Here are some of the comments we've received from those who attended TED2004.
“A heartfelt thanks for a fantastic conference last week. Now, back at work, when people ask for a recap, I find that my only choices are a brief, dreamy ‘amazing’ or a full three-hour evangelizing!”
-- Allison Goodman, Art Center College of Design
“This community of people is a force of nature (see, I'm speaking in TED'05 terms already). I enjoyed it immensely, and I may just be a happier person now.”
-- Evan Schwartz, Technology Review
“TED is the best conference I've been to ever, and you will certainly see me there next year and for decades to come.”
-- James Hong, Hot or Not
“I found it an exhilarating and inspiring experience.”
-- Jay Lauf, Ad Director, WIRED
“I'd like to thank you for the best TED ever. I'd especially like to thank you for the three arranged meals that allowed people of like interests to interact and build a sense of community.”
-- Phil Lelyveld, Disney
“Thank you for a magnificent week. Eyes and mind opened, new friends, great feelings...and a pretty nifty round of golf.”
-- Don Levy, Sony Imageworks
“It was an amazing meeting, likely the most unusually positive I've ever been at.... the contacts! the speeches! the brilliance!”
-- Martin Seligman
“This was my seventh TED and by far the best. You have done a REMARKABLE job with TED and this year's was simply super. Many of my fellow TED citizens agreed and I wanted you to be aware of the total ground swell of appreciative TEDites that you have before you. I have NEVER seen the main hall so full so consistently in all of my years at TED. So many of us are so thrilled at the wonderfulness of TED and how, like a fine wine, it is getting better with age.”
-- Melissa Yonge-Smith
“TED 2004 clearly ranks somewhere alongside my experience at a Gandhi-founded Ashram when I was 14 years old as profoundly life changing.”
-- Pamela Hunter, Hunter Public Relations
“Thanks for making us laugh and cry and think and feel, geometrically, all together. ”
-- Sandy Yingling
“A very wonderful TED: I am still on a little high now. Here is what I wrote in my business diary: TED is just over now and as always, it was again an unbelievable experience. This is still truly the best conference I know of...”
-- Stefan Sagmeister, Sagmeister Inc.
“Thank you SO much for a truly memorable TED. I think you've rejuvenated the entire thing and I was delighted to see how much new energy and persona this year's conference had. I loved every moment in Monterey. Congratulations. See you next year.”
-- Susan Casey, Time Inc.
“This TED was the best of all those I have attended - truly inspirational. I think the choice of theme, as well as speakers, was just right for the time. I left with a real buzz. I am already looking forward to next year. I sometimes feel like a kid when Christmas is just over and I am already thinking about the next one!”
-- Tim Brown, IDEO
“What a wonderful experience this past week has been. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak to such an amazing crowd and even more so to experience such an amazing group of presenters. Very much looking forward to next year.”
-- Ze Frank, zefrank.com
“We thank you for a wonderful TED 2004...And as tough as it is to pull off...This year was one of the best in a long line of best TED's...”
-- Chuck Carlsberg, Rives Carlberg
“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for inviting me to TED. I expected it to be great but it exceeded by far my already sky high expectations. I learned so much, met, exchanged ideas with, talked and played with so many fantastic people. All in all, I left inspired and with a big contact high.”
-- Nancy Etcoff, Harvard Medical School
“Just wanted to thank you again for the invite -- you were right TED is totally cool, and addicting!”
-- Eva Harris, UC Berkeley
“My compliments to you and TED... I was blown away... lots of great stuff... accolades accolades... love love love... bravo... cheers...”
-- Jim Holbrook, Zipatoni
“It was a spectacular assortment of speakers and attendees and I left significantly enriched.”
-- Will Weisman, Maveron LLC
“It was INCREDIBLE. I had a wonderful time and met a thousand fascinating people and my heart is still racing over Jennifer Lin.”
-- Malcolm Gladwell
“Applause, it was really well done. My head always hurts for the first few post-TED days as I try -- usually unsuccessfully -- to sort out and make sense of all the pieces. As always, it was a mindbender.”
-- Lise Buyer, Google
“Congratulations on an awesome TED experience this year. I thoroughly enjoyed it; learned a lot; connected with old friends and made new ones; and am very happy that I was there.”
-- Mark Hurst, Good Experience
“Wow.”
-- William McDonough, William McDonough + Partners
“I attended Ted for the first time last week and it was a life changing experience for me, like nothing else I have ever experienced in my 20 year career. (Short of fatherhood but that's different!).”
-- Stephen Klein, Line 6
“This year was wonderful. Congratulations!! ...You will continue to have my support of the evolution of TED.”
-- Herbie Hancock, Hancock Music Company
“My deepest congratulations to you and your team for an outstanding TED conference. I was entranced by the quality of most of the speakers. The conference now operates on a higher intellectual and creative plane, providing inspiring professional and personal growth opportunities that are unique.”
-- Roger Mandle, Rhode Island School of Design
“I wanted to write to tell you what a great experience I had at TED this year. The program was enormously stimulating, the other attendees marvelously diverse, and the whole operation just first rate. This was my fourth TED and, thus far, my favorite. I'm already registered for next year and look forward to being part of the TED community as we explore possible recipients for the TED Prize.”
-- Tom Guarriello, True Talk
“This was the best conference I've ever attended, bar none. I think you've ruined me for future "academic" meetings.”
-- Dan Gilbert, Harvard University
“Fabulous show. I am now a devoted Tedster!”
-- Whitney Mortimer, IDEO
“A HUGE thank you to you for the opportunity to experience TED first-hand as a volunteer. I had an exhilarating week -- I am still on an adrenalin high!!”
-- Carol DiBenedetto
“Just wanted to say thank you thank you thank you. ...I wish you, TED and the three wishes all the joy and success for the future. It's been one of the most amazing experiences of my life.”
-- Imogen Heap, Frou Frou
Excerpts from press and blog coverage of TED2004:
What a Billionaire (Really) Wants
Quentin Hardy
Forbes, March 1, 2004
Along with the visions, there are two other benefits to TED. One is the networking. The other is the therapeutic effect of 96 hours in a willing suspension of cynicism, doubt and irony, as all these amazing visions are displayed. Most of the talkers deserved their standing ovations. For three days, some of the world's best and most successful minds gathered to take themselves, life and the world seriously, in a spirit of comradeship and without fear of ridicule.
Designing Minds to the Millstone
Patricia Leigh Brown
New York Times, March 4, 2004
Question: What makes 800 of the country's smartest, most wildly successful architects, designers, inventors, chief executives, psychologists, ichthyologists, cosmologists, economists, digital artists and other members of the creative, academic and financial elite happy?
Answer: Ruminating about ''The Pursuit of Happiness'' at the TED conference, the annual $4,000-a-pop three-and-a-half-day hedonistic be-in for the brain that brings together ''thought leaders'' from the worlds of technology, entertainment and design. Perhaps only at TED, as the 19-year-old conclave is known, would sexy Silicon Valley billionaires like Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google, commune with nerdy M.I.T. professors who will attempt to explain string theory while hailing a taxicab.
Hooked on a Feeling
Taking a cue from its theme, this year's TED conference struck a number of high notes.
Julie Lasky
I.D., May 2004
Now in its second year under new management, the motley gathering of scientists, designers, performers, and entrepreneurs ... produce[d] a steady diet of surprises. Among the treats were Mars photos revealing canyons gouged out by water that might still be lurking somewhere on the planet, and reports of 1,800 new species of microbes discovered in the Sargasso Sea (both findings made headlines shortly after the program ended). Keith Barry, an Irish magician, built the persuasive case that he could drive while blindfolded. Sheila Patek, a marine biologist, introduced a species of shrimp that, millimeter for millimeter, packs more power than any other land or sea creature. ...
Typical of TED, the happiness theme was a generous peg for presenters to hang hats on—an entire walk-in closet, in fact. Topics ranged, in order of increasing frequency, from psychological studies of what makes people happy, to conditions that make them miserable but are in the process of being redressed, to activities that delight the speakers, namely their own occupations. This last was by far the most popular category.
