The TED2015 conference begins today, bringing another set of game-changers and influencers to speak in front of more than a thousand attendees at the Vancouver Convention Centre. The theme of this year's event is Truth or Dare and the lineup includes performance artist Marina Abramovic, former White House intern turned social activist Monica Lewinsky, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi, foreign policy strategist David Rothkopf, and iPod creator Tony Fadell.
For those looking to get in the spirit of TED and the innovative thinking it promotes, here is a brief—and highly subjective—selection of videos from the conference (and its sibling conferences) to inspire change, new ideas, and smarter strategies.
Seth Godin on passionate communities
The author, blogger, and entrepreneur is widely considered a thought leader and a powerful voice in the marketing space. In 2008 he published Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us and spoke at TED2009 in Long Beach, California about the concept of tribes, people connected by interest that can make a bigger impact than mass marketing. "It turns out that it's tribes—not money, not factories—that can change our world, that can change politics, that can align large numbers of people. Not because you force them to do something against their will, but because they wanted to connect."
Bonus: Artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn on how painting entire neighborhoods involved and inspired communities from TEDGlobal 2014
Plus: A Q&A with Godin on what makes an event worthwhile
Jinsop Lee on designing for all five senses
The industrial designer shared an important lesson he learned in his career: that engaging all five senses leads to more memorable experiences. "You see, up till now, us designers, we've mainly focused on making things look very pretty, and a little bit of touch, which means we've ignored the other three senses… So what if we started using the five senses theory in all of our designs?"
Bonus: Julian Treasure on the importance of designing spaces for our ears from TEDGlobal 2012
Plus: Tips for using color to communicate an event's message from color expert Kate Smith
Morgan Spurlock on brand transparency, identity, and sponsorship
The filmmaker explains why and how he created The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, a documentary that explores advertising, marketing, and product placement. Spurlock's talk at TED2011 shows his conversations with marketing executives and agencies, his experience defining his brand personality, and that he sold the naming rights to the presentation itself.
Bonus: Tim Lebrecht's "3 ways to (usefully) lose control of your brand" from TEDGlobal 2012
Joi Ito on bottom-up innovation
The director of the MIT Media Lab describes himself not as a futurist, but a "now-ist," that innovation can fairly often be about creating in the moment, rather than building for it. At his talk for TED2014, Ito shared how he formed a group online to track radiation levels after the 2011 earthquake in Japan. "This is a fundamental new way of thinking about innovation. It's a bottom-up innovation, it's democratic, it's chaotic, it's hard to control. It's not bad, but it's very different, and I think that the traditional rules that we have for institutions don't work anymore, and most of us here operate with a different set of principles."
Bonus: TED curator Chris Anderson's "How web video powers global innovation" from TEDGlobal 2010
