Here are my top picks from TED so far (and sorry Dad – none of the astronomy/physics stuff has made my top list!). 

Wade Davis – Anthropologist

Value of all people, nations, civilisations

Beautiful photography; amazing spiritual journey in South America.

Key point:  The different peoples of the world are not failed attempts at being modern but rather represent a myriad of voices with unique answers.   All of humanity is descended from 1000 ancestors only.

What it means to me: I was jolted by the realisation that I have (had?) an arrogant, euro-centric view of the world and that there is so much more to enjoy and to value.

Chris Jordan – Artist

Uses art to take people to help people understand some of the big issues

Key Point: Translates data into a universal visual language that can be felt by people and prompt change.

What it means to me:  facts and figures need to move people emotionally for them to connect and to take action.

Jill Bolte Taylor – Neuroanatomist

What it means to be human

A brain scientist who had a stroke and studied her recovery process as a person and as a scientist.  Extremely moving.

Key Point: that we are hard-wired for a deep inner peace circuitry that many of us don’t realise particularly if professionally we focus on being linear and methodical.

What it means to me:  how can I unlock the right side of my brain?

Doris Kearns Goodwin – Historian

A wonderful storyteller drawing concrete lessons from the lives of past U.S presidents.

Key Point: for a good life we need work, play and love

What it meant to me: connected emotionally with the theme of balance; reminded about the power of story.

Philip Zimbardo – Social Psychologist

Exploration of what makes people do evil things

Key Point: That heroes are ordinary people and that ordinary people are heroes-in-waiting.  We need to build the heroic imagination in ourselves and with the people around us.

What it meant to me:  What is my heroic imagination?  What does it look like?

TED Prize Winners – Dave Eggers; Neil Turok; Karen Armstrong

Key Point: Simply inspirational; real people using their passions to change the world.  Not a dry eye in the house.

What it means to me: Wow – what am I doing with my life that is important?

When I travel overseas I usually return to NZ feeling what a great job we do of customer service.  Not so this trip.

Absolutely awful start with Air New Zealand. The plane that we were scheduled to travel on had a defective slide so they could only take a certain number of passengers.  Lucky us - and good ol’ Air NZ we thought - because we were scheduled for an international connection they kept us on the flight.  We duly boarded and then spent 1.5 hours on the ground while they ‘trimmed’ the plane…worked out how much weight was safe to fly with.  They accomplished this by loading and unloading both passengers and freight.  What was truly appalling was how little anyone seemed to know about what was going on.  Once we were in the air our pilot apparently radioed multiple times to Auckland to find out about connecting flights but with no response.  Of course, we missed our flight and then had to endure multiple queues, including the most appalling display of ‘more than my jobs worth’ at the LA United Airline desk.

The great service we’ve been getting in San Franscisco has gone a long way to correcting my prejudice about Americans and service.  This included:

- the taxi driver who knew exactly where our hotel was and how to navigate the traffic to get there…one of the best runs ever

- the hotel who told us that the room that we had booked was not available for the first night and that they would put us in a different room for that one night for free

- the shop assistants, unfailingly polite and helpful.

Amazing!

I didn’t see much new in ‘Success: Built to Last by Jerry Porras but recently listened to a podcast by Jerry Porras on the book.  The two key messages were:

• find something you’re passionate about
• take the time to be really, really good at it

And the ‘taking the time’ is the 10,000 hours rule.  That is, that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery.  That fills me partly with hope and partly with disappointment.  Being something of a generalist, I wonder if I’m close to 10,000 hours on anything.  However, the 10,000 hours is also a nice get out of jail free card - after all if I’m not where I want to be maybe I just need to spend more hours?  Does every complex skill require 10,000 hours and is it 10,000 direct hours or 10,000 hours doing/learning that complex skill and other skills that at some point might just intersect…. or not?  And if you find an expert to model can you shortcut all of those hours?

I’m still thinking about this 10,000 hours thing.