TEDx Warsaw - session 2

The second session of the inagrual TEDx Warsaw event. I was 'live blogging' so expect a few typos and the odd loss of thread.....

Kicking off session 2 - Jonathan Ornstein


Jewish life in Krakow

How HRH Prince Charles helped to build a Jewish Community centre in Krakow -but now the need to attract Jews back to Krakow given there are only 150 Jews in Krakow.

Interesting view on how most Jewish people come to Krakow on hertiage tours - and go from ghetto, to concentration camp, to another camp to a cemetary. He compared this with a 2nd generation Japanese going back to Japan - only to visit Hirosima and Nagasaki.



2nd speaker - Noam Kostucki

How selfishness is the best reason to cooperate

3rd - Marek Minakowski - chief scientist at One.pl - a leading local portal

He's going to have a stab at predicting the future - excellent

Bascially nothing will change as human brain will not change. Its still going to be a case of Pull and Push - as we pull from Google now and Push to Facebook

Pull might become the 'crystal ball' to which you can pose any question. And push will become some kind of 'perfect secretary' who protects you from the over-burden of infomation.

Hmmm interesting guy but not sure I caught all he said.

4th Speaker -Sandra Bichl

2+2 is less than 4....how we are not predisposed to teamwork (apparently in German TEAM stands for "great, someone else to do the work")

Moving on to our hidden talents as individuals - either you've found them and its working for you, or you have yet to discover them (thats nice to hear!)

5th - Sebastian Straube

At current rate of development - we need 3 more Earth's to keep us sustained. That could be a problem

Sustainovation is the answer he tells us.

Bottom of the Pyramid innovation - focusing on the worlds 4 billion who have less than $2/day



Cradle to Cradle innovation - closed cycles for zero footprint



Catalytic innovation - disruptive innovation for social change - such as giving up your time for free



Next - Alek Tarkowski - given I have about 20 mins of battery left, might not get thru the session.



How do you protect culture in the digital age.



It seems that building culture actually means building another building - cultural institutions could use the internet to supplement whats missing.



If instituations move online, they need:



Openess - making stuff available so someone, somewhere can help and find an answer

Sharing -

Sustainability - find ways to support creators over a long time

Durability - what would a 100 year Wikipedia look like?




Indeed the battery did cut out half way thru this talk - shame as it was one of the best (in my view) so far. He went on to talk about cultural curation and how this will become more and more important yet easier - even creating a playlist is an act of curation.

Session closed with an amazing recital by a cellist and acordian player - playing a modern composition by a young Polish musician. Excellent - there is more music to come later. Probably better to see that on http://tedxwarsaw.com/

TEDx Warsaw session 1 - live from Warsaw Uni Old Library

The lecture theater of the Uni Old Library building in Warsaw is pretty much packed - that makes 376 keen souls pushed through the morning snow to be at the inaugral TEDx Warsaw.

Its 10am - And as promised we're off with a video from the founder of the TED TEDx why it was set up

Now its the organisier Ralph Talmont-brief housekeeping

1st speaker for precisely 18 mins-Ian Hernandez. "Ever been to the circus?" Trapeze Acrobats and flying

Its all about collaboration. 3 stages
1) Competition: In a positive sense, going the extra mile, self-imporvement

2) Co-operation: its all about agreement

3) Collaboration: its all about creation

Summing up - lifes lessons come from very unusual places, and that achieve remarkable things you need the same trust and committment as an acrobat.

2nd Speaker - Lori Kent - importance of the arts in human culture

30.000 yrs of art in 18 mins - here we go - Cavemen, The Greeks, Dark Ages, Renaissance artists = as superstars, Modernism, right up to the post-post modernism now.

7 things to love about artists: they ...

1 - see well ... have vision - imagination
2 - aritists find a problem
3 - are self-aware
4 - are experts at play - like finger painting as a child
5 - embrace difficulty - Michalango imagine looking at a block of white marble
6 - oopps missed that one
7 - reflect and critique. well before 'crowd sourcing'

By the way - its great seeing an artist present using her own pictures rather than ppt.

Asks us to make our own day more artful, and put it at center of what we do

3rd up - Sergei Sawin - how to build an innovative organistion

1 Have courage to explore - from rubber to nokia phones
2 Know where you want to be in 10 years - if you can not predict the future invent it
3 See the world through your clients eyes - get out of the office
4 Focus on the job people are Tyringe to get done not on the product itself --
5 Discover your non-customers - eg use of the Wii by over 60s - bowling on you tube
6 Find out your lead users --
7 Foster collaborative creativity - Dutch ministry of transpostation has an amazing creavtivty facilty
8 Be open to new ideas
9 Prototype - helps turn ideas into a reality - try and fail a few times - this helps
10 Prepare for tough resistence - innovators are like Rambo - limited resources and no support.

"When the wind of change is blowing you can either build a shelter ... or a windmill" syas the chinese proverb.

4th speaker - Hodge Hodgson

Building carbon-neutral economies. A project at Berlin University - building a building that produces more engery than the inhabitants consume

A solar decathlon architecture in Madrid in June 2010

Oh quick one - all done in 4 mins

Number 5 - Jacek Olechowski

Networks and Trust - can we trust the networks that bring us together?

Toyota, Anderson, Madoff - lose trust, lose everything

Efficient ways of building trust? Because lack of trust is the biggest barrier
Thats why networks can be efficient and builder of trust - eg simply being TEDx event at a level of trust develops between strangers

Effective networks

Peers vs. Hierarchy - everyone feels at the same level
Long term goal v deal driven - not common vision quick deal
homogeneous v too diverse - a few set of rules and values that people can agree on

The social networking sites that are winning are fulfilling certain needs

6th Speaker - Stephen Kines - we're flying through them - do not think everyones getting close to their 18 mins, certainly no buzzer used yet.

Man walks on stage with a cucumber and a condom - this is getting random now - whats the metaphor - oh he's a lawyer and its about protection.

How rules can kill and constrict the entrepreneur - hence a new biz model for his law firms without Billable hours - is that one going to catch on?!

And last up this session - Michal Malinowski

A story teller dressed in traditional Papua New Guinea outfit- setting up a digital repository for stories from all over the world. Quite a trippy end to the session.