For those who don't know of TED, it is a curatorial organization that brings together the brightest minds in technology, entertainment and design, and bestows upon them an annually occurring safe-haven to incubate big ideas amongst like-minded idealists. Since the TED conference is of limited engagement -- and a fairly pricey ticket -- the audience itself tends to be a relatively well-off cross section of the intellectual elite. Often selling out a year in advance, the exclusivity of the event has taken on an almost mythical quality for its impenetrability.
Enter TEDActive. The interactive offshoot of the traditional TED experience, TEDActive -- or TED's hipper, younger brother -- would seem the perfect petri dish for eager minds to share and marinate in the luminous brilliance of the speakers on the main stage. The event basically centers around a high-def simulcast of the main presentation, from inside a picturesque resort where most attendees are actually staying -- a contrast to the live TED which does not include the on-site resort experience.
I attended TEDActive this past week in Palm Springs (about two hours from the main conference in Long Beach) and noticed immediately the breadth of utterly fascinating people who made up the attendee list. Energetic, immediately disarmed, and free of the constraints normally governing social interaction, it felt more like an escape to a secret commune of artists, thinkers and young entrepreneurs than it did a conference. And to that end, the guest list seemed as well curated as the speakers themselves. Open and fully receptive to one another, the experience was reminiscent of a childhood playground where one's worth is measured more by the creativity of their words and actions than any of the formalities that would restrain them.
Speaking of which, the theme of this year's conference was "What The World Needs Now," imploring the gamut of speakers to relate their respective expertise to the fevered pitch of issues facing the world today: poverty, the HIV crisis in Africa, the obesity epidemic, global warming, etc. However, despite the eclectic backgrounds of the speakers -- including names like Bill Gates, Temple Grandin, James Cameron, William Li, Jamie Oliver, Elizabeth Pisani and Sir Ken Robinson -- one motif consistently stood out: the idea of play. Yes, play. Thinking outside the box and following one's primordial sense of awe and wonder to conceive of and accomplish the seemingly impossible.
Whether it was Temple Grandin challenging us to appreciate details, Jamie Oliver passionately antagonizing the public school system to inform our nutritionally-misguided youth, Jane McConigal asking us to see the world through a gamer's sense of optimism, or David Rockwell who implored us to pursue our dreams with the fervor of children in a playground... It appears that the boldness to question our seeming limitations -- or to "disengage with common sense," as the delightfully erudite Sir Ken Robinson put it -- may come not from a sense of arrogance or aggression, but instead from a childlike sense of naiveté, and an imagination that refuses to be told "no." The same naiveté that inspired James Cameron to find a way for a major studio to fund his deep-sea scuba-dive-of-a-lifetime (Titanic) just might be helpful in swaying the public from enabling destructive factory farms towards empowering and supporting local producers -- for example.
But in the end, after a week of hanging out with some of the brightest minds I've ever gotten to know and getting to ruminate in talks surely destined for viral fame once they hit TED.com, I suppose I've figured out what TEDActive is all about. Taking a moment to set aside our conventional adult roles to indulge the imagination, and to look at -- and celebrate -- all of our big ideas as we did when we viewed the world through, perhaps, less cynical eyes. During most of the sessions at this year's TEDActive, as my adult brain grappled with the idea of a world with dramatically lower HIV infection rates (Elizabeth Pisani), suspended animation for treating trauma and disease (Mark Roth), drastically healthier school lunch menus (Jamie Oliver), or even a nutritional cure for cancer (William Li), my inner 9-year-old was doing double backflips.
Take a look at Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish.