We’re attending the 25th Anniversary of TED, which is proving to be yet another extraordinary tour de force of mind expanding speakers and entertainers. Al Gore followed up on last year’s disturbing new environmental scientific data with some even more disturbing beta and a strong attack on “clean coal”. Bill Gates proved himself to be a genuinely humorous speaker and charmed TEDsters with his foundation’s work on Malaria and educational issues. Gates shared a couch with normally cognizant TED curator Chris Anderson, who brought further laughs as he unwittingly opened up his Apple MacBook next to the Microsoft CEO to read e-mailed questions to him.
Juan Enriquez opened up with, among other topics, an eye-opening reality check on how bad the banking situation is. The true father of the Internet (not you Al), Tim Barners-Lee spoke on the need for more raw data sharing and its ability to advance humankind and solve pressing issues. Yann Arthus-Bertrand showed beautiful film footage that highlighted the global environmental condition and made everyone pause. “Dancing Man” Matt Harding’s (famous for dancing around the world on YouTube) got both TED locations dancing. The musical hit of the day were instrumentless hip hop artists Naturally 7, who arrived fresh from their WEF Davos appearance and blew everyone away. For those who enjoy rubbing elbows with celebrities and progressive industry leaders, there are plenty to go around here. But alas, this is a trendspotting blog, not Perez Hilton.
Congratulations to Alan, who went above and beyond the call of duty by not only making clever acronyms, but also created some banner art to go along with them.
It was so good that I was momentarily fooled into believing this was part of the conference.
Thanks, as always, to everyone who came up with an ATEAM (That’s Acronym To Excel Above Mediocrity). We’ll see you next week.
Bespectled San Francisco eyes will be on open source social effort the Workbook Project this weekend as they bring their audience-selected film festival and conference to the city. First, on Friday, August 15, filmgoers are invited to use their mobile phones to select which of 22 films will be screened in the evening at Mint Plaza (a video description is available here).
During the day on Sunday, the DIY Days summit at bar/gallery 111 Minna will tackle the ever-increasing difficulty of independent film finance and distribution. Webby Awards creator and local filmmaker extraordinaire Tiffany Shlain will be presenting and a variety of program directors, content acquisitions gurus, and producers will be in attendance (although only one self-described Mega Professional Amateur Comic Artist has signed up so far). The August 17 program will be gratis thanks to distribution festival From Here to Awesome and Current TV. Of particular interest to Bay Area content creators are daytime panels on audience building and the blanket “craft of cross-media.â€
Do you like to spend your mornings discussing trends and inspiration while saving your afternoons to ruminate on creative ideas? Then the PSFK Conference in San Francisco sounds right up your alley. Following on the heels of successful conferences in NYC, London and L.A., the trendspotter’s fifth meeting of the minds taking place at the Fort Mason Center this Thursday July 17th and will feature some truly innovative speakers and panelists who run the gamut from NASA to FunnyOrDie.com. The lineup is packed with Spear favorites like Amit Gupta and Jen Bekman. Bay Area JS.com readers, go forth and learn!
Congratulations to Alan, who went above and beyond the call of duty by not only making clever acronyms, but also created some banner art to go along with them.
