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Ahead of TED
by Megan Barnett
Feb 22 2008
Feb 22 2008
"Davos for optimists" will probe dark questions this year, its last gathering in Monterey, California, before it moves to bigger digs down the coast in Long Beach.
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Chris Anderson and the other folks behind TED (which stands for technology, entertainment, and design) have managed to maintain something few conference organizers can: exclusivity.
TED's invitation-only annual gathering, which starts Wednesday in Monterey, California, brings together an eclectic mix of academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, moguls, environmentalists, philosophers, and just a dash of Hollywood.
It's been called the "Davos for optimists," a reference to the glittery global gathering in that Swiss ski resort by the World Economic Forum. Like Davos, TED has been called a place to "meet people who are smarter than you are," and "something blending a graduate seminar and a revival meeting."
In short, it's an intimate conference in hot demand with limited seating. Only 1,100 guests will receive badges at the door in Monterey in exchange for their $6,000 fee; fewer than half of them will be able to see the speakers live in the main auditorium—the rest will watch a simulcast from another room. Another 300 guests paying $3,000 each will watch the broadcast live from Aspen, Colorado.
The annual TED conference has evolved from a tech-fest when it started in 1984 into an idea lab for solving the world's social and environmental ills today. The four-day gathering is meant to inspire its attendees to go out into the world and proselytize change.
Judging by this year's theme, they won't walk away disappointed. Its speakers will aim to answer "The Big Questions." These would include everything from the profound "Who Are We?" to the provocative "Will Evil Prevail?" to the more light-hearted "Is Beauty Truth?"
Each session features four or five speakers in short consecutive segments. TED invited an anthropologist, a paleoanthropologist, an artist, and a neuroanatomist to try to solve the "Who Are We?" riddle.
Once the audience has absorbed that question, they will move on to the equally perplexing "What Is Our Place in the Universe?" The session includes a guitarist, a spiritual teacher, and actor John Hodgman, a self-proclaimed "expert" who is better known as the PC character in Apple's Macintosh commercials.
The well-known geneticist Craig Venter will open the session on "What Is Life?" on Thursday. A psychologist and the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin will follow him, as will a DNA origamist—someone who weaves DNA molecules into nanometer-scale patterns using a process that could be used to create molecular-scale computers, drug delivery systems, or chemical factories.
The fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi is among the speakers who will tackle the subject of beauty.
TED's invitation-only annual gathering, which starts Wednesday in Monterey, California, brings together an eclectic mix of academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, moguls, environmentalists, philosophers, and just a dash of Hollywood.
It's been called the "Davos for optimists," a reference to the glittery global gathering in that Swiss ski resort by the World Economic Forum. Like Davos, TED has been called a place to "meet people who are smarter than you are," and "something blending a graduate seminar and a revival meeting."
In short, it's an intimate conference in hot demand with limited seating. Only 1,100 guests will receive badges at the door in Monterey in exchange for their $6,000 fee; fewer than half of them will be able to see the speakers live in the main auditorium—the rest will watch a simulcast from another room. Another 300 guests paying $3,000 each will watch the broadcast live from Aspen, Colorado.
The annual TED conference has evolved from a tech-fest when it started in 1984 into an idea lab for solving the world's social and environmental ills today. The four-day gathering is meant to inspire its attendees to go out into the world and proselytize change.
Judging by this year's theme, they won't walk away disappointed. Its speakers will aim to answer "The Big Questions." These would include everything from the profound "Who Are We?" to the provocative "Will Evil Prevail?" to the more light-hearted "Is Beauty Truth?"
Each session features four or five speakers in short consecutive segments. TED invited an anthropologist, a paleoanthropologist, an artist, and a neuroanatomist to try to solve the "Who Are We?" riddle.
Once the audience has absorbed that question, they will move on to the equally perplexing "What Is Our Place in the Universe?" The session includes a guitarist, a spiritual teacher, and actor John Hodgman, a self-proclaimed "expert" who is better known as the PC character in Apple's Macintosh commercials.
The well-known geneticist Craig Venter will open the session on "What Is Life?" on Thursday. A psychologist and the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin will follow him, as will a DNA origamist—someone who weaves DNA molecules into nanometer-scale patterns using a process that could be used to create molecular-scale computers, drug delivery systems, or chemical factories.
The fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi is among the speakers who will tackle the subject of beauty.
TED recognized that no session on the subject of evil is complete without Stanford psychology professor emeritus Philip Zimbardo. In 1971, he conducted a famous experiment in which ordinary people were cast as guards and prisoners in a mock jail setting; many of the "guards" began to act brutally, while many "prisoners" showed signs of emotional trauma.
This year's TED Prize winners, Cambridge physicist Neil Turok, author Dave Eggers, and lecturer and writer Karen Armstrong will address the question "How Can We Change the World?" (For more on their efforts, see their profiles: Turok, Eggers, Armstrong.)
On Friday, novelist Amy Tan will join an origami artist, a product designer, a visual effects supervisor, and a composer to answer the question "How Do We Create?"
Another session, "What's Out There?", will feature ideas from a mix of professionals, including an ocean explorer, an animal behaviorist, and a futurist. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a scholar of randomness, and Walter Isaacson, former editor of Time magazine, will speculate about what tomorrow will bring.
And for "What Stirs Us?", TED invited a photography editor, a novelist, an anthropologist, and the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra to shed some light.
On Saturday, the closing day of the conference, Al Gore will be among those answering the question "How Dare We Be Optimistic?" Gore gave his climate-change presentation to attendees of the 2006 TED conference, and this year the Nobel Prize-winning former vice president will discuss a new topic that hasn't yet been disclosed.
The TED conference will surely end on a positive note, with the question "What Is the Point?" being answered by the musician Bob Geldof and the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis.
Attendees will close out the four-day think-fest with a barbecue lunch on the shore in Monterey. It will be a bittersweet beach party, since it's the last year the conference will be held here. TED announced that, starting next year, the conference will move down the California coast to Long Beach.
But don't expect a bigger venue to make it any easier for just anyone with $6,000 and a burning curiosity to attend. Its organizers plan to invite only 100 more guests next year, even though the facility seats more than 3,000.
This year's TED Prize winners, Cambridge physicist Neil Turok, author Dave Eggers, and lecturer and writer Karen Armstrong will address the question "How Can We Change the World?" (For more on their efforts, see their profiles: Turok, Eggers, Armstrong.)
On Friday, novelist Amy Tan will join an origami artist, a product designer, a visual effects supervisor, and a composer to answer the question "How Do We Create?"
Another session, "What's Out There?", will feature ideas from a mix of professionals, including an ocean explorer, an animal behaviorist, and a futurist. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a scholar of randomness, and Walter Isaacson, former editor of Time magazine, will speculate about what tomorrow will bring.
And for "What Stirs Us?", TED invited a photography editor, a novelist, an anthropologist, and the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra to shed some light.
On Saturday, the closing day of the conference, Al Gore will be among those answering the question "How Dare We Be Optimistic?" Gore gave his climate-change presentation to attendees of the 2006 TED conference, and this year the Nobel Prize-winning former vice president will discuss a new topic that hasn't yet been disclosed.
The TED conference will surely end on a positive note, with the question "What Is the Point?" being answered by the musician Bob Geldof and the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis.
Attendees will close out the four-day think-fest with a barbecue lunch on the shore in Monterey. It will be a bittersweet beach party, since it's the last year the conference will be held here. TED announced that, starting next year, the conference will move down the California coast to Long Beach.
But don't expect a bigger venue to make it any easier for just anyone with $6,000 and a burning curiosity to attend. Its organizers plan to invite only 100 more guests next year, even though the facility seats more than 3,000.
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