[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/20527833[/vimeo]
To address the opening session of TED2011, astronaut Cady Coleman recorded this talk last week from the International Space Station.
Of course, I'm not writing from the space station. Nor am I writing from Long Beach, California, where TED2011 is happening now through Friday. I'm enjoying a slice of the conference action via a day of livestreaming video. The signal sounds fantastic in our public library auditorium. But the visual isn't nearly as crisp as a pre-recorded or broadcast video. Bandwidth issues at our location mean that movement takes a moment to process, so there's a soft blurring around the people when they move quickly. When the people slow down or stop the images catch up with the action. The effect is not distracting, however. Instead it adds a sense of liveness to the livestream event.
My personal favorite talk from session 5 on Wednesday was given by Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker best known for Super Size Me. Spurlock uses a personal approach in his films, putting himself into difficult and even dangerous situations to examine our society first hand.
In his talk, "Embrace Transparency," he described the making of his most recent film, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. His new documentary explores the marketing strategies of branding and product placement. Treating his talk in the same immersive spirit as his documentary film, Spurlock sold the naming rights of his TED talk to demonstrate how branding works. (EMC payed for naming rights. Spurlock donated the $7000 check to the TED foundation.) Both his TED talk and his Greatest Movie Ever Sold will be worth watching when they are available.
If you don't have access to a TED livestream near you, another talk from TED2011 is already posted. Wadah Khanfar, the head of Al Jazeera, shared his optimistic view of the democratic revolution—led by tech-empowered young people—that is sweeping the Arab world.
