TEDxCincy - October 7, 2010

I’m very excited because TEDxCincy is happening on October 7.  (Cincy = Cincinnati, OH)

If you don’t understand my excitement, then perhaps you are not familiar with TED.com.  

Why am I excited?  Because the TED conferences that have been happening since the late 1980s has been geared to the elite and wealthy.  

In 2006, Chris Anderson made the decision to make the videos from these events public on YouTube.  Once he did that, it began to snowball.

What TED does is support and promotes innovation of all kinds.  TED stands for technology, entertainment, and design. Experts and innovators in all these fields compete to win a TED award. The award is $100,000 - but the real benefit is that you gain access to the TED community.  This community steps up and supports you in all ways.  You might need help with marketing - a new website - connections - the TED community can make all this happen for you.

Great ideas, inventions, and organizations that may have been floundering with no funding and no recognition gain all of that just by speaking at the TED conference.

Until Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor spoke at TED, no one knew who she was, the work she was doing with stroke victims, nor had any interest in her self-published book. Overnight she became a sensation - book publishers competing to publish her book, and interview on Oprah and more.

But the best part of TED for me has been the access to the YouTube videos. It has exposed me to ideas and people I would never have known about otherwise.  It has given me hope to know the great work being conducted all over the world to make this world a better place.  Very inspiring.

This article in the local Cincinnati SoapBox will help explain some of what a TED in Cincinnati will look like.

If you don’t live in Cincinnati, then go to the TED website and search to see if there is a TEDx coming to a city near you. They are popping up all over.

Hope to see you there. Thanks, Elaine