrors he saw and heard about as a child. Some are simply horrific. He's an amazing story teller and some of his stories, not the most horrific but the ones about cultural issues, like a few of those he told remind me of my time teaching in the jungles of Sumatra. Some things just didn't make sense. I remember being in the midst of a cholera epidemic that killed hundreds every day. Ironic that the front page of the Bengkulu Sumatra paper was about 14 (or so) Americans who died of legionnaires disease, a new thing at the time. A tiny paragraph on the last page was dedicated to the latest death toll in their own province. I deduced that the financial impact of the death of those Americans far exceeded that of the Indonesians, but i couldn't understand, nor could they explain why the 18 Americans dying was more newsworthy than the deaths of their neighbors.


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David Griffin Natl Geographic Director of Photography

as one would expect, incredible images....photographs emulate our minds...it's not just about capturing an image, it's about connecting with the viewer as if they were there, not just visually but emotionally. they've added a section to their website a "your photo" for reader submissions. "you need to know how to create a visual narrative".

helen fisher anthropologist (of love)

college students were asked:
have you ever been rejected by someone who you really loved?
have you ever dumped anyone who really loved you?
95% said yes to both
"romantic love is one of the most powerful sensation" on earth she says and so she studies it's "biochemical foundations and its vital importance to human society". she's studying data now on
people who had suffered a romantic loss. she has learned that romantic love is a basic drive (not the same as sexual drive). it's an addiction and it's great when good and horrible when it's not going well. you crave, you distort reality, you take enormous risks you wouldn't normally take.
indeed she says "romantic love is one of the most addictive" things on the planet. her newest experiment is testing people who are still in a long relationship and say that they are still deeply in love to try and determine the origins of love and why we can walk into a room full of people who may be similar and be romantically attracted to one.

closing: "love is in us and deeply embedded in our brains."

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decided to take a break from blogging and absorb

I decided to take some time to just absorb...here's who you missed, but keep an eye out as ted.com will be posting them soon. For more info now, just check the websites listed:

Walter Isaacson Aspen Institute CEO (our amazing conference hosts) website
Sue Goldie Public Health Scientist website
Peter Schwartz Futurist website
Nassim Nicholas Scholar of Randomness website

Richard Preston science writer

Incredible author, he's written some scary stuff on everything from ebola to cobras to bioterror to.....redwoods! so what up with that? it seems that he tired of the horrific nature of his other work, though that's not clear.

he spent much of the time talking about redwoods, which are near and dear to me having spent 7 years of my life living amongst them. that being said, i never would have actually thought about climbing one, yet he's climbed the tallest. he has found berries, mosses, lichen and all kinds of interesting other life.

richardpreston.net

Paul Stamets mycologist/mushroom scholar

a man who spends all his time with mushrooms. he has 22 patents and rails against mushroom prejudice. he thinks that there are thousands of uses and applications for mushrooms, from antibiotic and other medicinal uses to terraform planets "by sowing a mix of fungai spores and other seeds." ways to address global issues:
1. using mycellium to absorb oil (think oil spills!). the mushroms absorbed the oil, killed the smell and attracted other life forms
2. a rare fungus that grows in US forests is being used for flu viruses, defense purposes..........problem these guys only grow in old growth forests
3. used against insects and could revolutionize the way we deal with this..
people are giggling, openly asking if he's a nut or not...did he eat too many of the wrong kind?
4. econol, a mushroom derivative which could be used for energy

"I believe engaging mycellium can save the world"
really really, out of the box stuff in one way, but in another way so cool in its simplicity and the potential!


www.fungi.com