It has been suggested that TEDxESCP be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) Proposed since November 2011.

TED Conferences, LLC

Type	LLC
Founder(s)	Richard Saul Wurman[1]
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Owner	Sapling Foundation[2]
Slogan	Ideas worth Spreading
Website	www.ted.com
Alexa rank	1,075[3]
Type of site	Academic conference
Registration	Optional
Available in	English, multilingual subtitle, transcript
Launched	1984
Current status	Active

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading."

TED was founded in 1984^[1] as a one-off event and the conference was held annually from 1990 in Monterey, California.^[4] TED's early emphasis was largely technology and design, consistent with a Silicon Valley center of gravity. The events are now held in Long Beach and Palm Springs in the U.S. and in Europe and Asia, offering live streaming of the talks. They address an increasingly wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture. The speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, educator Salman Khan, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and many Nobel Prize winners.^[5] TED's current curator is the British former computer journalist and magazine publisher Chris Anderson.

From 2005 to 2009, three $100,000 TED Prizes were awarded annually to help its winners realize a chosen wish to change the world. From 2010, in a changed selection process, a single winner is chosen to ensure that TED can maximize its efforts in achieving the winner's wish. Each winner unveils their wish at the main annual conference.

Since June 2006,^[1] the talks have been offered for free viewing online, under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license, through TED.com.^[6] As of November 2011, over 1,050 talks are available free online.^[7] By January 2009 they had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, the viewing figure stood at more than 500 million,^[8] reflecting a still growing global audience.^[9] The website was designed and developed by experience design firm, Method^[10].

Background[link]

Bill Clinton addresses TED, 2007

Curator Chris Anderson in 2007

Robert Ballard giving an impassioned presentation on the importance of exploring the oceans at TED 2008

TED's mission statement begins:

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.^[11]

The TED staff is headquartered in New York City and Vancouver. The conference was held in Monterey, California until 2009. It was then relocated to Long Beach, California due to a substantial increase of attendees.^[12]

TED was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984, and has been held annually since 1990. Wurman, credited with having coined the term information architect in 1979, left after the 2002 conference; the event is now hosted by Chris Anderson and owned by his non-profit organization, The Sapling Foundation,^[2] devoted to "fostering the spread of great ideas." In 2006, attendance cost was $4,400 and was by invitation only.^[13] The membership model was shifted in January 2007 to an annual membership fee of $6,000, which includes attendance of the conference, club mailings, networking tools and conference DVDs.

Since June 2006, TED Talks have been made available online on the websites of TED, YouTube, and iTunes,^[14][15][16] and since late 2009, there have been free apps for iOS (iPhone, iPad), Android, webOS and Windows Phone 7.^[17] In 2009, the TED website won the award for Best Use of Video or Moving Image at the 13th Annual Webby Awards.^[18] In 2012, TED Talks became available to stream through Netflix.^[19] TED.com won a Peabody Award in April 2012. ^[20]

TED Talks are transcribed and translated into a number of languages as part of the TED Open-Translation Project, which aims to "[reach] out to the 4.5 billion people on the planet who don't speak English," according to TED Curator Chris Anderson. At the time of the launch, over 300 translations were done by volunteer transcribers in over 40 languages.^[21]

TED 2011, The Rediscovery of Wonder, was held in Long Beach, California, from February 28 to March 4, 2011.^[21][22] The TED conference has a companion conference, TEDGlobal, held in the UK each summer. The 2009 TEDGlobal, The Substance of Things Not Seen, was held in Oxford, UK, July 21–24, 2009. 2010s TEDGlobal (again in Oxford) was themed And Now The Good News; in 2011 the conference moved to a new home in Edinburgh and was held from July 12–15 with the theme The Stuff Of Life.

TED Prize[link]

The TED Prize was introduced in 2005. In prior years, three individuals were each given $100,000 and granted a "wish to change the world," which they unveil at TED.^[23] However, starting in 2010, only one prize is awarded since "at least half of [the wishes] still require our engagement," and, "adding too many more risks dilution of effort."

Programs[link]

TEDxParis, 2009: one of many events now organized under the TEDx program

TEDxTimisoara Women simulcast organizers and some attendees, 2010

TED Fellows

The TED Fellows fellowship program brings together young world-changers and trailblazers who have shown unusual accomplishment and exceptional courage.^[32] The program targets individuals from the Asia/Pacific region, Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East, though anyone from anywhere in the world, age 18 and over, can apply. TED keeps a directory of past Fellows available on its website.

TEDMED

TEDMED is an annual conference focusing on health and medicine. TEDMED is an independent event operating under license from the nonprofit TED conference.^[33]

TEDx

TED grants licenses to third parties to organize TEDx events in cities around the world.^[34] These one-time only licenses are free, but franchisees must be approved by TED and agree to adhere to a strict set of rules including format, duration, number of invited guests, agreeing that half-day events show "A minimum of two official, pre-recorded TEDTalks" and that all-day events "at least 25% of the total number of talks must be official, pre-recorded TEDTalks." Speakers are not paid and they must agree to give TED the right to edit and distribute their presentation.

According to TED these events were "created in the spirit of TED's mission, "ideas worth spreading." The program is designed to give communities, organizations and individuals the opportunity to stimulate dialogue through TED-like experiences at the local level. TEDx events are fully planned and coordinated independently, on a community-by-community basis. As of 2012, more than 3,200 TEDx events have taken place in 800 cities and 126 countries around the world.

TEDWomen

Popular topics for TEDWomen include gender issues and reproductive health.^[35]

TED Conversations

In 2011, TED released a new platform for sharing ideas. You can start conversations with the TED Community in one of the following 3 categories: Ideas, Questions, Debates. Conversations expire at a specific time.^[36]

Ads Worth Spreading

In 2011, TED released Ads Worth Spreading as a way to raise standards in the advertising industry.^[37]

TED Books

In 2011, TED released TEDBooks, books that are shorter than traditional ones with fewer than 20,000 words each, that aim to be long enough to explain a powerful idea, but short enough to read in a single sitting.^[38]

TED Open Translation Project

Started in May 2009, the TED Open Translation Project^[39] makes TED's videos available in many languages, through translated subtitles, using technology partner dotSUB's crowd-based video captioning and subtitling platform.^[40] By the second anniversary of the project in May 2011,^[41] volunteer translators collaborated to complete over 18000 translations in 81 languages. The interactive time-coded transcript available on the TEDtalks pages enables accurate, content-based navigation in the videos, in any language, and make the videos searchable. The translations include the videos' metadata as well, such as the titles, and the descriptions, and the system generates a language-specific URL, that plays the video with the subtitles in that language by default. The project contributed to a significant increase in international visitors to TED's website, with traffic from outside the US growing 350%, 600% percent growth in Asia, and more than 1000% in South America.^[42]

Controversies and criticism[link]

Sarah Silverman

TED drew some controversy in 2010 when comedian Sarah Silverman was invited to speak at the conference, and in response to her speech about adopting a "retarded" child, TED organizer Chris Anderson posted to his Twitter account, "I know I shouldn’t say this about one of my own speakers, but I thought Sarah Silverman was god-awful…"^[43] Anderson later deleted his tweet, but Silverman responded via her Twitter account "Kudos to [Chris Anderson] for making TED an unsafe haven for all! You're a barnacle of mediocrity on Bill Gates' asshole."^[44] Anderson apologized for his tweet on his Posterous account, but also wrote "Call me stuffy, but I still think humor about terminally ill 'retarded' kids is an acquired taste... And not a taste I personally want to acquire."^[45]

Nassim Taleb

Nassim Taleb criticized TED for intellectual dishonesty and lack of substance in the latest edition of The Black Swan (2010). He calls TED a "monstrosity that turns scientists and thinkers into low-level entertainers, like circus performers." Taleb spoke at TED2008. He claimed that the curators did not initially post his talk "warning about the financial crisis" on their website on purely cosmetic grounds.^[46]

Sarah Lacy

Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek and TechCrunch has criticized TED with claims of elitism. Lacy cites TED's $6,000 ticket price, poor treatment of less important attendees, and such events as a friend being "de-invited to TED after quitting an ostensibly prestigious San Francisco job" as evidence of her claims.^[47] Lacy did credit TED for moving the event to a larger venue in Long Beach and posting videos of its talks online for free.^[47]

Nick Hanauer

TED attracted controversy when it chose not to link the speech of venture capitalist Nick Hanauer's at the TED university on their website. The speech analysed the top rate of tax versus unemployment and economic equality.^[48][49][50] In a private email to Hanauer, Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, commented on his decision, noting: "Even if the talk was rated a home run, we couldn't release it, because it would be unquestionably regarded as out and out political. We're in the middle of an election year in the US. Your argument comes down firmly on the side of one party. And you even reference that at the start of the talk. TED is nonpartisan and is fighting a constant battle with TEDx organizers to respect that principle... Nick, I personally share your disgust at the growth in inequality in the US, and would love to have found a way to give people a clearer mindset on the issue, without stoking a tedious partisan rehash of all the arguments we hear every day in the mainstream media. Alas, my judgement - and it is just a judgement, and that's why my job title is 'curator' - is that publishing your talk would not meet that goal."^[51]

See also[link]

• List of educational video websites

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: TED

• Official website
• Official YouTube channel
• Financial Times. "Conference of cool". July 23 2010. Accessed 2010-07-23
• Guardian. TED – the ultimate forum for blue-sky thinking Sunday 4 July 2010 Accessed 2010-07-12
• Online spreadsheet of TED talks, ranked by PostRank engagement data
• Those Fabulous Confabs Feb 26, 2012

Daniel H. Pink in London

Daniel H. Pink is an American author and journalist. From 1995 to 1997, he worked for Vice President Al Gore in the capacity of chief speechwriter, and before that as an aide to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.^[1]

Personal history[link]

Pink graduated from Bexley High School in Bexley, OH. He received a Bachelor's degree Phi Beta Kappa from Northwestern University, where he was a Truman Scholar.^[2] He later received a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of The Yale Law & Policy Review. ^[3] He has never practiced law.^[4]

Pink is the author of four books that focus on the changing workplace and that have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list: A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us as well as Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need. His articles on business and technology have also appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Wired.

In 2011, he was named one of the 50 most influential management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50.^[5]

Published works[link]

Books[link]

• 2009: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, ISBN 978-1-59448-884-9
• 2008: The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, ISBN 978-1-59448-291-5
• 2006: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, ISBN 978-1-59448-171-0
• 2001: Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself, ISBN 978-0-446-67879-7

Articles[link]

• Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga-Industrial Complex (Wired, November 2007)
• What Kind of Genius Are You? (Wired, July 2006)
• Pomp and Circumspect (New York Times, June 4, 2005)
• The Book Stops Here (Wired, May 2005)

References[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2011)

External links[link]

• Podcast featuring Daniel Pink, 2010
• Podcast featuring Daniel Pink, 2007
• AOL Coaches interview
• Profile and interview on 33voices (Learn From My Life): Daniel Pink
• Oprah Soul Series interview, 2008
• O, The Oprah Magazine interview, 2008)
• Brian Lehrer Show interview, 2008
• Interview with Cory Doctorow at Book Expo America, 2008
• Johnny Bunko Website
• Public School Insights interview with Daniel Pink, 2008
• TED Global: Dan Pink
• Public School Insights interview with Daniel Pink, 2001
• Daniel Pink IMNO Interview
• Booknotes interview with Pink on Free Agent Nation, November 18, 2001.

This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality. Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page. (June 2011)

Jane McGonigal
Jane McGonigal
Born	(1977-10-21) October 21, 1977 (age 34) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation	Game designer, game researcher
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley
www.janemcgonigal.com

Jane McGonigal (born 1977) is a game designer, game researcher, and author, specializing in pervasive gaming and alternate reality games (ARGs).

McGonigal writes and speaks about alternate reality games and massively multiplayer online gaming, especially about the way that collective intelligence can be generated and utilized as a means for improving the quality of human life or working towards the solution of social ills. She has stated that gaming should be moving "towards Nobel Prizes."^[1] McGonigal has been called "the current public face of gamification".^[2]

She has taught game design and game theory at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of California, Berkeley and she currently serves as the Director of Game Research & Development at Institute for the Future.^[3] In 2006, she was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.^[4]

Games[link]

Additionally, she has collaborated on commissioned games for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.^{[citation needed]}

Writings[link]

On January 20, 2011, McGonigal's first book, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World, was published. In this book, McGonigal looks not only at massively multiplayer online gaming and alternate reality games but also at games more widely. Using current research from the positive psychology movement, McGonigal argues that games contribute powerfully to human happiness and motivation, a sense of meaning, and the development of community.

The book was met with a favorable reception from The Los Angeles Times,^[9] and Wired,^[10] and mixed reviews from the New York Times Book Review^[11] and The Independent.^[12] The book received criticism from some quarters, notably the Wall Street Journal.^[13]

Recognition[link]

Education[link]

She received her BA in English from Fordham University, and her PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, in August 2006.

External links[link]

• Jane McGonigal - you found me. Jane McGonigal's Official site.
• TED Talk: Gaming can make a better world (2010)
• IT Conversations: Interview on Alternate Reality Gaming (2007)
• Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, ISBN 1-59420-285-0, 2011.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jane McGonigal

References[link]

Sheryl K. Sandberg
Sandberg at the Moët Hennessy Financial Times Club Dinner in 2011.
Born	Sheryl Kara Sandberg (1969-08-28) August 28, 1969 (age 42) Washington, D.C.
Alma mater	Harvard College (A.B.) Harvard Business School (M.B.A.)
Occupation	COO of Facebook
Salary	$300,000 (2011)[1]
Spouse	Brian Kraff (divorced 2004); David Goldberg (2004–present)
Children	2[2]

Sheryl Kara Sandberg^[3] (born August 28, 1969) is an American businesswoman. She has served as the chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008. Prior to Facebook, Sandberg was Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google. She also was involved in launching Google's philanthropic arm Google.org. Prior to Google, Sandberg served as chief of staff for the United States Department of the Treasury. In 2012, she was named in Time 100, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world assembled by Time.^[4]

Early life and career[link]

Sandberg was born in 1969 in Washington, D.C.,^[5] the daughter of Adele and Joel Sandberg and the oldest of three siblings.^[3] Her family moved to North Miami Beach, Florida when she was two years old.^[5] She attended public school, where she was "always at the top of her class."^[5] Sandberg taught aerobics in the 1980s while in high school.^[6]

In 1987, Sandberg enrolled at Harvard College and in 1991, graduated with a B.A. in Economics and was awarded the John H. Williams Prize for the top graduating student in economics.^[7] While at Harvard, Sandberg met then professor Larry Summers who became her mentor and thesis adviser.^[8] Summers recruited her to be his research assistant at the World Bank,^[5] where she worked on health projects in India dealing with leprosy, AIDS, and blindness.^[9]

In 1993, she enrolled at Harvard Business School and in 1995 she earned her M.B.A. with highest distinction.^[7] After business school, Sandberg worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. From 1996 to 2001, Sandberg served as Chief of Staff to then United States Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers under President Bill Clinton where she helped lead the Treasury’s work on forgiving debt in the developing world during the Asian financial crisis.^[9] She joined Google Inc. in 2001 and served as its Vice President of Global Online Sales & Operations, from November 2001 to March 2008. She was responsible for online sales of Google's advertising & publishing products and also for sales operations of Google's consumer products & Google Book Search. ^[10]

Facebook[link]

In late 2007, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, met Sandberg at a Christmas party held by Dan Rosensweig; at the time, she was considering becoming a senior executive for the Washington Post Company.^[5] Zuckerberg had no formal search for a COO but thought of Sandberg as "a perfect fit" for this role.^[5] They spent more time together in January 2008 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and in March 2008 Facebook announced hiring Sheryl Sandberg away from Google.^[11]

After joining the company, Sandberg quickly began trying to figure out how to make Facebook profitable. Before she joined, the company was "primarily interested in building a really cool site; profits, they assumed, would follow."^[5] By late spring, Facebook's leadership had agreed to rely on advertising, "with the ads discreetly presented"; by 2010, Facebook became profitable.^[5] According to Facebook, Sandberg oversees the firm's business operations including sales, marketing, business development, human resources, public policy and communications.^[12]

Her executive compensation for FY 2011 was $300,000 base salary plus $30,491,613 in FB shares. According to her Form 3, she also owns 38,122,000 stock options and restricted stock units (worth approx. $1.45 billion as of mid-May 2012) that will be completely vested by May 2022, subject to her continued employment through the vesting date. ^[13]

Personal life[link]

In 2004, Sandberg married David Goldberg.^[3] Goldberg later became CEO of SurveyMonkey.^[5]

Other[link]

In 2009, Sandberg was named to the board of the Walt Disney Company.^[14] She also joined the Board of Directors of Starbucks, which comes with a $280,000 annual salary.^[15] She also serves on the boards of the Brookings Institution, Women for Women International, V-Day, and the Ad Council.^[7] In 2008, she wrote an article for The Huffington Post in support of her mentor Larry Summers who was then under fire for his comments about women.^[16] In May 2011, Sandberg gave the Commencement Address at the Barnard College graduation ceremony.^[17]

Rankings[link]

Sheryl Sandberg has been ranked one of the 50 "Most Powerful Women in Business" by Fortune Magazine since at least 2008. In 2007, she was ranked #29 and was the youngest woman on the list.^[18] In 2008, she was ranked #34.^[19] In 2009, Sheryl was #22 on 50 Most Powerful Women in Business by Fortune.^[20] In 2010, Sandberg was #16 on 50 Most Powerful Women in Business by Fortune.^[21]

In addition, in 2007, she was ranked #19 on 50 "Women to Watch" by The Wall Street Journal.^[22] She was ranked #21 on that list in 2008.^[23] In 2011, she was ranked #5 on "the world's 100 most powerful women" by Forbes.^[24]

Sandberg was also named one of the "25 Most Influential People on the Web" by Business Week.^[25]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sheryl Sandberg

• Transcript and Video of Speech by Sherly Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook: Barnard College Commencement (2011)

Simon Sinek
Sinek, TEDx Maastricht 2011
Born	(1973-10-09) October 9, 1973 (age 38) Wimbledon, England
Occupation	Author, motivational speaker
Notable work(s)	Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Simon O. Sinek (born October 9, 1973) is an author and best known for developing "The Golden Circle" and popularizing a concept of human motivation.^[1][2][3] He joined the RAND Corporation in 2010 as an adjunct staff member, where he advises on matters of military innovation and planning. His first TEDx Talk on "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" is the 19th most viewed video on TED.com.^[4] His book on the same subject, "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action," (2009) delves into a naturally occurring pattern, grounded in the biology of human decision-making, that explains why we are inspired by some people, leaders, messages and organizations over others.

He writes for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, FastCompany, CMO Magazine, NPR and BusinessWeek, and is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, BrandWeek, IncBizNet. ^[1]

Early life and education[link]

A diagram of what Simon Sinek calls 'The Golden Circle' of human motivation

Sinek was born in Wimbledon, England; at a young age he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa, then to London, then to Hong Kong, before settling in New Jersey. He earned a BA degree in cultural anthropology from Brandeis University; he attended City University in London with the intention of becoming a barrister, but left law school to go into advertising.

Career[link]

He moved to New York and joined Euro/RSCG, an ad agency, where he worked on the MCI account. He then joined Ogilvy & Mather, and was later recruited back to Euro/RSCG, where he worked on accounts for Oppenheimer Funds, MCI, NASDAQ and DISH Network. In 2002, he started his own company, Sinek Partners. ^[2]

He has appeared on MSNBC^[5] and Marketplace.^[6]

In October 2009, he released his book “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” , and in December 2011, the book topped the list of best sellers for corporate America according to 800-CEO-READ.^[7]

Community and civic affairs[link]

Active in the not-for-profit world, Sinek works with Count Me In, an organization committed to helping one million women-owned businesses reach a million dollars in revenues by 2012,^[8] and he serves on the Board of Directors for Danspace Project, an organization that fends for advancing art and dance.

He lives in New York and teaches a graduate-level class in strategic communications at Columbia University.^[1]

Books[link]

• Sinek, Simon (2009). Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Penguin. http://books.google.com/books?id=iyw6ul1x_n8C&pg=PT113&dq=%22Ron+Bruder%22&hl=en&ei=GrH6TdKfG6rSiAL_-bWZBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Ron%20Bruder%22&f=false. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• Simon Sinek website
• Start with Why, website
• Sinek Partners