Tag Archives: TED

Video: TED Talk: Dare to Disagree

Videos

My Friday video this week is from another TED talk, Dare to Disagree, by Margaret Heffernan. If you don’t see it here, you can click the link: http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree?language=en. We are in very strange times, in my view, based on 60+ years of life in the U.S.A. We need to find a way back to working together and objective truth. And that starts with acknowledging that serious people can disagree on real issues, and that doesn’t divide us into warring tribes. We need to figure out how to disagree.

I find this quote significant:

The fact is that most of the biggest catastrophes that we’ve witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to, because we can’t handle, don’t want to handle, the conflict that it provokes. But when we dare to break that silence, or when we dare to see, and we create conflict, we enable ourselves and the people around us to do our very best thinking.

Understand the New World

Marketing, Social media, Videos, ,

My Friday video this week in six years old now but still important. This is what is slowly and steadily replacing advertising. Here’s a quote:

There is good news around the corner — really good news. I call it the idea of tribes. What tribes are, is a very simple concept that goes back 50,000 years. It’s about leading and connecting people and ideas. And it’s something that people have wanted forever. Lots of people are used to having a spiritual tribe, or a church tribe, having a work tribe, having a community tribe. But now, thanks to the internet, thanks to the explosion of mass media, thanks to a lot of other things that are bubbling through our society around the world, tribes are everywhere.

Here’s the link to the TED site that hosts this talk: Seth Godin on the Tribes We Lead.

True Story of Beating a Patent Troll

Intellectual Property, ,

The patent system as it relates to software and the web and mobile apps is broken. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t protect the right people and it’s being used by the wrong people for what amounts to extortion.

Oh, I’m sorry — you didn’t know that? Just my opinion, you say? Yes. My opinion. And I’m not an attorney, so what do I know. Ask me in person and I’ll tell you some stories of what I know. But not on this blog. 

And I don’t know diddly about patents and patent situations regarding real inventions, formulas, drugs, manufactured hard goods, or any of that. Do those people have trolls too? I don’t know. 

But I really liked this quick (5 minutes or so) true story that I found over the weekend, browsing TED.com

Note: if you don’t see the video here, then use this link. 

How Human Recall Screws Up Management and What To Do About It

Leadership, Management, , ,

When the experts dig down into it, human recall doesn’t work. What you remember isn’t what happened; it’s a mosaic of truth, impressions, past experience, guesswork, etc. If you have any doubt, watch the riddle of experience vs. memory and why eyewitnesses get it wrong on TED. 

bigstock stones path management

This cuts hard into the fundamentals of management. What do you do with following up on what was said, and what was done, when every individual story is different? And no one story is more valid than the other? We agreed what? When? 

Traditional management makes this simple: the boss’ version is correct. Just like they say that history is written by the winners. 

The right way, however, is also simple, but only if you have the patience and discipline to record the steps:

  1. Always look for objective measurable goals and progress reporting. Sales and costs and expenses are obvious, but also tweets, follows, likes, leads, calls, presentations, minutes, trips, or whatever. Agree on the future goals and acceptable progress. Make something both boss and worker can track, via objective tools. Make the numbers visible. 
  2. Track, measure, and follow up. Watch the progress. Review performance. 

Everybody wants a score. Everybody wants to be in charge of their own numbers. Make it real. 

How to Fix the USA: Excellent TED Talk

Current Affairs, ,

If you’re a citizen of the USA you should spend the minutes to listed to to Lawrence Lessig’s TED talk, “We the people and the republic we must reclaim.” This is completely bipartisan, spans liberals and conservatives, and addresses problems that affect all of us, regardless of views on any specific issue. 

I’m embedding it here, but if you don’t see it, please click this link to watch it on YouTube instead. 

20 Excellent Online TED Talks

Business Education, Creativity, ,

TED — stands for Technology, Education, and Design — is a great resource. They recently posted their top 20 most watched talks. This is a great resource. I’m happy to see that I’ve already posted, previously, several of these on this blog. And this is a great list. 

  1. Sir Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity (2006): 13,409,417 views
  2. Jill Bolte Taylor‘s stroke of insight (2008): 10,409,851
  3. Pranav Mistry on the thrilling potential of SixthSense (2009): 9,223,263
  4. David Gallo‘s underwater astonishments (2007): 7,879,541
  5. Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense (2009): 7,467,580
  6. Tony Robbins asks Why we do what we do (2006): 6,879,488
  7. Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action (2010): 6,050,294
  8. Steve Jobs on how to live before you die (2005): 5,444,022
  9. Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen (2006): 4,966,643
  10. Brene Brown talks about the power of vulnerability (2010): 4,763,038
  11. Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation (2009): 4,706,241
  12. Arthur Benjamin does mathemagic (2005): 4,658,425
  13. Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing your genius (2009): 4,538,037
  14. Dan Gilbert asks: Why are we happy? (2004): 4,269,082
  15. Stephen Hawking asks big questions about the universe (2008): 4,153,105
  16. Jeff Han demos his breakthrough multi-touchscreen (2006): 3,891,251
  17. Johnny Lee shows Wii Remote hacks for educators (2008): 3,869,417
  18. Keith Barry does brain magic (2004): 3,847,893
  19. Mary Roach 10 things you didn’t know about orgasm (2009): 3,810,630
  20. Vijay Kumar demos robots that fly like birds (2012): 3,535,340

I post about education and particularly business education on this blog. A great TED talk is sometimes about business, often about thoughts and leadership, also about creativity, always about presentations and speaking, and always real education. 

Go Ahead: Disagree. I dare you.

Back to Fundamentals, Business Mistakes,

This one had me from the moment I saw the title: Dare to Disagree. I clicked, watched, and I love it.

Good disagreement is central to progress. She illustrates (sometimes counterintuitively) how the best partners aren’t echo chambers — and how great research teams, relationships and businesses allow people to deeply disagree.

I’ve seen this for years in starting, growing and running a business. It’s vital. Do yourself a favor. Take 12 minutes to watch Margaret Heffernan in this TED talk. She starts with a real story, and gets into the nuts and bolts of making disagreement work for you.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

If you don’t see this video here, you can click here to link to the original on TED.com

Key to the Pitch: Make Me Care

Advice, Business Stories,

Never underestimate the business value of the good story. Business planning is telling stories and making them happen. Startups make stories come true.

In this delightful TED talk storyteller (filmmaker) Andrew Stanton boils it down to this: Make me care.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

If you want to sell a business idea, tell it as a story. The best elevator speech tells the story of a need and filling that need. The best market analysis in business planning is stories of people and what they want and need, and people getting together to execute an idea.

Note: click here the source site for this TED talk.