TED Community » Kesavan Sampanthar

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Everything to do with ideas, new ideas, old ideas, how they spread, how they evolve, how they connect, combine, morph, mutate etc. I am on a mission to help kids keep their creativity.

An idea worth spreading

A convergence of business trends, specifically outsourcing, off-shoring and increased market competition, has created a new global economy where the demand for innovation is paramount. To succeed in this new Creative Economy, companies and individuals must make a paradigm shift.
Many companies claim to nurture innovation, but few actually do it behind closed doors. Insincerity isn’t the problem, rather a misperception that innovation is an end goal achieved by occasional brainstorming sessions or a collection of PhDs and a stroke of luck. True innovation happens when it’s infused throughout an organization and adopted as a best practice.
Infusion of innovation shouldn’t hinge on a company mandate. It can organically emerge from the bottom-up through changes in individual behavior. ThinkCube, a new innovation tool, gives you the tools to pioneer the innovation revolution!

Talk to me about

Ideas, Innovation, Media Strategy, Science, Technology, Design, Self Organization, Artificial Life, Complexity, Game Design, Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Anthropology, Books and Games

People don't know that I'm good at

Board Game Design - while researching ThinkCube I got into designing board and card games. To foster a creative atmosphere I based ThinkCube around a card game mechanic that I developed.

My TED Story

My TED story is still being written. I have been a huge fan of TED for over a decade, before there was the online videos and website, I followed through the EDGE.org and other online sources. I love ideas and I have always loved the talks and speakers that TED attracts. I have followed from afar by reading the conference speaker's own books and most recently I have been hooked on the TED videos. I am hoping to attend my first TED event this year and I am also trying to organize a TEDx conference in DC.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +773.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• +5

  A reply on Talk: Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story

  Mar 7 2012: I can't see how this could be considered a commercial for his new movie. I want to go see his new movie, but that is because he impressed me so much with the love of his craft - story. Anybody that loves and thinks about stories so much is someone I want to 'follow'.
  I think there is a difference between 'shilling' your new project and explaining how you came to make your new project.
  I think you need to be pretty cynical to see this talk as a pitch for his new movie.
  P.S. I research the neuroscience of motivation and completely understand the techniques of awareness, anticipation, tension etc. Still, I am hard pressed to see this as manipulative.
• +13

  A reply on Talk: Dan Ariely: Beware conflicts of interest

  Aug 29 2011: On the contrary I think scientists are biased and not science. Science as a discipline is designed to overcome our tendency for bias and irrationality. One experiment with a small sample size (say 3 people) is dubious, but if it is repeated 'independently' with ever-increasing samples then it starts becoming more solid.
  Scientists are just as prone to bias and self-delusion as anyone else. Scientists are human first and scientists second. This talk shows how we all need to be more cognizant of our biases. Science and democracy are two examples of disciplines that help us get away from individual bias and irrationality.
• +5

  A comment on Talk: Dan Ariely: Beware conflicts of interest

  Aug 29 2011: I love this talk since it highlights that scientists are human (and hence predictably irrational) first and scientists second. Science as a discipline and methodology is designed to overcome our own irrational tendencies. Conflicts of interest are one aspect of a host of irrationalities and biases we all have.
  People sometimes mistake science for facts and get confused when new experiments contradict existing ones. They think science is weak since it can't seem to make up it's mind about what is fact or not.
  We should be as skeptical of science as we are of any other area of knowledge discovery and ironically all the debate and flip-flopping of knowledge is a sign of a healthy area of human discovery.
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

  Aug 5 2011: I am conflicted about this talk. On one hand I am intrigued by this line of reasoning that the uniqueness of language and it’s ability to impact how someone else thinks is an important trait. On the other hand I find the arguments that language is the precursor to trade and the success of humanity to gloss over important details.
  Before I dive into my concerns, I will state that taking complex ideas and explaining them to others sometimes doesn’t do them justice. Having recently gone through the exercise of taking some deep neuroscience ideas and writing a popular book on the subject, I have a lot of sympathy for an speaker who has to explain deep ideas. With that caveat, let me get to some of my concerns.
  Pagel overstates the case for language by missing a lot of research on non-verbal communication in both humans and other species. His examples of apes vs. humans cooperation through language are misleading. We live in a world of non-verbal social information. We constantly communicate through actions, facial expressions, postures. Pagel ignores this level of communication. Chimpanzees coordinate raiding parties and share food through non-verbal communication. I would even hazard that the arrow example that Pagel describes would have worked fairly well without language. I don’t want to make too much of this weak example. Language allows sophisticated communication for creating and sharing complex ideas and plans.
  His examples of world domination put too much emphasis on language. The research on our ability to trust strangers and trade does not rely on language. Different hominid tribes didn’t share a common language and hence most trade happened through non-verbal gestures. I agree that language is part of neural-success-kit that allowed us to conquer the globe, but not the only part.
  Like I said, I am conflicted by this talk. I am definitely intrigued by Pagel’s research into languages and their influence, but I don’t think this talk did his research justice.

• A comment on Talk: Ze Frank's web playroom

  Oct 15 2010: I love Ze Frank's little experiments in inspiration through emotion. To feel and be felt is an universal human need and one of most powerful forces that drive us to a better humanity; even if it sometimes seems frivolous. Go connect and inspire through emotion.
• +5

  A reply on Talk: Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world

  Aug 22 2010: I think connecting education and the economy is an interesting idea especially when combined with the idea of the 'game layer'. If we can take a few ideas from role playing games like WOW you can turn people's education and career choices into a more tangible career path. In today's economy there are millions of different and unique jobs and careers and it is very hard to find the right path. Even if you know what path to take it is hard to determine how to get there. With adding experience points and levels showing the paths for different careers you could show someone what they need to study and what kind of experience to get. Using crowd sourcing you could provide people access to mentors that have taken unique career paths. In the future where careers are going to be odd combinations; my career path is neuro-game-designer-behavioral-economist-creative-director; the idea having a more role-playing-game model for careers could be "rewarding" :-)
• +2

  A reply on Talk: Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world

  Aug 22 2010: I have been working on a number ideas in this space and I will giving a talk about this at 360IT in September - Motivational Design and Greening. Through the use of rewards, goals, feedback, social reputation etc. you can create some interesting systems to encourage people to be more green.

• A reply on Talk: Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world

  Aug 20 2010: You bring up an important point about the socialization. Humans beings are social creatures and we are constantly being influenced by others. One aspect of motivational design is social media theory where we look at reputation, trust, social capital, reciprocation etc. These are all patterns that can be used to 'motivate'. I am using some of these ideas in working with charities and using techniques that provide connection and hence trust to allow people to be more engaged in important causes. I think CauseWorld, which is basically FourSquare for causes, is a great example of using 'recognition' (social pattern) and 'rewards' (game pattern) to engage people for a good cause.
• +1

  A comment on Talk: Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world

  Aug 20 2010: There are a lot of people that seem very uncomfortable with the idea of using 'game' techniques to influence behavior. I agree this is a very valid fear and one that I grappled with for a long time since I have been using game techniques to develop systems and technologies for a few years now. The conclusion that I came to was that there are so many challenges we face in this world that could be overcome through the use of these techniques that it's too important to ignore. We have gone beyond games and draw from all human motivations to design systems that help people do the things that they "should" or "ought" to do but are held back by biases of our brains.
  I think the use of these techniques is important and I developed a framework 'Like vs Want' to understand the different areas from 'addiction ('want' without 'like') and superficial experiences ('like' without 'want'). I believe that these techniques are powerful and should be used with full transparency.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Seth Priebatsch: The game layer on top of the world

  Aug 20 2010: I agree that people seem to be hung up on the term 'gaming'. I have been working in this area for a few years we have started using the term 'motivational design'. This is not only to get away from the term 'gaming' but also since we believe that there is far more to motivation than just games. Games might be the best example of the use of motivational design, but there are techniques from page-turning books, social media, cliff-hanging TV shows (Lost), collecting etc. that come together to show us how to design motivational systems.
  I have developed a library of patterns that go further than the 7 patterns that Seth talks about that are drawn from neuroscience, behavioral economics, social media theory and of course games. The breadth of human motivation goes further than the most advanced game.
  I am focused on using these patterns to bring people together to solve some of society's toughest problems.