Today we’re debuting a new original video series on Facebook Watch called Small Thing Big Idea: Designs That Changed the World. Each 3- to 4-minute weekly episode takes a brief but delightful look at the lasting genius of one everyday object – a pencil, for example, or a hoodie – and explains how it is so perfectly […]
Five months ago, BMW i and TED laid down a challenge. What would the future of mobility look like? There were no constraints on time frame or existing technology. The Next Visionaries project was conceived as a free form exercise in innovation and ideation with the goal to surface some truly breakthrough concepts. Ideas poured […]
This week’s featured comment comes from Katie Pirquet, who comments on Ryan Gravel‘s TED Talk: How an old loop of railroads is changing the face of a city. Katie’s comment was the perfect follow-up to watching Ryan’s talk, and a great travel tip for anyone who was really interested in Ryan’s idea! It makes me long to visit […]
Camp: a home under the stars and sun. A space to dream, commune with friends, create — and play. That’s the atmosphere TED Fellows director Tom Rielly wanted to create for this year’s TED Fellows Retreat, which took place at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California, August 25-28. To create the look and […]
In his talk, “Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is,” Chip Kidd (a TED Books designer in his own right) gives a wonderfully concise description of what book cover designers do. He says, “My job is to ask this question: ‘What do stories look like?’” For David Shoemaker, the designer who made the […]
If you’re trick-or-treating tonight but haven’t thought about a costume yet — and you have 20 minutes to run to the dollar store — a modest suggestion: be a TED speaker. You’ll need:
1 pack of fuzzy pipe cleaners
1 pack of pompoms or small foam balls …
In the days before their event in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the team at TEDxChiangMai spent a large chunk of their time collecting stuff. All kinds of stuff — the quirky, the old, the new, the unwanted, the loved and the thoroughly weird — that could be used for a collaborative art project on the big day. […]
Do you think in pictures? These TED fans do — and they capture their thoughts in an idiosyncratic mix of words and text that parallels the way their thoughts flow. Sharon Hwang posted this adorable video on Instagram, showing her thumbing through her notes from TED2014. She writes, “What an amazing week at TED! Leaving […]
What does 5 days of TED feel like? As Lucy Farey-Jones says: “Upon my re-entry to the real world, friends, clients and folks at my firm say: ‘How was TED?’ And there is a big pause from me as my brain tries and fails to sum it up. It’s an impossible question to answer. It’s like […]
Susan Cain is planning a Quiet Revolution. In her classic talk from TED2012, she spoke up for introverts, pointing out the many ways our culture encourages extroversion. “I wasn’t prepared for the intensity and voracity of response to these ideas,” Cain tells the TED Blog two years later. “There’s an enormous hunger for recognition, understanding and […]
A persistent sight in David Sengeh‘s childhood, growing up in Sierra Leone: amputees. Losing a limb was an all-too-common fact in the civil-war-torn region. But as if the loss of a limb weren’t enough, the aftermath was almost worse, Sengeh saw, as he watched family members and friends struggle with ill-fitting, uncomfortable prosthetics that hurt […]
Leyla Acaroglu aims to make people think about how the choices they make on a daily basis affect the environment. And she aims to make thinking about this fun. In today’s TED Talk, Acaroglu turns her attention to four bits of “environmental folklore,” like the idea that it’s more environmentally sound to opt for the paper […]
What might our clothes look like in 50 years? When textile designer Suzanne Lee was researching her book, Fashioning the Future, she found the most interesting answers to that question when she looked beyond the traditional borders of fashion design. Beyond cut, color and cloth, our style in 50 years will be driven by new materials from […]
No two ways about it: Social psychologist Amy Cuddy’s talk from TEDGlobal 2012 touched a nerve, and sparked a sensation. In the talk, “Your body language shapes who you are,” Cuddy offered a free, low-tech life hack: assume a posture for just two minutes — and change your life. The idea caught on, the talk […]
A good story can make a campfire that much eerier. A good story can flip a conversation at a party from completely awkward to wonderful. A good story can glue your nose to a book. And, on screen, a good story can rivet generation after generation. So, uh, how do you tell one? Andrew Stanton, […]
If you look closely at the Lideta Mercato — a shopping mall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, designed by TED Fellow Xavier Vilalta — you will notice a unique pattern on its skin, inspired by the beautiful, bold patterns found on Ethiopian women’s dresses. But if you look closer, you will also notice something else: that […]