Next Week, 500+ Geek Talks Around the World

Brady Forrest writes "Next week, from March 1-5 there will be ~65 Ignite events happening around the world. Ignite is an opportunity for geeks to share their passions and ideas with local peers. Each speaker gets 20 slides that each auto-advance after 15 seconds for a total of just 5 minutes. The result is bite-size chunks of information that inform the crowd on new topics. Most of the Ignites will be streamed on the new Ignite video site."

Comments

Re:Well, TED did jump the shark this year

[afabbro]

I wouldn't pay fifty cents to see another TED video. They're all the same. Someone who is famous for something stands in front of a pretty slideshow and states 3-4 little-known facts that are interesting and draws obvious inferences from them. He then says thanks and that's it. Heck, I could read the backs of Trivial Pursuit cards and get the same thing. I have yet to see a TED video where the presenter ties all of his ramblings together into a prediction, or a new synthesis. They are all just regurgitated fact-sharing.

It would be all-right if the fact-sharing was educational or comprehensive. "I'm going to explain the housing bust to you" or "let me explain how X works". Great. But TED is neither comprehensive nor educational. It's just random observations, hypothesis, exposition, and "let me tell you a story" stuff.

I watched one by Misha Glenny not long ago. I've read and enjoyed his books, but the TED video was like sitting with him after he's had a few beers and listen to him talk stream-of-consciousness. Kinda interesting but after a few minutes you start to think "where is all this going?" and it turns out it's going nowhere. His books told the story of post-war Eastern Europe and had a definite goal. The TED video felt like "they paid me to stand up here and entertain you for 10 minutes".

Every single video is like that! TED is waste of time.