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  • JIM LECINSKI: Well, good Friday afternoon, everyone,

  • and welcome to another exciting edition of Authors at Google.

  • We're originating today from our wonderful Google Chicago

  • office.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • Round of applause.

  • I will be your presumptive moderator for the day using

  • the zeitgeist word of the day.

  • I'm Jim Lecisnki, and our guest today

  • is with us, Chris Anderson.

  • Chris is the curator of the TED conference

  • and has been since 2002, following

  • a long and successful career in the publishing industry.

  • We'll talk a little bit about that today.

  • Chris has developed TED into a global platform

  • for identifying and disseminating

  • ideas worth spreading.

  • Welcome, Chris.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • So great to have you with us.

  • I wonder if maybe we could get started,

  • if you'd tell us a little bit about your background.

  • I mentioned the publishing.

  • How does a philosophy major and publisher

  • come to lead and transform one of the world's

  • great digital brands?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Definitely a long, twisting journey.

  • I was a journalist originally, actually,

  • when I first came out of university,

  • and I made the mistake of buying one of the early computers.

  • It was like a Tandy TRSAT clone.

  • And I was awed by this thing.

  • I kind of completely fell in love with it,

  • and to cut a long story short, a few years later,

  • I found myself working at one of the early home computer

  • magazines, and I loved that.

  • And then I decided, this isn't so hard.

  • Let's publish one.

  • So I started a company, published a magazine.

  • Bizarrely, it worked, and then this thing took off.

  • And so the publishing part was just

  • building lots and lots of these nichey hobbyist magazines that

  • were deeply boring to everyone, except the people they

  • were targeted at, who kind of loved them.

  • And so we had this philosophy.

  • Our complete logo was actually, "Media with passion."

  • And that's always been my mantra as an entrepreneur

  • is look for the passion.

  • If you can find something that people are really

  • passionate about, that's your clue

  • that there's something there, that this is kind

  • of the proxy for potential.

  • And so when I first came to TED in 1998, TED was back then,

  • it was actually started in '84.

  • Nothing on the internet, of course.

  • It was an annual conference.

  • That was it.

  • And I went there in '98.

  • It was bringing together Technology, Entertainment,

  • Design, TED, and I fell in love with it.

  • I thought, I've come home.

  • And what I saw was this passion.

  • People were so passionate about it.

  • It was like, this is my best week of the year.

  • And I thought, why is this your best week of the year?

  • But that was the clue.

  • And so when there was a chance to buy TED from its founder--

  • he was 65-- and I leapt at it.

  • And so that happened in 2001, and the journey since then

  • has been a wild journey of its own.

  • But that's how I got there.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Great.

  • And we'll talk about that journey since then.

  • In some sense, it's been said that it

  • was the power of what was then new media back in 2006,

  • online video in particular, that really gave TED its boost.

  • Would you say that's the case?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: That's absolutely the case.

  • When I bought it, I bought it with a nonprofit,

  • a foundation I had.

  • And so the intention was always, it

  • felt like there was all this inspiration.

  • It was supposed to be for the public good somehow,

  • but how could you let out the knowledge

  • that was at this private conference to the world?

  • And our first attempt to do that was on TV,

  • and TV wasn't interested.

  • These are lectures.

  • They're lectures.

  • They're kind of boring.

  • Lectures are boring.

  • Now I didn't actually listen to them,

  • because they weren't boring.

  • But they weren't interested.

  • And so yeah.

  • So when this weird technology called online video

  • with its shaky little kittens and all these other things

  • happening came along, we thought, wait a sec.

  • Maybe we could, as an experiment,

  • put some TED Talks up.

  • Probably won't work.

  • They're too long for the internet,

  • and you're not going to be there live.

  • It's on video.

  • To our amazement, these things went viral,

  • and so that was the moment, 2006,

  • when we decided we had to flip TED on its head.

  • We're no longer just a conference.

  • We're a media organization devoted to sharing ideas.

  • JIM LECINSKI: And so let's build on that a little bit.

  • You described what TED stands for, T-E-D, but how would you

  • talk about its meaning, its purpose?

  • What does the brand stand for?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: It stands for the bringing together

  • of knowledge in ways that people can understand.

  • The world's really complicated, and most of the time,

  • we go deep.

  • You have to know something well to have a chance of succeeding.

  • You dig deep.

  • You learn your speciality well.

  • And that's how most things operate.

  • That's how most conferences operate,

  • most university courses, whatever.

  • That's what you have to do.

  • But there's a place for context to actually understand

  • the world we're in.

  • You need to go broader than that.

  • And actually, lots of other things

  • happen when you bring together knowledge from different areas.

  • You get the catalyzing of new ideas.

  • You get the possibility of collaboration,

  • and so I think that's what hit me suddenly

  • was why Ted had a role to play.

  • There's just not much of that happens.

  • And so if you can persuade people to come together

  • from these different fields and explain something

  • they're passionate about in ways that other people

  • can actually understand, that, I think, that definitely

  • over a few days, for example, that had the effect of selling

  • these spots in your brain.

  • And you just thought of stuff that you

  • hadn't thought of before.

  • And so that's what it stands for.

  • JIM LECINSKI: We'll come back and chat

  • a little bit in a second about the power

  • of how those talks are built on understandable ideas.

  • But I want to pursue-- you mentioned the word

  • collaboration.

  • Most of our audiences has not had the pleasure

  • of actually attending the conference when they were

  • in Long Beach or now back in Vancouver,

  • so could you maybe paint a little picture about not just

  • the speakers on the stage that we

  • can see by watching the video, but it's

  • a full four-day collaboration event with the dinners.

  • And can you maybe paint picture of what

  • happens during that week?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Sure.

  • So yeah, it's four and 1/2-ish days.

  • There are basically 12 main sessions of TED.

  • Each session is an hour and 45 minutes,

  • and it's five to six speakers, plus other little performances

  • and things thrown in there.

  • So it's quite fast-moving.

  • What's unusual about TED is that everyone sees every speaker.

  • It's one track.

  • And that doesn't usually happen, but it is the whole point of it

  • is you are supposed to be exposed to stuff you had

  • no idea you were interested in.

  • And it's become a truism at TED that the session that you

  • think is going to be most boring is the one that blows you away.

  • And so amazingly, people do commit

  • to coming to each session, and that

  • means that you can have a shared conversation in the corridors

  • after.

  • And the collaboration is not really something we stage.

  • It just happens that the combination of that exposure

  • to these different speakers and ideas,

  • it sort of sparks things in people,

  • and weird projects emerge out of it.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Yeah.

  • Now is it the case-- I had heard that you discourage or don't

  • allow digital devices or live tweeting or cameras

  • or these kind of things in the room?

  • Is that the case?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: That is the case.

  • Apart from the back two rows, where

  • people can tweet if they want to, or in the simulcast spaces.

  • But in the main theater, we say no, because all of life right

  • now is this attention war, and talks are weird things.

  • They often take a while to build.

  • To share a really big idea or something that really matters,

  • you sometimes have to build context.

  • You have to go through, gosh, 90 seconds, where

  • it's a little bit challenging or boring for a minute.

  • If people-- because I've just got to check my email,

  • just for this moment.

  • They miss a couple of key context things, they're gone.

  • And then the talk never lands.

  • And once more, the five people behind them

  • are sort of annoyed, and it's sending a signal that this

  • isn't that interesting.

  • So everyone else decides it's not that interesting.

  • You are, right now, you are a super organism.

  • You're all actually, although you're not

  • fully conscious of it, you're feeding off each other.

  • You take cues from each other.

  • And that's what happens in a lot of things.

  • So we try to have a different contract

  • from the normal contract.

  • Audience, you're actually going to give your full attention

  • to this speaker for 18 minutes.

  • Speaker, you're going to work bloody hard for several months

  • to produce the talk of your life and make it worth their while.

  • And that's the deal.

  • JIM LECINSKI: You know I actually

  • asked that question as just a not-so-subtle hint

  • to our audience today.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: I'm actually stunned,

  • because I thought coming to Google, of all places,

  • you guys would all be coding and whatever.

  • You're all so brilliant, you can multitask your way

  • through this.

  • No problem.

  • JIM LECINSKI: There you go.

  • So maybe tell us a little bit about the simple question

  • of who gets to do a TED talk.

  • How do you decide?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: In principle, it's simple.

  • It's someone who's doing amazing work that other people need

  • to know about, and the rest is detail.

  • And so it's hard to decide who those people are.

  • We get 10,000 suggestions a year from people around the world.

  • We have a curation team.

  • For a conference, we're trying to weave

  • a sort of mix of people together around a theme.

  • This year's theme was dream as in big, bold dreams.

  • But there's no algorithm to it yet.

  • Please don't invent one just yet,

  • or we'll be out of business.

  • It's a sort of-- because we want, with the program,

  • to-- and I think a lot of events fail to do this.

  • We want to poke at every different part

  • of people's minds.

  • It can't just be about something analytical or storytelling,

  • what have you.

  • There are different parts of minds

  • engaged when you start to go to the aesthetic

  • or to someone's inspiring story, or to here's

  • a really complex scientific issue that we're tackling in.

  • There's energy that comes from that,

  • and so it's not just who you bring.

  • It's then trying to sequence them in a way that will work.

  • JIM LECINSKI: I heard you once say

  • that-- I don't know if it's a filter or a screen how you put

  • it-- but one consideration that you

  • look at in deciding on a speaker is who would

  • benefit from hearing this idea.

  • Is it just you?

  • Is it just your team?

  • Is it just your organization?

  • Or--

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Right.

  • So that is actually-- I would say

  • that is the number one advice to a speaker,

  • and it's the core thing that's in the book.

  • It's so tempting as a speaker, you think, hey,

  • I've got an opportunity.

  • So I'm going to use it.

  • I'm going to promote my organization, my cause,

  • and in the process, I'm going to take the chance

  • to be a little bit of a rock star, because I can.

  • And that's the trap that so many people fall into,

  • and it's very counterproductive, because it actually shuts down

  • the audience.

  • If you can do it the other way around,

  • if you can make clear from the start

  • that your purpose in being on stage is to give something,

  • is to give people a gift, a gift of something that you know,

  • and that if they knew, it would make a difference to them.

  • I mean our lives are built around our worldviews.

  • Different knowledge means a different life.

  • It means doing things differently maybe years

  • into the future.

  • So come with a gift, and I think if we

  • don't see that in a speaker, if we smell for a minute

  • that they're in it for self-promotional purposes

  • primarily, not interested.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Right.

  • And that's good advice not just on stage at your conference,

  • in general, I suppose.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: I think in general.

  • I think absolutely in general.

  • Even frankly, even if you are trying to sell something,

  • the best salespeople don't come on and say, hey,

  • here's what I got.

  • They say, what are you passionate about?

  • What are you thinking about?

  • What do you need?

  • What are you curious about?

  • How can I help?

  • So absolutely.

  • Every speaker should be thinking about the audience

  • and what they can offer that could be of interest and use.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Now in terms of speaking delivery and speaking

  • ability, you've described yourself,

  • and I think greatly underselling your powers,

  • as not a natural charismatic speaker.

  • In some senses, your predecessor was

  • a charismatic, outgoing person.

  • But you've had this awesome ringside seat

  • for the past dozen or so or more years watching great speakers.

  • So what have you observed about the perennial debate of you're

  • a natural at it or not, or you can learn it or not?

  • Some people can only get so far at being a good speaker.

  • What's your point on I guess nature and nurture?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: I mean, I'm convinced

  • that the only thing that you need to give a great talk

  • is something worth saying.

  • You need knowledge.

  • You need to have done some work that deserves a wider airing.

  • The rest can be taught.

  • Honestly, it can be taught, because the last thing you want

  • is for everyone to learn some sort of style of speaking.

  • We don't want to think of speaking as a performance.

  • There definitely are some people who

  • are natural performers and who can in the moment

  • sort of smoothly pluck beautiful, elegant phrases out

  • of nowhere and pass them on.

  • So not everyone probably can do that.

  • But that's a good thing.

  • We don't want everyone to do that.

  • It would get exhausting, honestly.

  • What you want is a variety of different people,

  • different skills, different standpoints, different speaking

  • styles.

  • What you want is authenticity.

  • You want people who care about something.

  • And even if they half stammer their way through a talk,

  • if you're learning something, that is fantastic.

  • So I just feel passionately about this

  • that it's a tragedy that there are so many people out there

  • in the world, and I bet there are even

  • people here in this world-leading company, who

  • feel under-confident when it comes to public speaking,

  • despite having something really valuable to share, something

  • that if the rest of the world knew, rest of the world

  • would like it.

  • And so we've got to get over that.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Yeah.

  • So maybe if you tell us a little bit about two people who've, I

  • guess, fit both of those profiles or archetypes

  • that you just outlined.

  • Maybe Sir Ken Robinson as a natural, a gifted,

  • one of those who can pluck things out,

  • and maybe someone who's a little more hesitant like a Monica

  • Lewinsky.

  • Maybe if you could just tell us a little bit

  • about those two examples to illustrate your point.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Sure.

  • I mean Sir Ken Robinson came to TED in 2006.

  • I think he'd already been voted Europe's Best

  • Speaker or something like that.

  • I was a little suspicious of him,

  • because I thought if he's that good,

  • what are we going to get here?

  • But he kind of shuffled onto the stage and said,

  • you know, it's been great, hasn't it?

  • I've been blown away.

  • In fact, I'm leaving.

  • And people sort of tittered and giggled, and then

  • over the next 10 minutes, they just

  • didn't stop laughing, because he just brilliantly told story

  • after story about kids.

  • And we all wanted it to go on forever.

  • And having won all that affection,

  • he was able to give us this very inspiring story and argument

  • that creativity is completely under-taught in schools,

  • undernourished.

  • And that resonated with so many people so deeply.

  • And so that was 2006, and it was told to 800 people.

  • And now 800 people every hour watch

  • that talk online all these years later,

  • and he's up to 38 million or whatever it is.

  • Monica Lewinsky was terrified, for obvious reasons,

  • coming to TED.

  • She'd stayed fairly invisible for the best part of a decade.

  • And she felt passionate about certain things,

  • about this issue of cyberbullying.

  • But it took a lot of courage for her to come and raise

  • her voice, and naturally, coming into the conference,

  • she thought, gosh, what if this is a big public stage?

  • I'm on video.

  • What if I'm humiliated again?

  • It was really hard for her.

  • I think she almost pulled out a couple of times.

  • But what held her there was she wrote on her script,

  • this matters.

  • And returning to sort of giving this in the service of an idea

  • made a big difference.

  • She did a few smart things physically

  • in terms of exercises, breathing, whatever

  • before coming on stage.

  • And in her talk, she structured it

  • cleverly so that up front, she had

  • a very disarming personal story right in the first minute

  • or two that had everyone laughing.

  • And at that moment, she told me she just relaxed

  • and knew that she had it.

  • So that talk was extraordinary.

  • That's been seen by eight million people now,

  • and it really changed how a lot of people thought of her

  • and how a lot of people thought about this issue.

  • So I'd definitely say that if she can overcome her fear,

  • anyone here who is fearful of speaking could.

  • JIM LECINSKI: So you talk about some of those conventions

  • that she used.

  • She also had some great sticky phrases.

  • I remember one that hangs with me is she called herself,

  • I think, patient zero of cyberbullying.

  • So that brings up the natural question of,

  • do you coach these speakers?

  • Do you write the scripts?

  • Do you edit the scripts?

  • Do you review them?

  • Or even are there scripts?

  • Or is it all improvised?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: So it's different in every case.

  • In the majority of cases, there are scripts.

  • And we certainly don't write them in the first place.

  • We invite a draft.

  • If we don't think that it's quite there,

  • we may suggest some changes, usually broadly, occasionally

  • line by line.

  • I mean, the hardest thing for speakers

  • is actually to adjust the scope of the talk

  • to fit 18 minutes or so.

  • Like people say, I'm coming to give a big talk.

  • There are so many things in my life I'm so proud of

  • and I want to share with this group.

  • You want to jam them all in somehow or other.

  • And that means that everything gets dealt with surface level.

  • Overjammed equals underexplained.

  • So the hardest thing is the discipline

  • of cutting it out, cutting it out, focusing on the one idea

  • that you're most passionate about

  • and, therefore, giving yourself time to unpack it properly,

  • to set up the context.

  • Why does this matter?

  • Why do I care about it?

  • Why should you care about it?

  • How has this been tackled historically?

  • Why didn't that work?

  • What could work now?

  • Here's an example of why that could work now.

  • Here's why it matters.

  • What are we going to do with this?

  • All those things are what make the idea vivid and actionable,

  • and so that's the hardest piece is people just come

  • in with too much usually.

  • And we say to them, maybe focus on this one thing.

  • JIM LECINSKI: I mean this is the famous, if I had had time,

  • I would have written you a shorter letter.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Exactly.

  • Exactly.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Exactly.

  • So in terms of presentation styles,

  • I'm going to give you two sort of poles.

  • Of course, there's many shades of gray in between,

  • but there are the speakers, I imagine,

  • who come in with a full script, everything written, practiced

  • and timed, fully memorized to 17 minutes and 59 seconds.

  • And it's recall, push the button,

  • and all thousand words come out.

  • And there are probably others who

  • come in with a series of stories or bullet points

  • or sketches that they kind of know

  • they want to cover and want to leave room

  • for some spontaneity.

  • Do you see both?

  • Do you encourage both?

  • Can both work?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: We see both.

  • We encourage both.

  • And both can work.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Next question.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: The trap is going in the middle,

  • in between the two.

  • So the type of talk that I think we try and discourage

  • is the I'm planning to memorize this,

  • but I'm still a little bit stressed,

  • and I'm not quite there.

  • And the audience can hear that.

  • If you start giving your talk, and then your eyes sort of roll

  • up a bit, and then, oh, let me just

  • start that paragraph again.

  • And suddenly, people have this sickening feeling-- oh,

  • my goodness.

  • He's reciting.

  • And the life, in a way, goes out of it, because what you want

  • is this live human moment.

  • We're here, and you're smiling at me, and now it's lovely.

  • You know, like I feel this chemistry, this excitement.

  • This happens live, and people want

  • to decode the I'm looking at a live human mind,

  • and I'm making a judgment right now.

  • And it's hard for you, because you're looking at my shoulder

  • here, but I'm making a judgment right now about

  • whether you can trust me.

  • It's hard to do that if you think someone's reciting.

  • You actually can't.

  • So if you're in that mode, here's what you have to do.

  • You don't tear it up and go back to notes.

  • You double down on your rehearsal,

  • and you own the talk.

  • You make it part of you so that when you're in the room,

  • it's not at all a problem to remember what you say.

  • You know what's coming next.

  • It's right there.

  • And you can focus again on the meaning

  • and on wanting to connect with you, because actually, now

  • that I think of it, this particular idea is right

  • for you right now, and speakers can

  • get to the point of doing that.

  • And I think probably the majority of TED talks

  • are memorized.

  • A small number of them do sound a little bit robotic,

  • and people push back against that.

  • Most of them, you really feel the person's passion,

  • and it's thrilling.

  • The danger of going the other way is that you can ramble.

  • You can go over.

  • You can miss out some of the key things that you wanted to say,

  • or you can miss the chance to really use the best

  • language to say something.

  • You want to really clearly explain something.

  • On the other hand, it can be live and fresh,

  • and some people really can do that very well.

  • What I'd say to someone who was planning

  • to speak from bullet points is it's still worth rehearsing it.

  • Rehearse it three or four times, even

  • if it's just in your bedroom with a cell phone there

  • recording.

  • You'll find out the awkward moments in it,

  • and it'll change, and you'll move from awkwardness

  • to owning the talk.

  • So either way, rehearse, and get to the point, where you feel

  • like you really know the talk.

  • You feel like you just know it.

  • And then you can focus on meaning and connection.

  • JIM LECINSKI: So let's get into the book a little bit more.

  • I mean, this is some of the content in the excellent book

  • that you've released.

  • You said that the goal of every TED speaker

  • is to plant the seed of a powerful idea.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Yes.

  • JIM LECINSKI: And the book starts

  • to unpack ways to do that.

  • Let's, I guess, tackle the first elephant or monkey here, which

  • is, is there a formula to plant that seed?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: No, there's no formula.

  • I think the first thing to note is that it's

  • a miracle that you can do it.

  • If you think, what is an idea?

  • If you could take the idea, democracy

  • is fragile, if you could color code that in your brain

  • and look at what actually encodes

  • that in the human brain, I would guess it involves

  • literally millions of neurons.

  • It's a fantastically complicated pattern.

  • Yet somehow in an 18-minute talk or less, a speaker

  • can transfer that entire pattern into everyone else's minds.

  • It seems like an impossible thing.

  • The only way it happens, it can do it,

  • is because we share language.

  • So you're building this pattern out of elements that

  • already exist in the minds.

  • What you're trying to is to put them together.

  • But to do that, you have to be incredibly

  • disciplined about remembering that it's their language,

  • it's their concepts that you're building from, not yours.

  • So your jargon, your assumptions, that's what

  • can kill an explanation stone dead.

  • And there's this cognitive bug called the Curse of Knowledge,

  • which pretty much everyone suffers from

  • and which is the tendency to forget what it's like

  • not to know something.

  • You guys here, you live in a world

  • where it's natural to talk about algorithms and coding

  • and whatever.

  • You have a conversation with people somewhere else,

  • and you suddenly wonder why their eyes are glazing over.

  • It's actually not because you're a boring person.

  • It's because you missed out something

  • like they didn't understand why this mattered

  • or what the context was.

  • And we do this all the time.

  • And so as a speaker, try your talk out on someone

  • who isn't in your normal circle, but who

  • might be like the people in the audience.

  • See if they get it.

  • You kind of have to do that.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Yeah.

  • And so you've talked a little bit

  • about how using familiar concepts,

  • metaphors as a bridge to get a complex topic across

  • can be effective.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Right.

  • So I think of a metaphor as kind of like a template.

  • You've got these different elements or ideas

  • in someone's mind, and a metaphor

  • shows how they connect together in a shape that's

  • familiar so that you get it.

  • So Jennifer Khan, a science writer,

  • was trying to explain CRISPR to us at the last TED.

  • And we've had several scientists try and explain it,

  • and they got all terribly complicated

  • and all this sort of complex science of DNA and so forth.

  • She said, no, look, it's like a word processor for the genome.

  • You can use CRISPR to cut and paste

  • any gene to any part that you want or, indeed, any letter.

  • And we go, wow, a word processor for the genome.

  • I get it.

  • So metaphors are really powerful,

  • and examples are powerful as well

  • to make sure that you're cementing in the knowledge.

  • Oh, so this is what I mean.

  • JIM LECINSKI: One of the other conventions or devices

  • that you talk about in the book is getting personal.

  • You mention Monica Lewinsky opened her talk

  • with a personal story.

  • What's been your experience or your advice

  • on using personal anecdotes or personal experience?

  • Because often the advice is speakers will come up

  • and say, I, I, I, me, me, me turns off the audience.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Yes, if you think

  • that the speaker is saying it's all about me, that

  • is a turn off.

  • But I think there is a case to try to diffuse skepticism

  • and mistrust.

  • If you think about it, if this agenda of trying

  • to build an idea in someone's mind,

  • you're doing something very intimate there.

  • People are skeptical about letting

  • a stranger come and poke around inside their brain

  • without permission.

  • And so first of all, there's a process of learning to trust,

  • of saying, do I trust this person?

  • Do I like this person?

  • Do I want to open up to this person?

  • And you need that opening up to happen if explanation

  • is successfully to happen.

  • You can't push knowledge into a brain.

  • It has to be pulled in.

  • JIM LECINSKI: And so the personal

  • is the way to build that trust.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Right.

  • So I'd say it's not so necessarily personal.

  • It's not saying, let me tell you all about me.

  • It's more saying in a personal way,

  • why this matters but just showing it

  • in sort of an informal way, rather than starting

  • at a conceptual level.

  • It's like saying, hey, we're going to go on a journey

  • together.

  • This is where I'd like to go.

  • And by the way, it's going to be fun.

  • Here's why you should come with me.

  • And just trying to convince people of that.

  • JIM LECINSKI: I want to remind our audience

  • in a few minutes we'll be taking questions at the microphones

  • here, so have your questions ready in a couple of minutes.

  • One of the concepts that really resonated powerfully

  • with me in the book is this notion of the through line.

  • I wonder if you'd explain that for our audience.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: So if it's right that a talk should

  • be about building an idea in people's minds,

  • then everything in the talk needs to connect to that idea.

  • You think of it as your through line.

  • And so things that aren't part of that get cut out,

  • but then everything else connects to that.

  • When you think about what's happening in a talk,

  • you're taking this very complex three-dimensional object

  • of an idea, and you're trying to transfer that.

  • And your means to do it is a one-dimensional stream

  • of words.

  • So it's inherently hard, and what you have to do,

  • therefore, is to thread those words in a way

  • where it's clear how each part relates.

  • So if you're going to give a counter-example,

  • that needs to be clear that that's what you're doing.

  • If you're giving some historical context,

  • you need to show that that's what it is.

  • If it's an anecdote, people need to get a sense of how this

  • relates to what's happening.

  • Otherwise, again, it's like I like the sound of your voice,

  • and this kind of makes sense, but I'm

  • really not sure exactly where you're going

  • and how these pieces fit together.

  • And a lot of talks feel like that.

  • They feel the pieces are there, but it doesn't quite land.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Yeah.

  • In the book, you also talk about a powerful speaking device

  • is to uncover and explore a disconnect

  • or a seeming disconnect in a common world view.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Yes.

  • Persuasion-- to persuade someone of something,

  • you first have to show them that what they believe right now

  • doesn't really make sense.

  • Like before you can blow up someone's worldview,

  • you need to just tease it out a bit.

  • So do you really want to believe this?

  • How is that consistent with this?

  • And so it's this wonderful feature of some talks.

  • In a sort of teasing, friendly, but in a powerful way,

  • just reveal that this view has got to be absurd,

  • and that stokes curiosity.

  • And there's this concept of the knowledge gap.

  • Once you are aware of this knowledge gap in your mind,

  • you instinctively just want to close it.

  • And curiosity says, more, more, more.

  • Help me figure this out.

  • I don't like this.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Yeah.

  • In addition to the talks themselves,

  • you've done a wonderful job of extending the brand.

  • We've talked about putting those talks and those videos online,

  • certainly the book that we're talking about today.

  • But there's TED X, TED Ed, some of these other brand

  • and line extensions.

  • I wondered if you would just maybe talk about some of those

  • and how you see those fitting in.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Having seen the success of just giving away

  • the content, we became a bit obsessed

  • with giving things away and the power

  • of that in the connected age.

  • And so we thought, what if we gave away our brand?

  • It doesn't seem like that bright an idea at first glance,

  • so we added an X to TED and said the X stands

  • for self-organized.

  • And if you would like to do a TED-like event somewhere

  • in the world, we'll give you a license to do it.

  • It's over to you.

  • And amazingly, there's 3,000 of these now a year.

  • So there's nine every day or so.

  • And obviously, we couldn't do this.

  • Like I've got 15 people in New York,

  • who are overseeing 3,000 events a year,

  • and it's because of the power of TED X.

  • So these events go from filling out the Sydney Opera House

  • to an event in a jail or TED X Baghdad or whatever.

  • Absolutely.

  • And we just love seeing what happens there.

  • There's about-- YouTube, thank you very much--

  • is the main distribution vehicle for these.

  • There's more than 60,000 talks on there, and many of them

  • are getting a lot of views, so that's

  • been a thrilling experiment.

  • And then TED Ed is just our reaching out to the brand

  • to a youth audience.

  • And instead of talks on a stage, we're saying teachers,

  • let's have your best lesson.

  • Five or six minutes to spark curiosity.

  • Thanks to Google, knowledge is no longer

  • a problem in the world.

  • Everyone has access to all the world's knowledge.

  • For some reason, educators haven't quite

  • come to terms with this yet, and we still think of education

  • as trying to jam knowledge into a brain, to fill it up.

  • It should all be about nurturing the right kind of curiosity

  • and the right way to ask questions, the right way

  • to bring in the right knowledge.

  • So these are curiosity-sparking videos,

  • and they're animated, but from a teacher's best words.

  • And so we have the thrill of a great teacher,

  • who during their whole career, has reached 5,000 kids, at most

  • or whatever.

  • And suddenly in the first hour of their talking online,

  • they've reached 50,000 kids.

  • And it's so thrilling for them, and it's fun to see.

  • JIM LECINSKI: And education and learning

  • has been long part of, I would suggest,

  • one of the core tenets or essences of TED.

  • I mean, obviously, since the beginning,

  • but maybe perhaps, Sal Khan, Salman Khan,

  • was one of the most preeminent that came and talked

  • about education.

  • I wonder if you'd maybe share some of your experiences

  • with him and what he's done.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: I mean, Sal Khan, in my opinion,

  • he's a true global hero.

  • I mean, for a hedge fund manager to give over his life

  • to educating first his cousin, his nephews,

  • and then the world, I mean, it's really incredible

  • that one person could do that.

  • And he's starting with just the power of video,

  • and then adding in this idea of mastery

  • so that people can learn at their own pace.

  • That's the real power of video is

  • that it makes no sense to force a bunch of kids

  • to learn at the same speed.

  • They're all different.

  • Video allows them to decouple from time

  • and find their own rhythm.

  • And that allows people who you'd never expect to master topics

  • in their own timing.

  • So it's incredible.

  • And he gave a very inspiring talk at TED.

  • And by the way, he's got the best single quote

  • in the book, which is when you give a talk, just be yourself.

  • Like if you're a creative person, be a creative person.

  • If you're a humorous person, be a humorous person.

  • If you're an egoful person, however, leave that aside.

  • JIM LECINSKI: That's good advice.

  • And in a sense, what started on your stage

  • there has been a revolution in learning.

  • There are more than a few school districts

  • who have so-called flipped the classroom,

  • and the homework is watching Sal Khan to absorb the information.

  • And then the class itself is the practice,

  • as opposed to what we all learned

  • was you learn during the day and go home and practice at night.

  • So that has to be very gratifying,

  • the kind of thing when you talk about ideas worth spreading.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Yeah.

  • And I think that is hugely powerful.

  • I think it's still early days, and there's

  • lots of versions of that being explored,

  • but I think it's very exciting.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Yeah.

  • Has there been any topic area that you would very much wish

  • to have explored throughout the TED process or on stage,

  • but you haven't just found the quite right speaker, or maybe

  • an area that you've thought about diving into,

  • but haven't been comfortable bringing to the stage?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Yeah, there are lots.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Any you'd like to share with us?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Well, just being personal

  • as the sort of philosophical geek, who

  • used to lie on the floor of his student room

  • trying to understand the world and failing, consciousness.

  • Who the hell are we?

  • It doesn't make any sense.

  • I mean by all sort of scientific definitions of consciousness

  • that you get to a certain level of complexity

  • in decision making, Google itself is conscious right now.

  • Maybe it is.

  • We don't know.

  • But what is it?

  • Who are we?

  • These are very difficult questions,

  • and we've had a few speakers in.

  • But I would love more of that.

  • But that's a little selfish.

  • I mean, politics is hard, right?

  • In many ways, TED is sort of this escape from the ranting

  • that we hear 24/7 on cable, but there's

  • something about certain topics that force people

  • into a tribal mode.

  • And it's very distressing when we stop reasoning

  • with each other and sharing ideas

  • and start shouting at each other and just staking out positions.

  • And so we don't have traditional political-type talks.

  • I would love to find more people who can frame ways to bridge

  • and frame different ways of looking at politics.

  • And so we're constantly on the lookout for that,

  • but it's hard.

  • That's hard to do.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Let's invite our audience

  • to come up to the microphones and ask some questions,

  • and as they do that, you mentioned scientific.

  • You know, there are quite a lot of,

  • as you used the example here today,

  • there are quite a lot of heavy-duty scientific topics.

  • But then there's a lot of sort of different points of view.

  • We can pick global warming.

  • Is it, isn't it these kinds of things?

  • Do you have a scientific body that

  • reviews the sort of realness of the science?

  • Or how does one know into these deep topics

  • if it's real science or skewed science

  • or a personal point of view?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: I mean, we're committed

  • to real science in principle.

  • What real science is is a matter of debate,

  • even among scientists.

  • We don't have a formal process for doing it.

  • We're constantly thinking about this.

  • We're actually in the process of hiring a science curator,

  • and that person will have a group of advisors as well.

  • Certainly, pseudoscience, I think,

  • doesn't have a place on the TED stage.

  • There's enough amazingness happening in science.

  • There are so many brilliant scientists

  • out there, who have incredible knowledge that's worth

  • sharing without needing to go to people who are probably

  • going to end up misleading.

  • But what the line is between the two

  • is sometimes just a matter of judgment.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Yeah.

  • One of my favorite talks was a young 10-year-old,

  • I think, that you had from Africa.

  • I wonder if you would tell that story if the audience hasn't

  • seen his amazing speech.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: OK, so this would be-- I

  • think it's the Kenyan boy, Richard Turere.

  • I think about he might have been 12 by the time

  • he got to the TED stage, but earlier,

  • he had taught himself electronics

  • by taking apart his parents' radio.

  • He was a Maasai kid.

  • He lived in a little settlement outside Nairobi,

  • trying to protect cattle from lions.

  • And he figured out that moving lights terrified these lions.

  • So somehow he built from parts that he

  • found a solar powered light flasher, which

  • scared away the lions.

  • And so environmentalists were happy,

  • because the villagers weren't going out and killing

  • the lions.

  • And this invention spread across the area of Kenya,

  • but when we met this kid in Nairobi, he was so shy.

  • He could hardly speak.

  • You couldn't get the story out of him.

  • He was terrified.

  • And the process of bringing him to the point where

  • he got on a plane for the first time in his life,

  • came to California, and somewhere

  • between Sergey Brin and Bill Gates

  • gave a talk about his invention.

  • And the room just cheered him.

  • He was so great.

  • His smile lit up the entire place,

  • and he told the story beautifully.

  • And it was just about getting comfortable and rehearsing

  • and believing in what he had done.

  • JIM LECINSKI: And I think that continually illustrates

  • the point that it's not always just the big names

  • who can deliver a great talk.

  • The unexpected people are often the biggest surprises.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Absolutely.

  • So hi.

  • AUDIENCE: I'm curious, how much of the talks

  • are you recruited this kid from Kenya,

  • or how many are supplied to you?

  • You mentioned you get 10,000 ideas on a yearly basis.

  • How often are you like, we need to get this person,

  • because they have an idea that we

  • want to see on the TED stage?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Yeah, I think it's probably

  • about 60-40, 60 we recruit or find or identify, 40.

  • Most of that 40 come from people saying,

  • you know, I saw this person, and they're amazing.

  • You must bring them to TED.

  • And probably 5% of people who say hey,

  • I'm ready for the TED stage.

  • I mean, some of those are great, but some of those aren't.

  • And it's something like that mix.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Let's go over here.

  • AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for being here and sharing

  • an hour of your day with us.

  • I love TED.

  • It's one of my personal goals to actually watch at least one

  • or two a week.

  • I take time out of my day to do that,

  • because I find them to be so valuable.

  • So I'm curious if you're able to share any sneak peeks

  • or what we can expect this year at TED, or just

  • some ideas or topics that might be new

  • and coming that we can expect.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Well, next year's TED, the theme

  • is The Future You.

  • And so it's going to be more personal than some TEDs are

  • with more sort of personal takeaway of how you can use it.

  • But it's everything from the technologies that

  • are going to be very cool coming up to literal sort of life

  • hacks that you can use to navigate the challenging

  • world that we're in-- medical advances and so forth.

  • So that's the direction.

  • Our themes are sort of like a tweak on usual TED content.

  • It's still from the same type of palette.

  • In terms of other talks from the last TED that are coming up,

  • well, let's see.

  • Jennifer Khan's talk on CRISPR and on gene drives

  • is coming out soon.

  • And I think that's incredibly beautifully explained

  • and a very powerful issue that we all

  • need to be thinking about.

  • There's a wonderful talk about misfits coming out.

  • If you haven't seen it, do watch the Tim Urban

  • talk on procrastination.

  • We all do it.

  • JIM LECINSKI: I need to get to that one.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Nice.

  • That was good.

  • I like that.

  • Very good.

  • He procrastinated right up to the week before the conference,

  • then realized his talk wasn't there, flew into this panic,

  • and ended up coming up with a masterpiece.

  • So it was very good.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Let's go over here.

  • AUDIENCE: I wanted to pick on your media and journalist brain

  • and ask this question about the discourse in general

  • on social media and news channels.

  • And it's almost like the incentives

  • encourage extremist thinking and not nuanced thinking.

  • Like on Twitter because of word limits, and extreme people

  • tend to voice their opinions more.

  • This is all my personal opinion.

  • And even for news channels, like snippets,

  • and like almost false news sells more ads.

  • And these are the biggest mediums.

  • I mean it's great to have them as a medium for communication,

  • but how do we fix those?

  • Or like not necessarily do individual fix, though.

  • It's like, how do we get this nuanced discussion out

  • to everyone?

  • And TV and social media are the channels that

  • reach more than TED, right?

  • So do you have thoughts, and have

  • you thought about this problem?

  • Or do you feel this is a problem?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: No, it's definitely a problem.

  • And I think it's constantly moving.

  • I mean, there's many conversations to be had here.

  • One of the things I think about, which I think I'm hopeful at,

  • is that the world we're moving to is-- I

  • think video is going to play a bigger and bigger role.

  • If we believe your founders and people like Zuckerberg and Elon

  • Musk, we're going to have low band,

  • low-cost broadband across every square inch of the planet.

  • And I think you can imagine a future, where people, yes,

  • they're still looking down at their screens.

  • But what they're seeing is another human face looking back

  • at them.

  • And some perforce when that happens,

  • some of the traditional standards and things that

  • run very deep in how we look and how we interact with each other

  • may shift.

  • There's a bigger premium on trust and on respect

  • and so forth.

  • But I don't know.

  • I think it's all to be played for,

  • and I do think one of the things that I see some hope in

  • is that when the battle is about what will people click on,

  • that drives a certain type of behavior.

  • It drives a kind of extremist, if you like, to my mind,

  • lizard brain behavior, where you go the dramatic and the sort

  • of whatever.

  • And that leads to all these awful sort of Five Celebrity

  • Sexy Secrets that duh-duh-duh that are frankly

  • destroying the internet.

  • And if you guys could please Google them out.

  • But when you go to sharing, social media sharing,

  • there, it's more about someone's identity.

  • And I think that triggers a different part

  • of people's minds.

  • It's more a reflective choice.

  • And I think that type of content,

  • that's how hopeful stories and stuff do end up circulating

  • on social media beautifully.

  • So it's not an answer to your question,

  • but it's a very long conversation.

  • AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] enabling both kinds of behaviors there.

  • I mean, maybe as technologists, we

  • don't think that everything technology is good,

  • but perhaps, technology is also the source

  • of some of these things.

  • At least it's enabling some of these things,

  • and we maybe should think about how we fit in.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: It is absolutely possible

  • that we end up creating technologies,

  • where we end up sleepwalking into a future we don't actually

  • want.

  • And you guys, more than any others in the world,

  • need to be thinking about that every day,

  • because just because something works in the moment,

  • and people want it and like it, it

  • doesn't mean that there aren't going

  • to be terrible, unintended consequences of it.

  • AUDIENCE: Thanks so much for being here.

  • This is such a fun way to spend an afternoon.

  • My question is, I think we all have stories that we reread

  • and TED Talks we revisit to be inspired.

  • So my question is twofold.

  • Do you have any TED talk that you

  • find yourself rewatching over and over again that's really

  • moved you in some way?

  • And then are there any other storytellers, maybe even

  • outside of TED, that you really admire?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: So I'll answer the first one.

  • I'm not sure if I've got a good answer for you

  • on the second one.

  • Oh, I do have a good answer on the second one.

  • On the first one, there's a talk by David Deutsch

  • that I really like.

  • So he's a physicist.

  • He's kind of a recluse.

  • And he gave this talk basically arguing

  • that we're not chemical scum on a random planet

  • in the universe, as Stephen Hawking kind of said.

  • But actually, knowledge is a force

  • of potentially universal reach.

  • And so that is powerful, and he has this wonderful statement

  • at the end of it saying that it's

  • a kind of a definition of optimism, I think.

  • He says, look, carve two stone tablets.

  • One of them says, problems are inevitable.

  • One of them says, problems are solvable.

  • And I think that what that says is

  • that not the cliche that there's a technological solution

  • to every problem, which I think really annoys people.

  • What it says is that it's right to take

  • the stance in the world, not to be beaten by stuff that OK,

  • there are going to be problems, that there will always

  • be problems.

  • We actually do have a crack at solving them if we're wise

  • and if we keep thinking and keep at it.

  • So I personally find that a very nuanced and beautiful message,

  • and I like that talk.

  • And on the storyteller, Yuval Harari's book, "Sapiens,"

  • is astonishing.

  • He tells the story of us as a species,

  • and he tells it in extraordinary language

  • and connects things that you would never imagine connecting.

  • And I couldn't recommend it more strongly.

  • AUDIENCE: Hi, thanks for coming.

  • So in the algorithm, as you mentioned,

  • world that we live in, I find it hard for an individual

  • to have a sense of the actual truth

  • or reality of certain things.

  • So for example, when I watch TED Talks on YouTube,

  • is it over indexed towards technology,

  • or is it just, I happen to have watched several technology TED

  • Talks, and that's what YouTube recommends for me?

  • So my question is just with your inside perspective,

  • do you feel that TED is over indexed in certain areas

  • or under indexed in others?

  • And what do you do?

  • So you just sit back and let the masses sort of--

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: YouTube's algorithm

  • is entirely to blame here.

  • YouTube does a brilliant job of personalizing stuff,

  • and so what you watch, that's what it will offer you.

  • If you were to go to ted.com and type in the word happiness,

  • for example, you'd see a ton of talks

  • about happiness, which if anyone is

  • coming to TED for the first time, I would say start there.

  • One, happiness matters.

  • Two, there's a dozen different approaches to it

  • that are different.

  • And I love those talks.

  • And the personalization thing, by the way,

  • I wish there was a default setting on YouTube,

  • where you could say, actually, I want to be catalyzed.

  • I don't want you to assume that I'm only who I click on.

  • I want to be catalyzed by a broader sense of knowledge.

  • Could you do that for me?

  • And I think a lot of people would click that setting,

  • honestly.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Thank you.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Thank you.

  • AUDIENCE: Thank you very much for coming.

  • I'm sure you've heard incredible stories from people

  • all around the world, communities, groups

  • of how TED has impacted them.

  • Do you have a favorite anecdote or story that you've heard?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: There are many.

  • Many of them just happen on quite a personal level.

  • TED moves people from being sort of skeptical observers to being

  • engaged agents, and I love seeing that.

  • I had one lovely moment recently at a dinner,

  • where the waitress serving us sort of whispered in my ear

  • that she had watched TED Talks.

  • And it turned out that I think she was a Polish immigrant,

  • and she'd come into the US.

  • She'd been homeless for awhile, and her son

  • had introduced her to TED.

  • And so it's almost like she was sort of sneaking hours

  • in a homeless shelter for a while

  • somehow watching TED Talks on a borrowed iPad or something.

  • And she was crying, and so we were crying.

  • And it was like, I love the spread of this

  • that there are so many people, who want to learn.

  • I think what she got from that was a sense of empowerment.

  • I'm homeless now, but that's not who I am.

  • I can be a lot more than that.

  • And I think there are a lot of stories

  • like that at an individual level that are really

  • why we do what we do.

  • JIM LECINSKI: And that brings us to our final question, which

  • is the traditional question we always

  • ask our guests at these Authors at Google talks.

  • Would you be willing to share with our audience a start,

  • stop continue, something that you would suggest that they

  • start doing, stop doing, continue

  • doing to learn and to be better speakers

  • and to plant those seeds of ideas that matter?

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Stop being daunted

  • by your nervousness about it.

  • It's there for a reason.

  • It's there to motivate you to put the work in

  • to produce a great talk.

  • Start speaking up.

  • Everyone needs to.

  • The world's too complicated for single experts

  • to solve these problems.

  • It needs lots of us to participate.

  • Please be part of that.

  • Continue.

  • Well, first of all, continue doing what you're doing.

  • This is one of the world's great companies,

  • and you're empowering, literally now,

  • billions of people around the world

  • to find knowledge more quickly.

  • I mean, it's absolutely incredible what

  • has been created in this organization.

  • So keep doing that.

  • Continue being not evil.

  • It's hard, actually, when you're a big public company.

  • And stay curious.

  • That's the single biggest thing.

  • I passionately believe in the power of curiosity

  • to lead to things that are special.

  • I mean, the more you know, the more interesting

  • the world gets.

  • So stay curious.

  • JIM LECINSKI: Chris, thank you for the gift of TED,

  • and thank you for being with us here today.

  • CHRIS ANDERSON: Thank you so much.

  • Thank you.

  • [APPLAUSE]

JIM LECINSKI: Well, good Friday afternoon, everyone,

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