Still processing all the ideas and inspiration from last week’s TED conference – so many amazing people and just as many new friends. AND I was able to share all this with my beautiful bride, who made a bunch of new friends as well.

I’m elated that the #1 technical blog, and #4 blog overall, covered my TEDTalk here. Many other blogs and news sites (and live tweets!) also covered the talk. In fact, TED was the #1 Twittered topic during its sessions. I’ll be sure to post a link when the video goes on-line (could be months). My talk originated from Palm Springs, but it was simulcast in HD to 1,600 TED’sters in Long Beach, and throughout the world to subscribers of TEDnet.

In 2006, Guy Kawasaki made me aware of an on-line video by a lady named Majora Carter giving a talk at a conference I had never heard of. This was my introduction to TED. Majora’s talk touched me deeply and remains today as one of my top 5 favorite TEDTalks (see my TED bio here). If you’ve not seen Majora’s TEDTalk, set aside 20 minutes and prepare to be profoundly moved.

Anyway, it was Majora’s talk that introduced me to TED. And here is where it gets goosebumpy – immediately after my TEDTalk, the first person to come up to me was… Majora. She was weeping and told me that “two weeks ago, our friends lost their house in the Bronx to an electrical fire – a fire that your invention would have prevented. Let me know what I can do to help spread the word on your life-saving technology.” I wept as we embraced – enveloped in the rare beauty of this moment.

There were so many other wonderful encounters. Not long after my talk, the editor of TED.com (Emily McManus) e-mailed me a story. Her dad was watching my talk on the Internet from his home somewhere in eastern USA. After my talk, he immediately e-mailed Emily, “yesterday, I was asked to help some elderly folks in our community who this week lost their house and possessions to an electrical fire. That man’s invention would have prevented this tragedy.”

N.Y. Times columnist and fellow TED’ster David Pogue wrote.. “TED is a mind-blowing, powerful four-day annual conference.” Below are some photos from this truly mind-blowing gathering, including some from my talk. Enjoy.

My friend Terry Temescu and I (below) solving the world’s problems between sessions. We took a liking to the big orange chairs. Steelcase provided all the furniture – very loungy, which is a perfect fit for our “rat-pack” Palm Springs venue. Last year at TED I had lunch with the Chairman of Steelcase – talked compassion and religion vis-a-vis Karen Armstrong.

One of my favorite TED’sters, Geraldine Carter, doing things one only does at TED, and I’m not sure what that might be… Geraldine heads up Climate Ride, raising money and awareness for renewable energy and our planet.

Here’s a guy that is bridging cultures together through dance. “Where the Hell is Matt” has 10’s of millions of views on YouTube, and soon there will be a new segment from TED2009.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 9:28 pm and is filed under Science & Technology, TED. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.