I was there, watching mad hula hoopers, witnessing the democratization of the view of Earth from space, and listening to a guy who put a robot on Mars. I love TED talks for a lot of the same reasons other people do. they remind me that there are people out there doing bold new things, whether they’re tv producers who discovered the value of working with their hands to philosophy professors building open source brains. There’s a surge of doingness that overcomes when when I listen to people who are blazing trails and taming the unknown. But that wasn’t the most important thing that happened at TEDxWaterloo.
Conferences like that are always an opportunity to meet with people you haven’t seen in a while, and blogging (along with my burgeoning addiction to Kingdoms of Amalur) has kept me from getting out much lately. And places like TEDx lends themselves to more than the “Hi, how’re you doing?” of casual encounters. People are infected by that doingness, excited to try new things and explore new horizons, so I didn’t just see people. I have a date to buy beer for the Dandy crew and talk business development, and in the next few weeks I’ll be giving guitar lessons to a local mobile marketer and Mercedes enthusiast who wants to explore his creative side more.
What’s interesting to me about the conference is that, despite the theme being Chasing Home, I didn’t feel at home there, not like I had the past two years. I was in a bit of a mood and felt out of place, continually thinking about the work I had waiting for me. But when I reflect on it, it’s because I wanted to feel the doingness, but I couldn’t. I already had it. Since my first TEDx two years ago I’ve written four hundred blog posts, stated consulting, gotten a graduate degree, organized a fundraiser, played in two bands, and done a million other things. Some of them went well, and some of them went poorly, but I was doing them. I caught the bug. I still have it. What’s exciting about TEDx is watching other people catch it, and there were a lot of fresh faces there this year.
The videos will be online soon, so you’ll be able to see them for yourself, but here’s my sort of lightning roundup.
- Holly Painter’s poem was nothing short of amazing, her delivery bang on (and no wonder, her being a slam champion. This slam poetry thing is really starting to grow on me. I blame the KW Poetry Slam).
- Dr. Grahn’s burst of Aphex Twin in her talk on how music interacts with neuroscience (this year was really science heavy, rather than tech) made me crave new music.
- Aygul Memet’s stunning hooping aside, the thing that really shone was her calm smile. she was entirely relaxed, at home on that stage amidst spinning acrobatics.
- I’ve seen Chris Eliasmith talk about Spaun before, it’s part and paercel of ebing in the philosophy department, but he did a really great nontechnical take, and the robot was new. I thought of a great name for it, “Skynet.”
- Rob Manning blew my mind. Chief engineer of the Curiosity project, he built a thing that traveled to another planet. Another fucking planet. We are digging holes on another world (to lay the foundation for a Starbucks).
- Dr. Greenberg’s talk about children and healing really hit a chord. It’s what we do with Headshots from the Heart, focusing on other aspects of healing so doctors can focus on curing patients.
There were a lot of great talks, and the performance by Andria Simone had my heart in my throat. But the one that really hit me was the one I didn’t expect. Mag Ruffman. her talk wasn’t about science, or tech, or anything super complicated or technical. It was simple. Make things. Play around with your head and your hands and make things. She’s done a lot of things, but it’s the most satisfying. I get that, though I can’t work with my hands for a damn. Dan and I were doing a sculpture project last year, and there was a point where he said “Jim, put down the scissors and go update the website.” I make music, and writing, and ideas, where Mag makes physical stuff like hats and carvings. It’s all the same part of the brain, though.
So that was my TEDxWaterloo. Finding new doingness, seeing great people, being moved. Were you there? what are you taking away from it, or from another TED event you’ve been to?
