TED 2009 and why it was the best thing ever! (part 1)

02/12

So, as some of you may know, I am a big fan of tech and I love sharing it with the world. I got this opportunity at the TED conferences in Palm Springs last week.
First off, let me tell you how big a deal this was for me. To get some perspective, I’ve been a TED follower for many many years. In the days before wikipedia, I would do my best to find out how I could somehow score an invite. In 2001, I read a piece that Chris Anderson’s Sapling Foundation had acquired TED and that there would be a new openness to the conferences. This really excited me, but still the goal of attending TED seemed as distant as it ever.

In short, to say that attending the TED conferences was a life goal is a severe understatement.

Six years ago, during my annual New Years tradition of setting goals, I decided that TED would be a high priority. So I created a mantra which I would repeat daily until Thursday the 29th of January.

“Is today the day that I build something cool enough to get my ass invited to TED?”

That pervasive thought and goal skewed everything that I did and it’s with that constant focus on excelling that finally got me an invite to go! With invite in hand, all I had to figure out was how to pay for it. DAMNIT.

Not to go into a huge amount of detail concerning my personal health, but I was hospitalized last year for extensive blood clotting and while I’m totally better healthwise, I am now stuck with a small mountain of medical bills. Long story short, any and all available excess funds go to knocking my “life” bill down. So at the moment, 6 grand might as well be 6 million.

Thankfully, AT&T offered to cover travel, which was a huge help! They could not cover the whole thing due to the timing of my request, and really at that point anything was helpful. I then asked all of my friends if I was making a mistake in spending that money? ALL OF THEM TOLD ME TO GO. To quote my buddy Chris Jacobs, “If you don’t go you’ll regret having not gone more then having spent that money.” With bullet proof logic like that in hand, I bought my ticket to Palm Springs (after having asked the nice people at TED if they needed volunteers in hopes that would somehow offset my ticket).

Ticket in hand, I made my way to Palm Springs, wondering what kind of crazy things I would see. On my first day, I made friends with Morgan Spurlock and the amazing balloon artist, Jason Hackenwerth, after we were done with our hike, we listened an awesome music show, then went off to the mixer.

I had a script in my head, something that I would tell a TED organizer in the hope that I could pique their interest in seeing a demo of my work. I cornered Reeves, one of the hosts of the Palm Springs event, and after I managed to get his attention I said the following:

“I know you have lots of people who approach you about speaking here at TED, but if I could have one minute of your time, just one minute, I SWEAR I WILL BLOW YOUR MIND. If you say no, I’ll totally understand but MAN I SWEAR you’ll love it and if you don’t… well, then you will have seen a crumby demo.”

Reeves, mildly amused, told me that he wanted to finish his conversation (mega burn), and that he would be around later at the mixer and to pull him aside. In my mind, I’d pretty much convinced myself that I was gonna rock this one. I grabbed my notebook, went to the business center, printed out my fiducial, and set out to make a name for myself. Having had found a nice well-lit place at the bar, I found Reeves in the crowd and dragged him over.

“OK, so take this sheet of paper and open it up to the computer in front of you… just make sure that the block is fully visible.”

BAAAAM

Reeves was smiling, out came a 3D car! I switched tabs and the fiducial was swapped with a video showing that famous skateboarding dog. Reeves told me to stay right there and not show it to anyone else, and that he would be right back. A couple minutes later, he was back with Kelly Stoetzel and he egged me on to show her the demo. I did and then the two of them are smiling (Note to self: EPIC WIN).

“I can make it show any video you want,” I say, “including TED ones! I’ll even try and make a 3D TED logo if I have enough time!”

The two walked away and when they come back they told me that I was up between the second and third segment on the first day!

Life goals:
Get Invited to TED - done
Speak at TED - done

Up at 6 AM on the first official day of TED and I saw that my computer crashed mid-way through the 3D TED logo render. A mild panic later, I got my ass into gear and start working on the backup plan.

“I’m gonna Rick Roll a TED audience!”
Let that sink in for a moment. Rick Astley, one of the best things to happen to internet humor since the fall of “all your base are belong to us,” was the first thing that stuck out to me. I even had the video ready and integrated! But I realized that it may jeopardize future TED speaking opportunities, so that got shelved. Looking back at it, I think I made the right decision. However, I do lament the loss of a front page worthy prank on digg and reddit.

I got mic’d, twitter about it, harnessed every bit of courage, and I got up onstage…
I blazed through my couple mins and I barely remember the words that came out of my mouth. The one thing I do remember was hearing a gasp at the unvailing and then realizing that my time would soon be over. The congratulatory words and requests to understand how it works filled most of the remainder of my day. To say that it was a high that was quite difficult to come down from, was an understatement. It opened door to all kinds of interesting people. After my talk, I got a chance to do a post interview for the TED blog. That where I got the awesome TED photo you see above. Everything that has happened since TED totally justifies another long post, but that will have to come another day.