Notes on Preparing for TED Global

I have been preparing to take the stage at the TED Global conference—now only 19 days away, as the TED.com website helpfully reminds me! As it is for almost everyone who speaks at TED for the first time, this is a completely new challenge for me. One thing I’ve discovered in the process is that

No podium
+ No notes (or PowerPoint bullets)
+ Audience of 800+ people
+ Only 15 minutes
= Sheer Terror!

At least I know I’m not alone! As bestselling author Susan Cain described it in a lovely essay for the New York Times Book Review a little while back, at the speakers’ briefing the day before the TED conference she realized that “I probably wasn’t the only one trying to figure out how to get onstage without falling down or throwing up!”

On the more positive side, I’ve realized how useful this process has been for me. Not only has my practice with giving a talk without notes or any kind of crutch begun to make a difference in my other speaking engagements (and I’m sure it will perk up my teaching as well), but I have also found it to be intellectually invaluable. There has been a bit of an epidemic of TED-bashing lately (mostly by people who have not been invited to speak at TED conferences, I might add, or those who went but did not deliver stellar talks). But for me, whatever happens on the TED stage, it has been a wonderful experience in learning how to find the most important message in my own work, and to present it in a fully accessible—and brief—way. I’ve always believed that if you can’t explain your ideas to an interested and educated (though not necessarily specialist) audience—either your students or a general public—then you need to work on clarifying those ideas. Even complex scientific and philosophical concepts can be explained; perhaps not in all their specialist and technical glory, but enough so that others can grasp the nature of those ideas and why they are important. That belief has been underscored by working on my TED talk. And I would now add that anyone working on something that fascinates himself or herself should be able to come up with a 15 minute talk about why it is so fascinating. I hope I have managed to do that. We’ll see soon enough!