In her public art pieces, Candy Chang uses low-tech tools such as chalk, Post-it notes, and stickers to help people make their cities more user-friendly. We sat down with Candy to ask her more ... Candy asks: If you could ask one question to all of your neighbors, what would you ask? Click here to respond on Facebook now! Or join Candy'...

Self-described introvert and veteran tech executive Karen Wickre shares her secret to cultivating professional connections with a minimum of anxiety and awkwardness. There are two particular things that most of us hate about having to network. One is its baldly transactional nature. In a Harvard Business Review article, this wry definition of n...

Smart advice from TED speakers to help you rediscover your joy on the job Dear TED, I’ve been at my job for a few years and it’s … fine? Actually, not so fine. What was once interesting has become a slog, and my boss seems checked out. While I’m glad to be employed, I occasionally fantasize about quitting, moving to Maine, and doing somethin...

Welcome to "Dear Guy," TED's advice column from psychologist Guy Winch. Every month, he answers readers' questions about life, love, work and what matters most. Please send them to dearguy@ted.com; to read his previous columns, go here. Dear Guy:  I have worked from age 17 to now (I am 60 this year), and I’ve really enjoyed my career in IT. ...

Figuring out your answer to “Why you?” can help you speak authentically and build your confidence, says communication coach Allison Shapira. 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. “Why you?” is the sin...

People and businesses routinely use five techniques to get us to do what they want, says presenter and broadcaster Alexis Conran. Here's  how to recognize them. 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. M...

Instead of spending your days complaining, you might try changing your workplace from within, says leadership expert Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek now spends his days helping people create inspiring workplaces, but he found this calling only after experiencing profound professional despair. “I hated waking up in the morning,” he recalls. “I was no f...

When Hillary Clinton became the first female nominee of a major political party in the United States this summer, she reflected that this achievement "belongs to generations of women and men who struggled, sacrificed and made this moment possible." Women have been leaders throughout history, making positive changes in their communities. But in s...

We all have a story to tell. And in my work as curator of the TEDWomen conference, I've had the pleasure of providing a platform to some of the best stories and storytellers out there. Beyond their TED Talk, of course, many TEDWomen speakers are also accomplished authors -- and if you liked them on the TED stage, odds are you will enjoy spending...

Questions about the TED Fellows program? Take a look at our FAQ. Topics: About the program Application requirements Selection process Technical help About the program What are you looking for in a TED Fellow? We are looking for the people working on-the-ground on world-changing ideas -- the doers, makers, inventors, advocates, filmmakers and pho...

Andy Amadi Okoroafor, founder of creative studio Clam, loves to use imagery in different ways, from fashion to film. Here, he reveals how shortwave radio influences his work – including his internationally successful Clam Magazine -- and his latest scheme to make social entrepreneurs sexy. Interactive Fellows Friday Feature! Join the conver...

The TED speaker and podcast host shares 4 items from his to-don’t list -- stuff he’s shed from his life to make him a happier and more effective human. Read it and learn. To-do lists are the human equivalent of a hamster wheel. While they drive productivity and keep us on track, they just never seem to stop. Even as we cross items off, our list...

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. When was the last time you felt fully engaged in a task and the hours just melted away? That's your flow state, something that psychology researcher Mihaly ...

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. One of the most interesting things that has happened in 2020 has been the way that COVID-19 has pushed so many of us to work from home. Back on January 1, most comp...

Want to take pictures that will make people gasp? Photographer David Yarrow shares his advice on how to avoid the played-out and zoom in on the unexpected. Over his 30-plus years in photography, David Yarrow (TEDxEton Talk: Wild Encounters--the story of what I do differently) has waded through the crocodile-infested Nile, taken a selfie reflect...

Many of us track our time or money, but here’s something else you may consider measuring: Your decisions. Bulletproof founder Dave Asprey explains why. For more than five years, tech entrepreneur Dave Asprey has interviewed the world’s leading thinkers and influencers on his Bulletproof Radio podcast. Here is some advice that he’s gathered abou...

Blogging about her personal life helped Sanjukta Basu find her voice. Despite Indian social mores restricting women’s self expression, Sanjukta has opened up her heart online, empowering others to do the same. Compelled by the transformations social media created in her own life, Sanjukta develops strategies to make the voiceless’ stories heard....

It seems these days, everybody’s getting hacked. With so much of our most sensitive information stored on servers in some remote part of the world, it seems concerningly easy for malicious hackers to worm their way past secure firewalls and into bank accounts, credit card databases, corporate emails and even hospital systems. On a global avera...

Juliette LaMontagne’s Breaker offers millennials a unique, hands-on alternative learning opportunity -- working on projects with serious social impact. Breaker teams take on such challenges as illiteracy and feeding the city, while gaining valuable real-world social entrepreneurship skills. Take us through the Breaker process -- how does it w...

The theme of TED2018 is The Age of Amazement, and these speakers’ books are bursting with wonders of every kind: intellectual, scientific, urban, technological, economic, historical, aquatic, even extraterrestrial. TED2018, our biggest conference of the year, takes place April 10 through 14 in Vancouver. The talks from the conference will be re...

On September 12, TED welcomed its latest class to the TED Residency program, an in-house incubator for breakthrough ideas. These 21 Residents will spend 14 weeks in TED’s New York headquarters working and thinking together. The class includes exceptional people from all over the map — from Bulgaria to South Africa, Canada to Kansas. New R...

If you can move beyond the boring basics when you're asked "What do you do?", you'll set yourself up for new relationships, opportunities and revelations, says introduction expert Joanna Bloor. Mingling at a work event inevitably means being asked the question “What do you do?” over and over again. After years of repetition and conditioning, mo...

Yamini Aiyar founded the Accountability Initiative to track and inform the public of what really happens to government money in India. The Initiative also researches the effectiveness of accountability efforts in the country. The group’s work has drawn praise from Indian government officials, and even from President Obama. Taking a cue from he...

Elizabeth Gilbert shares 11 ways to think smartly about creativity. Creativity is a tricky word. Consultants peddle it, brands promise it, we all strive for it, often without really knowing quite what "it" really is. Put simply, there's a lot of snake oil around creativity. But now here's author Elizabeth Gilbert (TED Talk, Your elusive creativ...

There are moments when the world begins to shift beneath our feet. Sometimes slowly, sometimes dramatically. Now more than ever we are living and working in an era of exponential technological advancement. How we address rapid change, what collaborative relationships we create, how we find our humanity -- all this will determine the future w...

When artist and scientist Angelo Vermeulen (watch his TED Talk) first started weaving together biological and technological systems in his artwork, little did he know he’d someday be asked to consider how to create living ecosystems for future space habitation… Do you consider yourself an artist or scientist first? I usually describe mysel...

WorkLife with Adam Grant Tuesday, May 3, 2021 Hey WorkLifers-- and ArmCherries. For today’s bonus episode, we have a very special guest: Dax Shepard. I’ve known Dax since 2019-- I admire his intellectual curiosity, his vulnerability, and of course his humor. I think we’re friends, although every conversation we’ve ever had has been recorded for ...

Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Change by Stacey Abrams (TED talk: 3 questions to ask yourself about everything you do) I work in government affairs, and the last thing I enjoy reading for pleasure are books by politicians. However, this book is different on so many levels and is a must-read -- whether you’re a political ...

Politicians and other public figures deploy particular rhetorical devices to communicate their ideas and to convince people, and it’s time that we all learned how to use them, says speechwriter Simon Lancaster. 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 ...

Some fresh advice on identifying and searching for your own community, from business innovator Nilofer Merchant. In 1990, when students at the University of Pennsylvania were asked if they would consider a career in Philadelphia -- where the school is located -- only 35 percent of them said yes. By 2010, that number was 60 percent. Some of t...