As I settled into my seat on Flight 303 from Denver to Charlotte, the second of a three legged journey home, I reflected on the events of the past 4+ days at TEDActive in Palm Springs, CA.

Nothing can prepare one for the energy, passion, and curiosity of multiplied amplitude when that many great thinkers come together to listen to the world class speakers sharing the 18 minute talk of their life on their idea worth sharing. Most of us left very open and in a state of sorting out the events of the almost mythical experience.

Best way to describe it is imagine opening your mouth and a fire-hydrant is turned on full blast, only the mouth is your mind and water are poignant ideas delivered by both attendees and speakers alike.

I slept very little during the conference which hardly felt like a conference at all; I wanted sleep, but the energy is infectious and intense. Emotionally, I was open and engaged and enthralled and humbled and inspired.

Some have called it a “Sundance for Nerds” – but no one there resembled the classic nerd of 1980′s fame. Everyone was passionate, eloquent and it did not matter who you talked to – they had an idea that was changing the world and they were doing it. Whether it was art, design, or business everyone was there to share and cross pollinate ideas and connection. A complete absence of pretence and dare I say the ego was left napping in a hammock back home for most.

Themes surfaced for each of us in unique ways from the juxtaposition of cross industry talks and entertainment. For me a strong Education Revolution theme surfaced with Sir Ken Robinson, Mike Feinburg and Dave Levin imploring us to not just educate our children for standardized-lowest-common-dominator-tests, but to inspire children to lead the change we need to see in the world. I think that really is the answer  - for teachers to train children to set their curriculum and execute their ideas to learn and ask more of them, not less.

Also a theme of the need for healthy local nutrient-rich sustainable food and food eduction. Dan Barbour shared of sustainable fish farming which yeilds tastier fish and better eco-systems. A guy encouraged us to become vegetarian 5 days a week if we are not ready for the full plunge into an animal-less diet. And Jamie Oliver of the naked chef fame rocked the house with his motivating Obesity is killing American talk.

Check out the first of the many talks from TED2010, this one by TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver

Author on Twitter: @integritiveJM

Tags: 2010, Jamie Oliver, TED, TEDActive

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 5:10 pm and is filed under innerpreneur. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.