TED 2011 . . . thoughts before arriving.

Attending a TED conference is, well, overwhelming.

But more on that later.

First I want to purge some awkwardness.

I feel, natch, some unease about taking a full week away from the office and my family. At this point in my life it's a major deal to do both. I carry a lot responsibility in both areas and do not like to think I might be neglecting either/or. So though I am very excited about this week coming, it is not without some anxiety.

Also, I think there is an element of TED that can be (should be?) mocked. If any of you followed the Sarah Silverman/Chris Anderson twitter fight last year, it certainly brought some issues about the conference to the forefront - some criticism that may have been (more or less) latent and "outed" in a very big public way.

Criticism such as the conference, the speakers, the conference attendees and the TED brand are/is . . .
- smug
- self aggrandizing
- elitist
- pretentious
- narcissistic
- cultish
- "they think their poo smells like roses"
- etc

This I pulled from a Facebook page of TED hate/criticism.

So yeah, that's out there. And maybe some of it is true. But there's always Haters and this gives them something to Hate with a capital H. A large part of what drives this is that the audience is "curated" (even that sounds pretentious, eh?) so you have to be invited to attend. This automatically is going to rub some people the wrong way. Especially if they apply and don't get an invitation.

Oh well.

The way I look at it, I certainly don't participate or attend any activity or organization without healthy skepticism anyway, so though I value being a part of the TED community, I am neither prosthelytizing nor irrationally exuberant about what it has to offer. So let the cynics spew their vitriol.

But it does have a lot to offer that is good, and thus this blog.

I will be sharing my perspective, experiences, thoughts, ruminations, conclusions, et al during the week of TED 2011 with my family, friends and fellow co-workers at Energy BBDO and Proximity Chicago.

What's great is that we have set up a webcast of the conference at our Energy offices so the entire organization can at least have access to the talks. Granted, the talks all migrate to the TED website at some point, but there is some value and excitement in seeing the real, live thing as it it unfolds.

So for those of you able to tune into the Webcast, view this is another layer of the experience.

Please feel free to comment or email with thoughts and questions.