TED @Apsen, Day 2 - wow

I slept very little and finally crawled out of bed feeling I'd lost two days in the flu fight. I worked for a few hours, then stayed in the shower as long as I could stand. That helped. I registered and came back with the single best conference swag bag I've ever seen, bar none. I could write a whole entry on the bag alone, but I'll spare you (though the bag itself is pretty great, as is the custom-designed-for-TED Zune, the cool shirt--oops, I said I'd spare you). I could also mention the insanely cool bookstore, with free FedEx shipping home courtesy of Wired, but I'll spare you that as well. On to the conference itself.

After lunch with Bill and a fellow TED attendee, it was finally time for the show to begin. Every single TED staffer and attendee I met was charming, smart, pleasant, better socialized than I, and amazingly friendly and interested. The chords of inadequacy played throughout my personal soundtrack today.

Let me set the scene, lest I mislead. In Monterey, about 500 long-time TED attendees get to sit live in the hall with the presenters. The rest watch via simulcast on large monitors in special lounges. At TED @Aspen, where I am, everyone is watching via simulcast, though you have your choice of a main room on the ground floor or a smaller area downstairs. I watched the first of today's sessions upstairs and the second down. I should add that we will have a few live presenters here, but most are in Monterey.

The sessions themselves consist of a number (typically four or five) speakers, each of whom gets exactly 18 minutes. Chris Anderson, TED's curator, manages the show and speaks between sessions. Occasionally, the TED house band, headed by Thomas Dolby (yes, that Thomas Dolby) provides music.

I won't do a session-by-session listing and commentary, both because I have writing yet to do and because I'm still digesting it all, but let me sum up by saying, Wow. No presenter tried to be particularly useful; that wasn't the point. Each one tackled some aspect of the question at hand. (For session one, that was, Who are we? For session two, What is our place in the universe?) Each presenter was earnest and cared and had something to say. You can find the presenter list on the TED site.

Okay, I have to make a few comments, but please don't take them as meaning the presenters I don't name weren't top-drawer; all were at least very good. A few folks just particularly struck me as being worthy of mention right this moment.

Wade Davis blew me away with the breadth of his experiences and his amazing worldview.

Chris Jordan's art was a study in obsession and passion of the grandest kind. Even when I didn't share exactly his perspective, I still admired the work and the intensity behind it.

Chris Anderson presented a special treat: an unscheduled, unannounced, just-for-TED presentation and one-question dialog with Stephen Hawking. As part of answering the question, we saw just how much work this was for Hawking. My respect for the man, which was already immense, grew.

John Hodgman was as funny here as on The Daily Show, maybe funnier.

Kaki King, whose music was new to me, left me slackjawed. I have simply never heard a guitar make some of the sounds she extracted from hers. I honestly don't even know if I would like a whole CD of it, but I intend to find out.

I do not believe I will get to attend TED 2009, and I am, in my way of borrowing trouble, a way I am trying to mend, sad about that. But, I intend to try. I'd make it a goal to be on the TED stage as a presenter one day, except that I have no idea how one goes about that.

So, I will return to what I can control, which is the work in front of me, the outline that crawls ever closer to completion.

Don't expect this much reporting, by the way, for the remaining days. Tomorrow's sessions start early and run late, and I expect to be too exhausted to offer much more than my basic reactions.