Valley girl meets Oxford don for brainstorming
Thomas Crampton
International Herald Tribune, July 14, 2005
OXFORD, England -- In a case of valley girl dating Oxford don, an iconic technology conference with a distinctly California feel has set up shop in Europe for the first time this week.
The effort at exporting the Silicon Valley spirit was undertaken by Chris Anderson, a T-shirt and flip-flop wearing technology entrepreneur who bought the conference in 2001 and whose other ventures include creating the magazine Business 2.0.
"This is a huge gamble for us that may fall on deaf ears," said Anderson, who refers to himself as the TED curator. "We are not saying that one continent is better at ideas than another, but this sort of thing just has not been tried in Europe."
What's the big idea?
Carole Cadwalladr
The Observer, July 24, 2005
The unique thing about TED is that the audience is almost as high-powered as the speakers. Everyone has a big red name tag, most of which include the words 'President', 'CEO' or 'Professor'. Mine says 'Carole Cadwalladr' and has a big blank next to it.
On the last day, I meet someone else with a blank. 'You're a blank!' I say. But it turns out he's an Arctic explorer called Ben Saunders.
'Everywhere else, people ask me why I do what I do,' he says. 'But here no one asks. They just accept it because they're all like that. They're all passionate about what they're doing.'
Big thinkers show the way forward
By Jo Twist and Kevin Anderson
BBC News, July 15, 2005
This group of big thinkers can be forgiven for what some might consider irrational exuberance. The impressive part of such a gathering is the number of real projects, making real differences to people.