That’s the slogan at TED. Well, the exact slogan is “Ideas worth spreading.” I’ve heard about this TED thing a couple years back, all I knew back then that it was some sort of conference. I bumped into their site from one of the blogs that I read, and it sure is a treasure to find.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference, where a bunch of people get together and listen to great minds share literally everything from methods on preserving the forest in Borneo, eliminating poverty, the next breakthrough technology on cellphones, the reason why we feel happiness, up to the perfect tomato sauce for making a pasta.

To quote from their own ‘About’ section:

“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).”

The talks are remarkable. Opening minds. Inspiring. Uplifting. Shared by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers. Delivered in a compact, bite-size digestable 18 minutes. Sometimes it’s about making a clear point on a serious issue. Sometimes it’s not about making a point at all. Sometimes it’s Bill Gates, sometimes it’s a comedian showing his latest routine. But all of them are entertaining.

And you know what? It’s free. Free to view, free to share, free to embed, free to download. As they say, “Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world.” I watch one or two everynite, and everynite I learn something new (that is until I run out of talks to watch). I encourage you to do the same. Believe me, it’s a lot better, and nutritious, than the late nite shopping channel 🙂

To give you a taste on how great these talks are, I’m going to embed a couple of them here. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the best selling book, “Eat, Pray, Love” (I’m sure you guys have seen it in a bookstore somewhere, I myself haven’t got the chance to grab one, but it’s on top of the list) – shared to us, that she believed that the creativity of a great artist, is not entirely dependent on oneself, but also on an outside being. To my ears, the basic point that she wanted to say is, man’s creativity is dependant on God. Now that is a bold thing to say in a secular conference, but she managed to convey it in such a manner and such beautiful words, that it makes people stop and actually ponder (which is the main point of the whole conference: to be heard). I’m quite surprised that she got a standing ovation in the end, eventhough she talked about a non-popular topic.

Siftables, the toy blocks that think

And, a quite clever parrot

I think, what the TED guys doing is a noble and remarkable work. People who have important (or not so important 🙂 ) ideas need a podium and a microphone to say what they need to say to the world. TED provides just that. It also shows that the Internet, once again, have really changed the way our world turns around.

Come on, tune in. And see how deep the rabbit hole goes 🙂