What I learned from my first 75 TED videos

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading." TED’s mission statement begins: “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.” TED attracts some of the brightest people on the planet as presenters and as curious participants. A distinctive feature of TED talks is that they have a set time limit. Some talks are 18 minutes (though I’ve seen a few that go over 18 minutes), 12 minutes and 5 minutes. It’s amazing how much focused energized content one can pack into a short amount of time. Those of you who speak know it’s much more difficult to give a great 20 minute talk than it is a great 45 minute message. Expressing the same concept Abraham Lincoln once wrote to a friend, “I would have written you a shorter letter but I didn’t have time.”

I have often enjoyed TED talks so as I was working on my 2012 goals I determined to average one TED video for each of the 365 days of the year. It’s pretty easy to do. In the morning when I go to the gym I simply go to my TED app on my iPhone and watch the featured video of the day. Sometimes with the shorter videos I watch two of them. There are over a thousand TED videos posted so I won’t exhaust my source any time soon. I had to spend some time thinking about it but here are my top ten of my first 75 TED talks

1. Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir—To see how beauty is created…can’t beat Whitacre! I’ve probably used this video more than any other TED to inspire “what could be”
2. Benjamin Zander on music and passion—Check out his enthusiasm and confidence. Could you imagine a pastor beginning a talk by saying, “In the next 20 minutes all of you will want to become followers of Jesus Christ”?
3. Jane McGonigal’s Gaming can make a better world—If you have 20 minutes to invest to learn how gamification will be to this decade what social media was to the last, watch this one.
4. Steven Johnson’s Where good ideas come from—I’ve used this a few time at Leadership Network to describe the social space we use for new ideas to emerge.
5. Kathryn Shulz on being wrong—this one was a sleeper…counterintuitive but I believe she is right…but I could be wrong about her
6. Jane Fonda’s Life’s third act—You’ll love the passion and enthusiasm Jane brings to the encore generation. Her talk is (unknowingly) built around, “the outer man is decaying but the inner man is being renewed day by day.” What are we renewing?
7. Jenna McCarthy’s What you don’t know about marriage—humorous…but a great commitment to marriage
8. Philip Zimbardo’s The Demise of Guys—also humorous but a true commentary of young men today
9. A.J. Jacobs’ year of living biblically—You’ve heard about this guy. He writes down all the commands of the Bible and tries to obey them all. He says “giving thanks” continually was transformational for him. He is now a “reverent atheist.”
10. Erica Frenkel’s The universal anesthesia machine—I had to cut a lot of good talks before I decided on number 10. I think of this invention was compared to cell phone technology and landlines. Someone just thought differently regarding “what could be”

So there are my top ten. A couple months from now I’ll have watched 60 or more TED videos and try to distill my next group of ten. Obviously I’d encourage you to watch all of these but more importantly to think about the people and message behind these talented people. Personally I’ve always been attracted to people who are passionate about what they do…whether I personally like their subject matter or not. I’m glad that whatever is broken in this world…or for what longs to be created, God has put people on this planet whose heart desire is to do that thing…and do it with passion.