When I saw (and wrote about) the Gapminder presentation, I found TED. And it changed my life. So, what is TED?

TED Conference

As stated in Wikipedia (and I quote):

TED (short for Technology Entertainment Design) is an annual conference in Monterrey, California that describes itself as a global community of remarkable people and remarkable ideas, which is debated by those who see it as a self-congratulatory meeting of wealthy attendees. Its content is extremely broad, including science, art, business, global issues, architecture, music, and comedy. Speakers are from a variety of communities. Speakers have included Jane Goodall, Freeman Dyson, Bill Gates, Billy Graham, Bono, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Richard Dawkins, and Steve Pinker.

And quoting the TED site:

TED was born in 1984 out of the observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a powerful convergence between Technology, Entertainment and Design. The first TED included the public unveiling of the Macintosh computer and the Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and AI guru Marvin Minsky outlined his powerful new model of the mind. Several influential members of the burgeoning ‘digerati’ community were also there, including Nicholas Negroponte and Stewart Brand.

The punchline is "Ideas worth spreading", and that summarize it all. The talks from the TED Conference 2006 are available online, and have a great impact. My favorites so far (I haven’t watched them all yet) are:

• David Pogue - very funny talk on usability and design. Interfaces must be designed simply and intuitively for multitudes to use.
• Sir Ken Robinson - a session on creativity in the education system. If we don't value and reward creativity in our young people, we're wasting skills and talents.
• Malcolm Gladwell - in this talk, filmed at TED2004, he explains what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce.
• Han Rosling - an amazing talk about Gapminder. Priceless!

TED 2007 will start on the 7th of March. Until them, TED will be posting one new talk in the website each week, to download or watch online. For best effect, plan to listen to at least three, start to finish. They have a cumulative effect...

ChangeThis

Following the path of "Ideas worth spreading", ChangeThis is a new website by/for optimistic people. As stated in the website (and I quote):

ChangeThis is creating a new kind of media. A form of media that uses existing tools (like PDFs, blogs and the web) to challenge the way ideas are created and spread.We're on a mission to spread important ideas and change minds.

Some of the manifestos are very interesting, and there is a lot to choose from.

So, choose your format (video or PDF) and start refreshing your brain with ideas worth spreading.