TEDxTheWoodlands

This independent TEDx event is operated under license from TED.

About


TEDxTheWoodlands is an independently organized event based on the TED conference.

The organizers of TEDxTheWoodlands secured a license from TED to organize TEDxTheWoodlands. The following paragraphs describe the relationship between TED and TEDx and provide examples of talks and performances presented at TED and TEDx conferences. It is in the spirit of these talks that TEDxTheWoodlands is designed.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

Samples of TEDx talks:      

About TED TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California, with simulcast in Palm Springs; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK. TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to host local, self-organized events around the world; and the TEDFellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities. Follow TED on Twitter at twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at facebook.com/TED. TED2011, “The Rediscovery of Wonder,” will be held February 28-March 4, 2011, in Long Beach, California, with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs, California.

View the video “TEDx: As the journey progresses” below:

Samples of TED talks:

Kaleidoscope Mind – How Did We Select This Theme?

The term “Kaleidoscope Mind” was created by Ester Fernandez (Peter’s wife and Fabian’s mother) during a conversation in January, 2011 regarding our theme for TEDxTheWoodlands.  We wanted to celebrate and (hopefully) cultivate a type of mind that is agile, flexible,  self-aware and informed by a diversity of experiences. This mind is able to perceive any given situation from a multitude of perspectives at will – selecting from a rich repertoire of lens or frameworks and suspending judgement while doing so. To accomplish this, this mind needs to be playful.  For it is in the intrinsic joy of play that judgement, desire, fear are replaced by wonder, curiosity, imagination.

As soon as Ester suggested “Kaleidoscope Mind” we loved it! The metaphor is so apt.

The colorful shapes and materials that constitute the small “elements” in kaleidoscopes represent the perceptual symbols that the mind constructs from experience.

These perceptual symbols represent objects, concepts and the different ways they can relate to each other.  The Kaleidoscope Mind “sees with naive eyes” and thus is able to capture many more varied kinds of  ”elements” from even the most quotidian experiences.  The act of rotating these elements in a kaleidoscope represents the agile Kaleidoscope Mind selecting different lens/frameworks from its rich repertoire to create a spectrum of different ways of perceiving its collection of “elements”.

The different kinds of lighting in which one views a kaleidoscope represents the different emotional states that the Kaleidoscope Mind experiences.  The Kaleidoscope Mind appreciates that the same elements and lens/frameworks might create different patterns when the mind is under different emotional states – just as the same oil color paint on the same canvas takes on different hues under different lighting conditions.

Thus, the playful Kaleidoscope Mind manipulates its own internal workings to see patterns, connections and relationships that more rigid minds miss. Compared to a conventional mind, the Kaleidoscope Mind has vastly more “elements” and a vastly larger repertoire of lens/frameworks through which to perceive the elements. The Kaleidoscope Mind plays with these elements as an intrinsically joyful pursuit.

The Kaleidoscope Mind sees with many different eyes, hears with many different ears, touches with many different fingers, tastes with many different tongues, smells with many different noses, and feels with many different hearts.  The Kaleidoscope Mind gains deeper understanding, derives richer meaning and produces more novel creations. The Kaleidoscope Mind engages hand, heart and imagination as it searches to understand the way others perceive the world.

Play is critical to the Kaleidoscope Mind. Rather than pursuing a preconceived goal, the Kaleidoscope Mind engages in playful exploration that flies across boundaries and indeed defines new boundaries as it goes.  This mind frolics in the type of analogical, “combinatory” and “bi-associative” play which the giants of creativity such as Einstein, Picasso, Fleming have credited for their insights.

We added the tag-line “pattern-seeking, playful, multifaceted” to “Kaleidoscope Mind” and launched TEDxTheWoodlands in January 2011. We have returned to it again and again to guide our decisions as curators of TEDxTheWoodlands 2011. We hope you will find TEDxTheWoodlands enjoyable and meaningful.

Peter and Fabian

curators of TEDxTheWoodlands

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