How to make New Year's resolutions that actually work out this time. It’s the time of year when optimism strikes anew and we think to ourselves: our New Year's resolutions will totally work out this time. Never mind that we abandoned them by Valentine’s Day last year. And the year before. And, well, you know the drill. But what if this year ...

On September 20, live in New York and webcast around the world, TEDxChange will examine the UN's Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs. (Watch TEDxDubai's video, above, for a preview.) Established 10 years ago in September 2000, the eight MDGs are an audacious set of goals for changing the world -- with an equally audacious target of 2015...

Photo: Ryan Lash Remember Y2K? Jamie Drummond starts by taking us back to the most anticipated year in human history: 2000. "Remember that? Y2k, the dotcom bubble... the deep-down inchoate yearning that our millennium moment should mean more than a two and some zeros." Incredibly, he says, our leaders agreed, and as a result produce...

What is one goal you wish you could accomplish? Chances are, you have no problem naming it, so what holds you back from achieving it? Life has a nasty habit of interrupting the best-laid plans, but more often than not, it’s our own minds that get in the way of our goals. We make a litany of excuses for why those goals don’t get checked off our ...

When it comes to setting grand worldwide goals for development, it’s easy to imagine global leaders in suits, wheeling and dealing in the backrooms of a UN summit, without actually accomplishing much. But Jamie Drummond -- the executive director of ONE, which fights poverty and disease by supporting smart policies -- says that when world lea...

We all have important things we want to accomplish, but there are so many distractions and stumbling blocks that may get in our way. Here, writer Bina Venkataraman shares a startlingly easy strategy to use to defeat future challenges. Playing poker is like planning for the future in one sense: You’re making decisions with limited information, a...

This afternoon, over a cup of coffee at the #TOMSRoastingCo Cafe at TED2014, the TED Blog listened in on a fascinating coffee-hour chat among three social entrepreneurs: Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS and the moderator of the conversation; Ben Goldhirsh, founder of GOOD, the online magazine and community; and Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. Wait...

You might know artist Liu Bolin by his outline. He paints himself to disappear into backgrounds, becoming a ghost-like presence in his images. (Watch his TED Talk, “The invisible man.”) It's a trick of the eye designed to make a point. In his latest piece, “The Future,” he aims to raise awareness about the United Nations’ Global Goals. Th...

Speed Meeting at TED2012 -- 3 minutes to share who you are. Photo: Robert Leslie This thoughtful blog post from Hadiyah at Engineers Don't Blog contains four great takeaways for conference-goers: "TED2012 and why conferences will never be the same" From the post: 2. Attend a conference with a purpose. I previously despised networ...

Congratulations to Francesca Cianfarini of Leftloft, designer of the poster at left (see it at larger here), which celebrates one of the Millennium Development Goals -- an audacious set of goals for improving the world, set in September 2000 by the UN. Cianfarini's winning poster focuses on MDG #4: Reduce child mortality. Some aspects of this go...

On September 20, TEDxChange will take a focused look at the UN's Millennium Development Goals. Established 10 years ago, the eight goals are: 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. 2: Achieve universal primary education. 3: Promote gender equality and empower women. 4: Reduce child mortality. 5: Improve maternal health. 6: Combat ...

The next time you're preparing to speak to a group, remember to keep your audience at the center of your communication, says Briar Goldberg, the director of speaker coaching at TED. One way to do this is to ask yourself: "What gift are you giving to your audience?" TED recently partnered with Marriott Hotels to offer a special day-long seminar ...

Cross-posted from the TEDx blog: On Monday, September 20, TED and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation co-host TEDxChange, a TEDx event that focuses on the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations 10 years ago. TEDxChange will look at how we've done in the past decade to meet the goals, and what needs to be done to ensure the ...

Relationship researcher Eli J. Finkel shares a three-step process to help you identify -- and get -- what you most want out of your marriage. What is marriage for? In modern societies, we can have financial security, cohabitation, sex, love, children and more without being married. This makes the institution less essential -- and much more flex...

This Monday, Sept. 20, TED and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation bring us TEDxChange: a chance to evaluate the UN Millennium Development Goals, the progress that has been made, and the long, yet optimistic road ahead. The Millennium Development Goals include: Eradicating poverty and hunger Achieving universal primary education P...

Psychologist Susan David explains why a simple switch from “I must go to the gym three times a week” to “I want to go to the gym three times a week” can put your goal within reach. Ted was a London-based client of mine who became a good friend. He was forty pounds overweight and, because he traveled a lot for work, he found it difficult to get ...

In 2007, Mayor Mick Cornett put Oklahoma City on a diet, after the city made a less-than-flattering appearance on a list of the most obese cities in the United States. In today’s talk, Cornett shares the aha moments that led him to create This City Is Going on a Diet, a somewhat unusual mayoral initiative. “On New Year’s Eve of 2007, I we...

If you’re dreading the inevitable day your New Year’s resolutions—to lose weight, get a better job, and drink less, perhaps?—fall flat, it might be because you need different resolutions. Instead of focusing on outcomes, why not set your sights on process this year? Here, 10 resolutions inspired by TED Talks. They just might inspire you in t...

"We think we have to be successful, then we'll be happier. But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order," said Shawn Achor in his charming, immensely popular TED Talk from TEDxBloomington, "The happy secret to better work.” Achor is the CEO of consulting firm Good Think, which conducts research on positive psychology and helps p...

When you hear the word "innovation," an image may pop to mind of an intrepid inventor toiling in isolation -- Benjamin Franklin flying his kite in a storm, or the Wright Brothers testing their flying machine on the beaches of Kitty Hawk. But during the first day of TEDGlobal 2012, speaker after speaker touted the tremendous leaps forward tha...

Dan Pallotta has an unconventional view of nonprofits: To innovate and really make an impact, he thinks they should function with business-minded acumen. Says Pallotta (TED Talk: The way we think about charity is dead wrong), "You want to make $50 million selling violent video games to kids, go for it. We'll put you on the cover of Wired magazin...

It sounds paradoxical, but accepting our negative emotions can actually make us happier in the long run. Psychologist Susan David explains how. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. Most of us have be...

What capitalism prioritizes, the world does more of. So how can we change capitalism so that it focuses on what humans really want and need? Entrepreneur Andrew Yang has a surprising proposal. Think of the activities on the list below: Parenting or caring for loved ones Teaching or nurturing children Creating art, music, dance Working in ...

Via the Gates Foundation's Foundation Notes blog: On Monday, Sept. 20, TEDxChange will look at the eight Millennium Development Goals set by the UN back in 2000 -- and assess how close we are to reaching them by 2015. Melinda Gates made the video above to invite the world to watch online or at a local satellite event. From her post: I hav...

In 2007, journalist Andrew Mwenda took the stage at TEDGlobal in Arusha, Tanzania, and decried the symptomatic disease affecting his home continent: aid. The surprising take certainly got the goat of some members of the audience, including U2 frontman Bono, who has devoted so much time to promoting the need for African aid and who spoke up from ...

In an experimental Session 6, Bill Gates hosted and guest-curated the speaker lineup. David Christian charts our course from the Big Bang to today: "To understand complexity, you have to survey the whole history of the universe. So let's do it." Amina Az-Zubair on the UN Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria: "We are making p...

For many, the words “professional development” conjure up memories of sitting in a human resources office, watching a series of awkward training videos and then taking a mandatory quiz. The TED Distribution Team realized: it doesn’t need to be this way. Earlier this year, they started to think about how companies could use TED Talks to get p...

By the second week of January, that resolution that once seemed so reasonable -- go to the gym every other day, read a book a week, only drink alcohol on weekends -- is starting to seem very … hard. As you are teetering on the edge of abandoning it all together, Kelly McGonigal is here to help. This Stanford University psychologist -- who sh...

Yes, it’s number 1 on the list of 7 deadly sins, but pride can actually move us toward our goals -- and toward better behavior -- according to psychology professor David DeSteno. Gratitude and compassion are universally seen as positive feelings. By making our minds value the future, these two emotions make us more patient, more willing to pers...

There’s a million-dollar prize for that Innovation prizes have become quite the hot thing in recent years, as groups like the X Prize have proven the efficacy of offering a bounty to work on outrageous goals. (TED even launched one!) The Longitude Prize is the UK’s version, with details just released of six challenges in fields such as food, fl...