TED 2012: Be Nice to Nerds

Regina Dugan, Director of Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, combines quiet geekiness with great leadership skills.  She asked us all to “be kind to nerds, because they change the world”. 

The theme of Dugan's talk was the need to get out there and do impossible things and eliminate the fear of failure.  That doesn't mean eliminating failure itself, just the fear of failure:  eight Atlas missions failed before one succeeded.

The history of aviation demonstrates the need to believe in the impossible.  Before the Wrights achieved the first flight, people were convinced such flight was impossible.  But the Wrights proved them wrong.    Before Yeager broke the sound barrier, people had believed you couldn’t fly faster than the speed of sound.

Now DARPA is on the brink of achieving Mach 20.  At Mach 20, you could reach anywhere in the world in an hour.  Recently they achieved three minutes of controlled flight at Mach 20, and learned more in that three minutes than in decades of study.  There's no way to learn to fly at Mach 20 except by flying at Mach 20.  It's not the first time that major aspirations of the military end up breaking through barriers.

At the other end of the scale, Dugan demonstrated a hummingbird aircraft flying on stage.  The hummingbird is an interesting model for flight, because it is the only bird that can fly backwards.  This aircraft is very manoeuvrable, weighs less than an AA battery, and cost a mere $4M to develop.  Easy to think of military purposes for this!

I loved Dugan's theme of removing the fear of failure.  That's such a theme in my Managing Innovation course.  Some of my students just may see this video!

TED 2012: Secrets

Frank Warren runs postsecret.com.  He had a quirky idea.  Get people to send him their most intimate secrets – secrets they've never shared before – and he'd publish them anonymously on his web site.  Since launch, people have sent over half a million postcards. They've been making their own clever postcards in tune with the message.  Secrets range from humorous, to quixotic, to shocking, to touching to absolutely heart-wrenching.
 
Many cards were quite humourous.  The card you can see above was written on a flattened-out Starbucks cup:  “I give decaf to customers who are rude to me”.    Some descend to bathroom humour, like this one from the site:

Some were quite poignant: “Everyone who knew me before 9/11 thinks I’m dead", or "Dear Birthmother.  I have great parents.  I found love. I'm happy." 

As I sit writing this post, I notice several on the site that discuss relationships:

  Or this one, that led to a long-overdue reunion:

 Some even make a political statement:

 I think I'll visit this site from time to time when I have a few minutes to spare.  Warren claims it's the most-visited non-advertising-supported site.  I can see why.

TED 2012: Mystery of Multiverses

When I run into people who suggest that TED’s patented 18-minute talk is just too short a time to get across a big idea, I point them to Brian Greene’s  2004 talk on string theory.  A highlight of my first ever TED conference, Greene’s talk made string theory seem simple.  It was extraordinary.

This year, Greene once again brought the mystery of the cosmos to us earthlings, in particular the mind-blowing idea of multiverses, explained completely lucidly, supported by awesome visuals projected on the full wall behind him.  This was the first time TED has used a full video wall for projection and Greene's incredibly rich visuals did it proud; it gave one the feeling of hurtling through space as Greene described it. 


The theory of multiverses seems almost otherwordly, but we should pay attention to it, says Greene, because it just might be right.

When Hubble first realized that galaxies are rushing away from us, it was an idea that upset previous views of physics.  Hubble, and everyone else, believed that those galaxies must be hurtling away at an ever decreasing rate.  After all, gravity would be exerting a drag that would slow the universe down.  

However, the trouble is that once we got around to measuring the speed in the early 1990's, to the astonishment of the scientists, ethe measurements showed that the expansion of the universe is actually speeding up.   The theory of dark energy, a repulsive force pushing those galaxies apart, arose to explain that unexpected result.  Calculations showed that the amount of dark energy required to explain the expansion of our universe is astonishingly small, namely 1.28. (I don't actually know the unit of that answer, so I feel a bit as if I've fallen into the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where I know the answer, but not its exact meaning).

Now take a hike back to Greene's original talk about string theory, which goes like this.  Inside particles, there are vibrating strings of energy.  Different sub-atomic particles  have different vibrations, giving rise to the 'cosmic symphony' that we are now familiar with.  But the mathematics of those strings does not work unless there are extra dimensions which determine how the strings vibrate.  That of course leads to the question – what shape would this extra dimension have?  Different amounts of dark energy would result in different shapes for those dimensions.

Soon physicists had generated many possible shapes for those dimensions – 10 to the 500th power  – far too many to tested and determine which was the right one.  Greene then proposed: What if all of these universes exist, each with a different shape for extra dimensions, each with a different amount of dark energy.  Maybe seeking the explanation of that one particular number was the wrong question.

Greene reflected back to Kepler who focussed on why the earth was 93 million miles from the sun.  But the right question was why were we on a planet 93 million miles from our sun.  The answer was because was the 'Goldilocks' effect – 93 million miles was just the right distance.  There were lots of other planets at different distances from the sun, but this was the distance where life could be sustained.

So Greene believes that we should be asking this new question about dark energy the same way.  Are there multiple universes out there,  each with a different amount of dark energy.  We find oursevles in this one because this amount of dark energy is the 'Goldilocks' zone for the formation of galaxies.  With less energy, the galaxies are blown away before they can form; with more energy, the universe implodes, precluding galaxies.   And without galaxies, we don't exist.

It's hard to test this theory, but there are certain phenomena we would see if the theory is correct.  There might have been evidence in the past that we missed (near the time of the big bang) that is lost to us now.  Greene mused philosophically that future astronomers could be in the same position in the future.  If galaxies speed up to spin away from us faster than the speed of light, then their light can never reach us.  Future astronomers could be looking out at a black inky sky.  

Greene's talk is already up on TED.com.  I hope you'll find it as fascinating as I did.

TED 2012: Lower Those Anti-Poetry Deflection Shields

Billy Collins, twice poet laureate of the US, announced that he was at TED to give us our recommended daily allowancae of poetry.  Never having been one to read a lot of poetry, I braced myself to listen to some beautiful language while struggling to absorb a deep and subtle meaning.

However, after lowering my 'anti-poetry deflection shield', I sat back and loved Collins' readings of clever, witty poetry.  It was totally accessible.  The audience seemed to agree as Collins received close to a full standing ovation.
 
For at least this one member of the audience, it inspired me to read some poetry, at least that of Billy Collins.   I recommend you do the same.

Bryan Stevenson: People are Better Than the Worst Thing They've Done

When Bryan Stevenson finished his talk here at TED 2012, I didn't think people were ever going to sit down.  The thunderous applause rolled on and on.  Powerful just doesn't begin to describe the response he evoked.

Stevenson is a public interest lawyer.  He spends most of his time in jails.  And he says that if you have a brush with the America justice system, it's better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent. 

There were lots of disturbing statistics in his talk, including facts that the Americans in this highly educated audience didn't know. 

• In 1972, there were 300,000 people in jail in the US.  Today, there are 2.3M, with a further 7M on probation and parole.
• One third of the the black men between the ages of 18 and 30 are in jail, on probation, or on parole.  That percentage rises to 60% in big cities.
• America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world; with 5% of world population, they account for 25% of the world's incarcerated.
• Three-strike laws mean that people can face life imprisonment for a minor crime like stealing a bicycle.
• If you're been to jail in the US, you lose the right to vote for the rest of your life.  
• The US is one of the few countries that still have the death penalty.  [I looked up on Wikipedia the number of people executed in 2010, broken out by country and it went like this: China: 2000+, Iran: 252+, North Korea: 60+, Yemen: 53+, USA: 46] 

 But it wasn't all statistics.  Stevenson lamented how many young people were tried as adults, and subject to life incarceration.  One night his frustration that a poor black 14-year-old boy was slated to be tried as an adult led him to write a brief arguing that if the boy was to be tried as an adult, he should be tried as a wealthy, privileged, 70-year-old white male. 

Stevenson said that people in America had to talk about the relationships between race and justice.  South Africa had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the end of apartheid, but the US has never such a discussion since the end of slavery.   He lamented the death penalty that fell disproportionately on black people; a German likened it to a situation where Germans had a death penalty which fell disproportionately on Jews.  Germans could never tolerate this; why could Americans?

Stevenson's talk was the one most frequently discussed at all the breaks.  On the final day, Chris Anderson told the audience that Stevenson needed $1.5M to continue the next phase of the Equal Justice Initiative.  Given that the TED community had been so moved by Stevenson's talk, Chris exhorted TEDsters to contribute the $1.5M needed.  Five people started by contributing $100,000 each and Chris went on to get others to donate $10,000 and $1,000 each.  Within ten minutes, $1.12M had been raised.   Chris has been working for years to build TEDsters into a commmunity which will work to change the world.  There are some very generous pocketbooks in the room, and a lot of power where someone is able to move them.

The talk has just been posted here. 

TED 2012: Books and Their Covers

I love books.  One of the best days of my life was wandering through the many books stores - new, used and antiquarian - along a few blocks of Queen Street in Toronto, with my dear friend Mark Seltzer, just browsing.  Mark knew all the booksellers in all those stores, and we had just a wonderful day.

Lately, I've been seduced by the incredible convenience of digital books.  Many books in a small package, electronic look-up and note taking - ah, it's just hard to resist.  But I do love the tactile sense of a good old-fashioned book. 

Today, the nostalgia grew deeper during the impassioned talk by Chip Kidd about his 25-year career designing book covers.    Kidd's talk was larded with witticisms and raunchy humour.  It had all the colour, energy and feistiness of his suit and I loved it!  But underlying the humour was his obvious love affair with books - their appearance, their touch, their smell.

What book covers he showed us! I'll share a few with you.

Kidd designed the cover of the Jurassic Park novel, and that design went on to form the basis of the imagery for the movie.

He designed the cheeky cover for the David Sedaris book Naked.  Those shorts are actually a wrap around the book, and can be slid off.  But you might be surprised at what's underneath!

My favourite was Kidd's design for the covers of a series of books about Buddha by Osama Tezuka.  Each cover individually was good; but lining all eight up on a shelf was truly magical.

TED 2012: Batteries - Think Big and Think Cheap

Computers follow Moore's Law - the power of computing will approximately double every 18 months.  A variety of other fields which are primarily information-based are jumping on that same curve.  That's what happened in genetics, for instance.  It's basically an information-based science, so it's now careening along that curve.  Most sciences have gone that way.  Except for batteries. Batteries haven't improved much at all.

Yet, batteries are critical to the exploitation of intermittent energy from renewable sources.  And until we can integrate giant battery storage sinks into our electrical grid, we will be trapped into building transmission systems for peak capacity.

Donald Sadoway thinks he has a breakthrough that will solve these issues.  It involves a low cost battery which is operated at high levels of heat, using magnesium and antimony separated by molten salt.  It's a dirt cheap design.  The energy generated by the battery is enough to maintain heat for its operation.  A couple of his students have formed a company which has attracted investment from Bill Gates and expects to bring a product to market in a couple of years.

This could be a huge breakthrough in the energy field - exciting stuff.  And it goes completely against the traditional wisdom in batteries that you can't let a battery get hot; on the contrary, this battery depends on being hot to operate.

There were some interesting aspects of this talk, from a presentation point of view, some good and some bad.

• TED is known for its whizz-bang presentations (and it's getting to be ever more produced, but more about that later).  Sadoway was refreshing in his highly effective use of that old-fashioned device, the blackboard.  Bravo!
• Although the majority of TED attendees are American, the conference attracts people from many countries and strives for a world view.  Sadoway was notable for presenting this as an American problem (hmm, does the rest of the world not need to solve energy issues?) that would be solved by American ingenuity (are there no scientists outside America?). 
• It was also one of the most arrogant talks I've heard at TED, chock full of first person pronouns.

 Having said that, if Sadoway and Gates are right in believing in this invention, it is very good news indeed.

TED 2012: Amazing Cadavers

A virtual cadaver.  Digital dissection.  The magic of touch screens allows medical student to practice on digitally-rendered cadavers rather than the real thing.  The virtual dissection table lets you isolate particular organs, peel off skin or skeleton to leave a system of organs.  You can rotate the cadaver in different directions, and take successive cuts by simply moving your finger along the screen.

Each year, there are amazing technology demonstrations at TED.  Jack Choi of Anatomage blew us away with this demonstration. (When I first typed that name, I made a typo and typed Anatomagic.  That might be a more appropriate name.)

TED 2012: Is Your Doctor a Member of a Pit Crew?

Atul Gawande is a rock star. From the moment I started to read his book The Checklist Manifesto until the last word, I was spellbound. Gawande writes fluidly, simply, and with great insight about issues in healthcare.  He speaks as engagingly as he writes.

Checklists have worked in other industries, like aviation and major construction, to reduce errors. The Checklist Manifesto is about importing those ideas into medicine.  And Gawande showed how it worked.  As a result of this work in his own hospital, Gawande was commissioned by WHO to devise a surgical checklist that could be implemented around the world.  

Here's the checklist:

The checklist was piloted in eight hospitals around the world, ranging from a rural hospital in Tanzania to world-class teaching hospitals in Toronto and Seattle. There's a knack to making such a good checklist - it had to be general enough to be applicable anywhere, it had to cover the most crucial items, and it couldn't be so long that no one would use it.  The result was a 19-item, 2-minute check list with 3 pause points.  You can see how obvious some of the steps are on the list above.   It's standard that antibiotics are given before an operation to reduce the probability of infection.  Really, now, would people forget such a simple step?  Introducing yourself to everyone on the team?  Give me a break.  Surely that would be obvious, especially in a situation where unambiguous communication might be life-or-death in an emergency that could arise.  Apparently these things are not that obvious: introduction of this checklist reduced complications by 35% and deaths by a whopping 47%.  47% reduction in deaths!! Not by fancy new technology, but by systematizing what everyone already knew was the right thing to do.

In today's TED talk, Gawande talked a bit about check lists, but mostly he talked about the culture and philosophy of medicine.  Medical culture was established back in the days when medical knowledge was sparse, specialists were few, and doctors practiced heroic medicine.  There were few treatments that had been proved effective, and doctors were often heading into uncharted waters and you had to be bold to try a procedure that might help. 

Today, the medical environment is completely different.  There are known treatments for most diagnoses - over 4,000 proven medical and surgical procedures and 6,000 drugs.  No one professional can know everything, and medical practitioners are now deeply segregated into their specialities.  It's all about working as a team, within a known, systematic framework.  But that's not how doctors have been trained.  Our system has trained cowboys.  What we need are pit crews!  We need to focus, not on individual heroics, but on values like team work, discipline and humility. 

Sitting on a hospital board, and thinking a lot about how innovation could take place in healthcare, it seems clear that individual components of the healthcare system can work very well, but the system overall is a mess.  Our hospital delivers fantastic care as a rehab hospital, but it is at the transition points between acute care and our hospital, and between our hospital and the home that the cracks in the system appear.  Ironically, as I've observed in businesses, fixing a broken system yields efficiency, effectiveness, customer satisfaction and cost savings.

Yet, because of cultural issues, Gawande says that adoption of the surgical check list has been slow and has had to struggle against the resistance of the autonomous, lone-hero vision of medicine.  Yet this simple change would save both lives and money.  The cost of adoption - namely training and engagement of staff - should be small compared to buying another sophisticated piece of medical technology.

Gawande's talk was totally inspiring to me, and I leapt to my feet in a standing ovation. I was somewhat surprised that only about 40% of the audience joined me.  I guess this kind of system thinking is not as sexy as some of the other talks we're hearing.

TED 2012: Shh. I'm an Introvert

The eloquent and graceful Susan Cain is a self-declared introvert in a world geared toward extroverts.  She performs best when given quiet time to think and analyze.  She argues that 1/3 to 1/2 the world is introverted like herself.

Yet the world does not sufficiently value introverts.  Teachers rate extroverts more highly.  Extroverts have an edge in promotions in the workplace.  And the world is becomingly increasingly hostile to introverts.

Education systems have a singleminded emphasis on group work.  Even classroom arrangements that have shifted from individual desks to group pods mark a transition to an environment that is difficult for an introvert who wants to think things out alone.  This is particularly true in the MBA schools where I teach.  There is an enormous premium placed on the skills of oral presentation and relatively little on the value of writing cogently.  This is reasonable, given that we know success in business is linked to this presentation skill.  After an interesting exchange with a very capable and introverted student this year, it got me thinking whether the B-School establishment was perpetuating this tendency.  So Cain's talk really struck a nerve today.

Many great transformational leaders have been introverts, and their strength has often come from a time of contemplation alone 'in the wilderness'.   But today, we are tending more and more to be led only by extroverts - and the ones who talk loudest at that.

Cain offers three Calls to Action:

• Stop the madness for group work.  Provide introverts and extroverts with an environment that brings out their best work.  
• Go to the wilderness.  Give yourself time to think alone and unadulterated by the voices of others.
• Do the self-examination to figure out which style brings out the best in yourself, and try to find an environment that suits your style.

Cain is the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, if you want to read more on this.

TED 2012: The Earth is Full. Or Not.

TED is known for putting together an eclectic program that features ideas from all different disciplines, leaving the attendees to make the linkages among the talks.  Today, we had back-to-back talks on the same topic, presenting oppposite views.

 First up was Paul Gilding.  Former global CEO of Greenpeace, and author of The Great Disruption, Paul's message was clear:  the earth is full.  We need 1.5 earths to maintain our current economy.  This growth will therefore have to come to a stop, because of the laws of physics, chemistry and economics.  Since this crisis is inevitable, the only thing left for us to do is to choose how we will react and how early we will react.  The earlier we react, the less the cost will be and the gentler the landing.  However, if we don't prepare for such enormous disruption, it will be truly ugly.

Paul was frank in saying his purpose was to instil sufficient fear to overcome complacency, change people's behaviour and drive an urgent commitment to change.

The next talk was by Peter Diamandes.  Peter runs the X Prize and is a co-founder of the Singularity University, with Ray Kurzweil.  He is a disciple of the Kurzweil doctrine that we all underestimate the pace of technological innovation:  such innovation always advances exponentially, whereas our expectations tend to be linear. 

Because of mankind's ingenuity and the relentless laws of change (think Moore's Law which says computing power doubles about every 18 months),  challenges that look insurmountable today will certainly be overcome by technological improvements tomorrow.  The earth is nowhere near full.  There isn't any real scarcity, just accessibility problems.  There's lots of solar energy to support us - we just have to harness it.  There's lots of water; we just have to harness the oceans.  In essence, Peter was saying, "Don't worry about it.  We got it."

Chris Anderson asked for a show of hands supporting Peter or Paul.  The vote was almost even, with a slight edge for Peter's optimism.  That was an interesting result in a crowd that has been accused of unreasoning Silicon Valley optimism. 

To me, there was huge irony in the question. If you really believed Paul's message of doom and took action, then Peter's prediction is likely to come true.  If you sat back comfortably, believing Peter's optimistic message, then perhaps Paul's prediction would come true.  Is that self-unfulfilling prophecy?

Music at TED 2012

Music was a big part of this pre-day at TED and I loved it all!

The block party tonight featured the band Red Baraat.  This brass and percussion band played rollicking, energetic music that had people really bouncing on the dance floor. In preparing for this post, I did a bit of research, and that drum the leader plays at both ends is called a dohl, and the music is derived from Indian wedding music.  Listen to this video of their performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival, and see if it makes you want to go to an Indian wedding, the way I do!

Earlier in the afternoon, I was captivated by the lovely voice of Meklit Hadero.  She's from Ethiopia and lives in San Francisco and her music shows the influence of both places.  Here's a link to hear her.

The always ebullient Robert Gupta was back to treat us to some Bach.  I can't get enough of Robert Gupta.  In fact, in curating the TEDxIBYork conference, the first TED talk video I elected to include was Gupta's. Do watch it; it will pull at your heart strings.  Amazing again today.

Another great experience today was listening to Abigail Washburn on the banjo.   She was delightful.

Equally fascinating was her back story.  With a passion for changing the world through justice systems, and fluency in Chinese, Washburn was on her way to China to study law.  However, she stopped at a Kentucky Blue Grass Festival with her newly-acquired banjo.  She was invited to jam with a few musicians and all of a sudden, she was offered a recording contract in Nashville.  So off she went to build a career in music and to charm audiences around the world with her banjo and songs - in English and Chinese!  Washburn is still committed to bettering the world, and her TED Fellow descriptor lists her as a singer + banjo player + cultural activist.  But, as she says, US-China relations didn't need another lawyer.

Catch some video of her singing in Chinese here.

TED 2012 - TED Fellows Talks

The TED Fellows program is designed to bring together young world-changers and trailblazers who have shown unusual accomplishment and exceptional courage. The program targets individuals from the Asia/Pacific region, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East, though anyone from anywhere in the world, age 18 and over, is welcome to apply.   This is the description of the TED Fellows program on the web site. 

Today there were two sessions featuring TED Fellows and what a remarkable and diverse group they were.

My favourite talk was by Myshkin Ingawale, an exuberant young man, who is the founder of a medical device company, BioSense. 

The first product of BioSense is ToucHB, which does cheap, on-the-spot prick-free blood testing for anemia. 

As with so many who tell their stories on the TED stage, Myshkin was motivated to develop this device after a visit to a village in India with a doctor friend.  A woman and infant had just died due to hemorrhaging after childbirth because of the mother's anemia.  Yet anemia is so easy to diagnose, and so cheap to treat.  But not easy to diagnose in an Indian village far from the nearest healthcare clinic to have the $10,000 machine that could do the diagnosis.

Myshkin's device looks very much like the device that might go over your finger in a western hospital to monitor the oxygen level in your blood.  It works by analyzing three wavelengths of light passing through the tissues.  ToucHB measures the oxygen level, but adds the crucial data about anemia.  

Myshkin ended with a map of the incidence of deaths from anemia after childbirth in the world today, with hot spots in parts of Asia and South America.  He has the modest goal of wiping all those hot spots off the map through his device, which brings healthcare to the people, instead of people having to go long distances to a clinic.

An inspiring young man.

Both the developed and the developing world have major healthcare problems, although they are very different.  Through my study of the power of disruptive innovation, and my work on a hospital board, I am convinced that the only way to solve these healthcare problems is to put the right tools for diagnosis and treatment into the hands of less skilled people, and ultimately each of us individually.  Myshkin's on the right path.

TED 2012

It's that magical time of year.  The balloon is up.  Literally.  There's a big TED balloon floating over the Long Beach Performing Arts Centre. The lamp posts are festooned with TED banners.  The exhibits are open.  The first talks have been delivered.  I'm excited.

Today I joined the eclectic group of people who've put on TEDx conferences around the world.  Most of them are at TED Active, the sister conference in Palm Springs that gets a live feed from Long Beach, and purportedly has a lot more fun than we do!  We had a tour of the many exhibits around the venue.  That was a real treat, because I find there's just never enough time to absorb all the great ideas sprinkled around these exhibits.  It was a tough choice between that and a two-hour master class in Improv, but I think I made the right decision.

TEDx is a fantastic story of innovation, of people starting out with modest ambitions to allow people to host their own TEDx conferences around the world.  They sought the right balance between protecting the brand with rules and guidance, and freedom to let the idea flourish.  Well, it worked beyond their wildest imagination.  In three years:

• 3,500 TEDx conferences - quantity
• 1,000 cities in 128 countries - diversity
• more TEDx talks than from any one TED conference, 10% of TED.com and growing - quality

There's a little green dog tag on our name badges for TEDx organizers, and I must say I'm proud to wear it.