For free!
I’m talking about TED Talks.
TED started in 1984 as a conference to bring together people from three disciplines: Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It has since grown to include experts from almost every field of human endeavor in two annual conferences.
More than 1400 TED Talks are available online and have been viewed over a billion times. They are posted under a Creative Commons license, so they are free to re-post and share.
Participants in TED are challenged to give the talk of their lives. Scary, huh? What’s so amazing is that most of them do.
Fascinating, informative, moving.
There is something there for everyone, and everything on the website merits your investment of your twenty-or-so minutes to listen.
I, myself, am partial to Brene Brown’s talk on vulnerability. And I love poet and teacher Sarah Kay’s If I should have a daughter. You can find links to both of them on the introductory page New to TED?
There are various other compilations of recommended talks.
12 TED Talks that Every Human Should Watch
and lots more you can find by googling.
You can just go to the TED site and work your way through everything there. (I keep meaning to do that. Maybe one a day—like a vitamin!)
But, what a miracle!
These marvelous thinkers and speakers, sharing their ideas with us. Costing nothing more than a few minutes of our time. A bigger investment than scanning a Facebook meme or a 140-character Tweet—and with a much bigger payoff.
These are the ideas our best minds are considering. These are the things our best speakers are talking about.
These are conferences that happen far from most of us, and we get to participate. No admission charge, no airline ticket, no hotel fee.
What a miracle!
