My respected colleague, Paul W. Bennett, recently posted a rather sharp, pointed entry about the value of the TED movement. In particular, Paul focused a much-needed critical lens on the love affair that many of us seem to be nurturing with the TED franchise. In a very real way, the TED brand has become a proxy for everything critical, innovative and 21st century. I don’t have the statistics to prove it but I would be willing to wager that more than one Monday morning keynote speaker is busy this evening scouring the TED archives for just the right clip that will either inspire or motivate the audience that they will be facing in just a few hours. I’ve done it. You’ve probably done it as well.
But as I stood in my kitchen this evening, doing the dishes, sweeping the floors and listening to the latest TED offerings, my mind wandered back to the 1970′s when, as a young teenager, I accidentally happened upon PBS—the Public Broadcast System. I think that I was likely looking for the sight of some forbidden flesh but, instead, I found the home of Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary and…Leo Buscaglia.
Leo Buscaglia was the very first inspirational speaker that I ever heard. Heck, I don’t even think that, back then, he would have been considered an inspirational speaker. My dad thought that he was a bit of a nutcase. My late brother, George, had the opportunity to hear him live, and the opportunity to “give him a hug”.
I’m thinking that PBS in the 1970′s would have been equivalent to the TED of the 2000′s.
I’m also thinking that there is a deep-seated human desire, if not need, to be moved and inspired. It’s what we crave from our speakers, from our churches and from our teachers. It’s not a new craving, but it is, I suspect, an insatiable one.
I encourage you to listen to both Leo Buscaglia (check out the subsequent parts) and Ken Robinson. Are there similarities? Differences?
I’ll have some further comments later but, for now, I present you with a Leo vs. Ken smackdown! Not really…I just wanted to add a sense of drama to your deliberations!
Social critics are surfacing to provide some very creative responses to TED Talk World. After reading my TED Talk commentaries, Zack Phillips of Blanche Blanche Blanche in Brattleboro, Vermont, alerted me to this thought-provoking little video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9ptUVhs1UU
Calling all professional developers and interactive teachers –Why not show this little video after one of the more pretentious TED Talks. It might encourage a little of what Sir Ken calls “divergent thinking”!
However useful a motivation presentation may be, unless there is follow-up, the professional develop
opportunity is lost. We have all been to too many inspirational talks that in the end went nowhere.
Do such talks represent a universal rise in the water level, a rising tide that unless harnessed goes back to where it was with no effect, or a single wave forgotten the next morning?