I thought I’d start this week off with a great short talk from our friend August on design thinking in the 21st century which I highly agree with and wished more designers thought about these points…especially about what is user centered design and is it needed…so here I go in sharing it… boom!

via youtube
mix11 conference

A follow up from the TEDxCambridge event I co-organized: From Drink bartender John Gertsen uses the history of cocktails to show us why “it’s not what’s in the glass.”

Some great notes taken from designer Amanda Wright.  Read the rest (another 10 pages) on mymodernmet.com. Also tons of other amazing sketches on Amanda’s flickr page.
(thanks MikeM)
(sketch notes mirrored after jump)

(more…)

I’m off to nyc for the GEL conference. Will have more posts soon, otherwise, let me know if there is anything else I should catch while in town this week.

One of the amazing highlights at this years Entertainment Gathering was the duo Jake Shimabukuro and Charles Yang who met the day before and magically performed this amazing composition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Anyhow, if you have 5 minutes, turn up your speakers and be ready to be wowed! Charles played several more impromptu times at the Aquarium party and in the hotel lobby.

youtube

“When film critic Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw to cancer, he lost the ability to eat and speak. But he did not lose his voice. In a moving talk from TED2011, Ebert and his wife, Chaz, with friends Dean Ornish and John Hunter, come together to tell his remarkable story.”

One of my favorite talks and demonstrations from this years TED2011 conference came Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler, of Handspring Puppet Company

“Puppets always have to try to be alive,” says Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, a gloriously ambitious troupe of human and wooden actors. Beginning with the tale of a hyena’s subtle paw, puppeteers Kohler and Basil Jones build to the story of their latest astonishment: the wonderfully life-like Joey, the War Horse, who trots (and gallops) convincingly onto the TED stage.

As another talk from the TEDxCambridge event I co-organized last year:
“Chef Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 talks about his favorite food – the humble egg – and the amazing things he has been able to transform it into, aided by a little curiosity and hunger.”

I’m at the EG conference the rest of the week in beautiful Monterey CA. Let me know if ya have any must go to tips in Monterey, otherwise swing by to say hi though I’ll be indoors watching speakers and performances most of the time.

Last year I helped organized TEDxCambridge and starting this week we’ll be releasing a few of the amazing talks held during that event.

“Neuroscientist Don Katz uses experiments with rats to shed light on where taste preferences come from and, when it comes to food, why we like what we like.”
via YouTube

“Volunteer firefighter Mark Bezos tells a story of an act of heroism that didn’t go quite as expected — but that taught him a big lesson: Don’t wait to be a hero.”

“If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she’s gonna call me Point B … ” began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis — from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York’s Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. — and gives two breathtaking performances of “B” and “Hiroshima.”