360DigitalInfluence

The theme throughout all the answers to TED 2010’s title “What the World Needs Now”was the need for innovation in everything from nuclear energy to education to foreign aid to disease prevention to music to graphic design.   So where does the world need to innovate?

Energy - Bill Gates is still focused on alleviating poverty for the world’s poorest 2b inhabitants, but was not talking about  vaccines, but the need for immediate innovation to solve for cheap, zero-emission energy or “energy miracles”.  Vaccinating the world won’t address poverty if the newly vaccinated then can’t go to school, have medical services, or grow crops.   Gates suggested 5 energy sources with the potential and will be investigating those: carbon capture, nuclear, wind, solar photovoltaic, and solar thermal. Nuclear energy was also a topic of a debate in one way or another in multiple talks.

Education - Expert Sir Ken Robinson, autism activist/cattle handling designer Temple Grandin, and Harvard philosophy Professor Michael Sandel believe that education is a due for a revolution as energy.  Robinson spoke of breaking the dynamic of linear college-focused education and appreciate learning wherever it occurs and directed to the needs of the student - whatever their abilities.  Temple Grandin was quick to observe how much asperger’s syndrome was on display at the conference and that that portion of the autism spectrum, when appropriately channeled can lead straight to silicon valley.  Professor Sandel called for a desire to teach the fine art of democratic debate and to end the rhetorical “food fight” that greets us on cable tv each night.

Management - Joie de Vivre hotels founder Chip Conley talked about changing the measuring stick for business growth and people management.  Many of the lessons of his talk were drawn from studying the Kingdom of Bhutan - famous for developing the Gross National Happiness measure and measuring towards that instead of the GDP. Director James Cameron spoke of not measuring himself by laurels, but the respect of his team.  Inspiring words, though I’m sure he wouldn’t turn down another Oscar.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.  A relatively typical Sarah Silverman 18 minute set an+ a since-deleted comment on Twitter sent 1,500 people to dinner hotly debating “what is comedy?”  Amazing performances from Natalie Merchant, ukelele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro, loop box pioneer Andrew Bird, and the continuous all day/all night genius so generously offered from ETHEL made me realize that most of the music I consume is the auditory equivalent of fast food.  This type of insanely creative music touches the soul and could  inspire true innovation - and that is what the world needs now.