Richard Saul Wurman created the TED conference in 1984 as a onetime event. (As you may already know, TED refers to Technology, Education, and Design.) It became a four-day conference six years later. Chris Anderson purchased TED in 2001. Until 2005, it remained a once-a-year conference: four days of programs, 50 speakers, 18-minute presentations. Anderson added TEDGlobal to reach an international audience. TED.com was launched in 2006. Thus far, the website has attracted more than one billion views, averaging about two million day. The video programs have been translated into more than 90 languages. There are no charges to access any of the TED programs. After attending the 2006 conference, documentary filmmaker Daphne Zuniga described it as “Cirque Du Soleil for the mind.” Oprah Winfrey later observed, “TED is where brilliant people go to hear other brilliant people.”
Over the next several weeks, I will be recommending the TED programs that are of greatest interest and value to me. For example: Sunni Brown on “Doodlers, unite!”
Why you should listen to her:
Sunni Brown is co-author of GameStorming: A Playbook for Rule-breakers, Innovators and Changemakers (O’Reilly Media, 2010). She’s known for her large-scale live content visualizations, and she is also the leader of the Doodle Revolution – a growing effort to debunk the myth that doodling is a distraction. Using common sense, experience and neuroscience, Sunni is proving that to doodle is to ignite your whole mind. Her latest book, book, The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently, was published by Portfolio/The Penguin Group (2014).
Her consultancy, BrightSpot I.D., specializes in visual thinking and information design. She was trained in graphic facilitation at the Grove Consultants International, a San Francisco-based company that pioneered the use of large-scale visuals in business settings. Sunni co-founded VizThink Austin, which under her leadership grew to be the largest visual thinking community in the United States.
Here is a direct link to Sunni’s TED presentation. I envy those who have not as yet seen it. To read more about her on the TED blog, please click here.