TED may be the reigning superstar of ideas conferences, but every October, in the tiny town of Camden, Maine, you can experience an equally formidable, if slightly lower-key, thought festival known as PopTech.
Founded almost 20 years ago by Bob Metcalfe, John Scully, and other like-minded technologists, it was originally called the Camden Technology Conference. But in recent years, under the curation of impresario Andrew Zolli, it has grown to cover a lot more than tech. Zolli's interests run from predicting the future to understanding the machinations of social change, and conference staples now include art, culture, social innovation, and poverty issues.
Like its glitzier competitor, PopTech is primarily organized around inspiring 10- to 18-minute talks, all of which are filmed and posted publicly to the web. This year’s videos went up on Wednesday, and since WIRED was lucky enough to see them live a few weeks ago, we thought we’d give you a few highlights to check out. There are dozens more here.
Rodney Mullen
Mullen is one of the greatest skateboarders to ever ride a plank of wood. Anyone who has seen the documentary Bones Brigade also knows that he’s something of a genius savant. In this talk, Mullen explains that -- like so much of business, science, and, well, life -- skateboarding is really about failure. More than 90 percent of what he and his fellow riders do is fall down. The trick is getting back up.
Jim Olson
Here’s one way to wow a crowd: First show pictures of children with brain cancer you desperately tried to save as an oncologist but failed. Then talk about how you’ve invented a new substance derived from scorpion venom called "tumor paint" that will make cancer cells glow during surgery, possibly saving the next generation of sick kids coming through your door. As a bonus, you might also mention that you are refusing to sell your work to pharmaceutical giants, because you want the stuff to be cheap, available, and open for others to innovate on. It's hard to top that strategy.
David Robertson
Who doesn’t love Legos? And who that loves Legos doesn’t scratch their head at some of the business decisions the company has made over the last decade or so? Kits that are more toys than construction tools? A children's TV show? Robinson, the author of the book Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry, walks through a few of the decisions that almost took Lego into bankruptcy, as well as the strategy that brought the company back to its most profitable years ever. Hint: It’s about the bricks, stupid.
Jonathan Wilker
A professor of chemistry at Perdue, Wilker is trying to crack a deceptively tricky problem: how to make non-toxic glue that works when wet. The solution: copy the biochemistry of barnacles and mussels. After all, they hold together with the intensity of Super Glue, even when soaked. By milking mussels and other sea creatures, Wilker has come up with ultra-strong adhesives that work flawlessly under water. The goal is to someday be able to use this glue inside the human body to hold us together when we start to come apart. No more sutures, and no more bone screws.
