Two sessions into my first TED conference, and I'm starting to figure out what it's all about. And I'm also beginning to understand just how difficult it is to translate what happens on stage at TED into words for an audience that isn't there to experience it.

For instance, how do you convey a speech by a brain scientist who tells the profound story of how she was able to experience her own stroke? Jill Bolte Taylor devoted her life to studying mental illnesses until her own brain hemorrhaged when she was 37. It took her eight years to fully recover, and now she dedicates her life to helping other stroke victims recover.

Her story was so moving and captivating, she brought the audience to its feet. She herself was so caught up in the telling of it that she needed a moment at the end to collect herself, as if she had just delivered a powerful Broadway performance.

How do you turn into words the Georges Seurat-like photography by Chris Jordan that converts our excessive consumption into art? Every day, airlines go through 4 million plastic cups, and Jordan shows us what that looks like on canvas. His point is effective: saying 4 million plastic cups is one thing; seeing them is quite another.

How can I possibly replicate John Hodgman's hilarious 15-minute tall tale about his own personal close encounters with aliens? Well, you can probably imagine that one on your own.

Hodgman told me later that he was asked to cut his 18-minute talk (the standard length here at TED) to 15 minutes, so they could fit in Microsoft's not-so surprising announcement of its WorldWide Telescope earlier.

Being the PC that he is, he was gracious enough to comply.

by Megan Barnett