Chesters at TED
First day at TED@PalmSprings.
Everything pretty awesome. Lots of very cool and nice people. Head swimming with very clever quotes from very clever people. The official conference programme starts in an hour. Today’s highlights include Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, Seth Godin & Regina Spektor. Tomorrow’s highlights include a short talk from W+K’s own Renny Gleeson. One of these days fills me with awed expectation and excitement, and the other features W+K’s own Renny Gleeson.
Few pics below of the set up here in Palm Springs.
Later…
Christ almighty, I don't know where to start.
My brain is buzzing and my head can't possibly contain or process all the brilliant stuff that I've heard today. From Al Gore, to Bill
Gates, to Tim Berners-Lee and then the day topped off with Regina
Spektor via a lovely 1-2-1 chat about burgers and women with Morgan
Spurlock and getting to dance, on stage, with Dancing Matt of “Where
the hell is Matt” fame! Oh, and in between some truly amazing film
content from the likes of Jake Eberts (Killing Fields, Ghandi) and
Jacques Perrin.
So much to talk about, so many brilliant links/URLs to post but I'll highlight a few:
A truly awesome project from French photographer and film-maker Yann Arthus-Bertrand: 6billionothers.org.
Pretty much everything
from the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT. Pattie Maes & her legendary
bunch of hyperintelligent visionary gamechangers. Everything she
showed us was so cool and so amazing that it felt like being given a
true window into the future. Anyone who has any pretensions to even be
a part of the device future needs to know these guys.
This guy has done some
pretty cool stuff getting 50 animators from 17 countries to collaborate
on a film, all via the web as a platform for collaboration. Started
with a facebook app!
Truly scary vision of the battlefield future from PW Singer, author of the new book “Wired for War”. Kind of interesting, worrying and depressing in equal measure. This Big Dog robot was very cool though!
Two amazing films that are
coming , saw the trailers and heard the director/producers talk through
them, that we all should go and see:
“Oceans” by Jacques Perrin
– Eight years in the making, an innovative, unique and amazing study of
life in the sea. Saw the trailer here today, this is truly awesome. Out
in April 2010
“Home” by Luc Besson – A
project from the guy (Yann Athus-Betrand) who brought you “Earth from
the Air”. A film project documenting the impact of man on the planet.
The film is 100% open-source, is released free of charge on June 5th 2009, no copyright at all.
Bill Gates had some cool things to say and his talk from TED will be available on TED.com from Thursday 5th Feb.
And finally a couple of personal highlights:
- Getting to chat with
Morgan Spurlock about burgers. Nice guy, massively friendly. Knows a
lot about fast food that bloke. Just finished making a film based on
the book Freakonomics – coming out in late 2009
2. Getting to meet Matt “Where the Hell is Matt” Harding – and getting to dance with him.
And I knew people wouldn’t believe me on either, so here is the photographic proof.
And the day was topped off by a few songs by Regina Spektor, who is clearly bonkers and clearly brilliant in equal measure.
Too many other brilliant people and talks to go into.
W+K’s own Renny Gleeson is
talking tomorrow. But he’s down in the programme as RANDY Gleason – I’m
never ever going to stop finding that funny. Ever.
Kev