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Talking the talk By Melinda Collins
YouTube has come to define the era of online video; but while ‘Charlie bites his brother’s finger’, Justin Beiber wants to be your boyfriend and Lady Gaga has her cake and rolls around in it too, the web portal has in recent years become a showroom for the intellectual style of the digital age. With names like ‘Fifty shades of gay’, ‘Could tissue engineering mean personalised medicine?’ and ‘The dance of the dung beetle’, the latest trend in online clips seem to go against all the standard rules for internet infamy. It is elite idea sharing gone mainstream. TED Talks are a series of internet video lectures which have taken the world by storm, with more than one billion views worldwide. An acronym for technology, entertainment and design, TED Talks have developed from the conference of the same name. The trend began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker “ideas worth spreading,” talks were released online, giving everyone on-demand access to the world’s most inspiring voices. So we’ve made it even simpler for you to hear these voices by hunting out the top 10 TED Talks for business. Just tap them into YouTube and you have a front seat pass.
was less about the product and more about whether or not you could get your idea to spread or not. Marketing guru and author Godin spells out why, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. Cameron Herold: Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs Herold thinks weekly allowances teach kids the wrong habits – teaching kids to expect a regular paycheque, something to which entrepreneurs usually don’t get. Herold taught his two kids to walk around the yard looking for stuff that needs to get done, then they negotiate a price. He makes the case for a new type of parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish.
Jason Fried: Why work doesn’t happen at work The office isn’t a good place to work, meetings are toxic and ASAP is poison. In Jason Fried’s TED Talk, he lays out the problems with “work” and offers three suggestions to fix a broken office. Richard St. John: 8 secrets of success Why do people succeed? Is it because they are smart? Or are they just lucky? The answer is neither. Success analyst, speaker and author St. John asked more than 500 extraordinarily successful people what helped them succeed, analysed their answers and discovered eight traits successful people have in common.
Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work Marsh, author of Overworked and Underlaid, speaks about the dangers of putting our lives in the hands of “abattoirs of the human soul” aka commercial corporations and how to enforce the boundaries we want in our life. Steve Jobs: How to live before you die
Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man Entrepreneurs can learn a lot by studying behavioural economics. Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy & Mather states that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value; a humorous and deeply insightful presentation that every entrepreneur, or at least every marketer, should watch. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. An author, motivational speaker, and strategic communications professor at Columbia University, Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership that starts with his famous “golden circle of motivation” and the question “Why?” Seth Godin: How to get your ideas to spread Everyone has heard the expression “The best thing since sliced bread” but did you know that for 15 years after sliced bread was invented it wasn’t popular? The success of sliced bread, like the success of anything, 22 | April/May 2013 www.canterburytoday.co.nz
No list of inspiring talks would be complete without Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford University. While not officially a TED Talk, the deeply touching and inspirational speech is included in TED’s “Best of the Web” list and is a must-watch even if you’ve already seen it before. Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work Psychologist Shawn Achor doubles as a comedian in this talk, during which he says the lens through which your brain views the world shapes your reality. “And if we can change the lens not only can we change your happiness, but we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time,” he says in this highly entertaining video. Julie Burstein: Four lessons in creativity In this inspiring talk, radio host and book author Julie Burstein gives voice to several interviews with remarkably talented people who found that creativity grows when you pay attention to the world around you, learn from challenges, push against the limits of what you can do as well as the hardest thing of all--embrace loss.