I am a statistician by training, so for my TED talk I did a tongue-in-cheek data analysis of about 600 other TED talks. I found that the most loved talks typically evoke emotion—for example, through using words like “happiness,” “the brain,” and “coffee.” So you might want to try talking about “how drinking coffee spreads happiness in the brain.” Also, don’t talk about oxygen, aircraft, or computers—statistically, technical terms are associated with less popular talks. These also cite the New York Times much more than the best-rated ones. The more successful speakers tend to use fewer slides and more props. About half of the most popular TED talks don’t even use slides at all. And for some reason, talks that people rank as “fascinating” employ a lot of purple, and ones that are “ingenious” emphasize the color green. It is statistically significant, but I haven’t found anyone who can explain that to me.
The maximum time you are given for a TED talk is 18 minutes. This really forces the speakers to make just one point, and get to it immediately. You don’t have any time for diversions. When you prepare your talk, there are always certain phrases or slides that you think are incredible. Then you start showing them to other people, and they tell you different. You have to be really brutal about cutting them out. For my TED talk, there was tons of stuff I had to throw out. It was the right thing to do, but I’m still sad for some of that material.
At your typical conference, people there are basically forced to endure the talks—it’s happening at you. Looking at the TED speakers, many of them talk about very serious or fascinating topics, yet they don’t flaunt their ego. At TED, it’s more about contributing to the conference.
Wernicke, a consultant at Oliver Wyman, created the website TEDPad.
If you go on the TED website, you can currently find there over a full week of TEDTalk videos, over 1.3 million words of transcripts and millions of user ratings. And that's a huge amount of data. And it got me wondering: If you took all this data and put it through statistical analysis, could you reverse engineer a TEDTalk? Could you create the ultimate TEDTalk? (Laughter) (Applause) And also, could you create the worst possible TEDTalk that they would still let you get away with?
To find this out, I looked at three things: I looked at the topic that you should choose, I looked at how you should deliver it and the visuals onstage. Now, with the topic: There's a whole range of topics you can choose, but you should choose wisely, because your topic strongly correlates with how users will react to your talk. Now, to make this more concrete, let's look at the list of top 10 words that statistically stick out in the most favorite TEDTalks and in the least favorite TEDTalks. So if you came here to talk about how French coffee will spread happiness in our brains, that's a go. (Laughter) (Applause) Whereas, if you wanted to talk about your project involving oxygen, girls, aircraft -- actually, I would like to hear that talk, (Laughter) but statistics say it's not so good. Oh, well. If you generalize this, the most favorite TEDTalks are those that feature topics we can connect with, both easily and deeply, such as happiness, our own body, food, emotions. And the more technical topics, such as architecture, materials and, strangely enough, men, those are not good topics to talk about.
How should you deliver your talk? TED is famous for keeping a very sharp eye on the clock, so they're going to hate me for revealing this, because, actually, you should talk as long as they will let you. (Laughter) Because the most favorite TEDTalks are, on average, over 50 percent longer than the least favorite ones. And this holds true for all ranking lists on TED.com except if you want to have a talk that's beautiful, inspiring or funny. Then, you should be brief. (Laughter) But other than that, talk until they drag you off the stage.
(Laughter)
Now, while ... (Applause) While you're pushing the clock, there's a few rules to obey. I found these rules out by comparing the statistics of four-word phrases that appear more often in the most favorite TEDTalks as opposed to the least favorite TEDTalks. I'll give you three examples. First of all, I must, as a speaker, provide a service to the audience and talk about what I will give you, instead of saying what I can't have. Secondly, it's imperative that you do not cite The New York Times. (Laughter) And finally, it's okay for the speaker -- that's the good news -- to fake intellectual capacity. If I don't understand something, I can just say, "etc., etc." You'll all stay with me. It's perfectly fine. (Applause)
Now, let's go to the visuals. The most obvious visual thing on stage is the speaker. And analysis shows if you want to be among the most favorite TED speakers, you should let your hair grow a little bit longer than average, make sure you wear your glasses and be slightly more dressed-up than the average TED speaker. Slides are okay, though you might consider going for props. And now the most important thing, that is the mood onstage. Color plays a very important role. Color closely correlates with the ratings that talks get on the website. (Applause) For example, fascinating talks contain a statistically high amount of exactly this blue color, (Laughter) much more than the average TEDTalk. Ingenious TEDTalks, much more this green color, etc., et. (Laughter) (Applause) Now, personally, I think I'm not the first one who has done this analysis, but I'll leave this to your good judgment.
So, now it's time to put it all together and design the ultimate TEDTalk. Now, since this is TEDActive, and I learned from my analysis that I should actually give you something, I will not impose the ultimate or worst TEDTalk on you, but rather give you a tool to create your own. And I call this tool the TEDPad. (Laughter) And the TEDPad is a matrix of 100 specifically selected, highly curated sentences that you can easily piece together to get your own TEDTalk. You only have to make one decision, and that is: Are you going to use the white version for very good TEDTalks, about creativity, human genius? Or are you going to go with a black version, which will allow you to create really bad TEDTalks, mostly about blogs, politics and stuff? So, download it and have fun with it.
Now I hope you enjoy the session. I hope you enjoy designing your own ultimate and worst possible TEDTalks. And I hope some of you will be inspired for next year to create this, which I really want to see.
Thank you very much.
(Applause) Thanks.
若你上 TED 的網站， 你會看到 超過一整星期的 TEDTalk 影片， 超過13億字 的字幕。 還有百萬以上的使用者評比， 資料量很龐大。 所以我在想， 如果你把這些資料 進行統計分析， 你可不可能反向製作出一個 TEDTalk？ 還是你可以創造出 一個「最棒的」TEDTalk？ （掌聲） 還是說，你可以製作出 一個最爛的 TEDTalk， 而且還可以全身而退？
為了找到解答，我選擇三個層面來分析。 我先看該選什麼當做演說的標題， 再來看看在台上該怎麼表達， 以及該使用什麼視覺輔助。 先來說標題，你可以選的標題範圍很廣， 但你應該謹慎地選擇， 因為你所選定的標題， 將會嚴重影響聽眾對你演說的反應。 為了讓你更明白一點， 讓我們先來看看篩選出來的前十名最佳字句， 這是統計分析的結果， 是分別從聽眾最喜愛的 TEDTalk， 和聽眾最不喜愛的 TEDTalk 中所篩選出來的。 所以，如果你到這兒來， 發表一個主題是「法國咖啡如何 在我們的大腦裡傳播快樂」的演說， 那就對了！ （掌聲） 但是，如果你的主題 是敘述你所從事的專案計畫， 內容與氧氣、女孩、飛機等字眼有關， 我個人其實還滿想聽這種演說的， 但統計數據卻告訴我們這不夠吸引人。 嗯, 好。 如果我們廣泛地推論， 最受歡迎的 TEDTalk 所談論的主題， 是聽眾容易與之產生共鳴的， 既簡單而又深入， 像是快樂、我們的身體、 食物和情緒等。 而比較技術性的主題， 像是建築、材料、還有 – 這非常的奇怪 – 男人， 這些就不是那麼受歡迎的主題。
該怎麼進行演說呢？ TED 最負盛名的是 對演說者時間的嚴格掌控， 所以他們會很討厭我告訴你們這一點， 因為根據統計， 你應該在他們允取你的時間範圍內，說得愈長愈好， 因為最受歡迎的 TEDTalk， 平均比最不受歡迎的演說， 時間長上一半。 這是 TED.com 的排行榜告訴我們的事實， 除非你的演說是 優美的、具啟發性的或是有趣的， 那麼，你應該簡潔些。不然的話， 你應該一直說到他們要把你拖下台為止。
（笑聲）
嗯，好.. （掌聲） 在你爭取更多演說時間的同時，還有幾項規則要遵守。 我會發現這些規則， 是因為我統計了演說中所出現的辭句， 看看哪些在最受歡迎的 TEDTalk 中較常出現， 哪些又在最不受歡迎的 TEDTalk 中出現。 我會舉三個例子說明。 首先，身為一個演說者， 我必須提供我所知道的資訊給聽眾， 而不是告訴聽眾我不知道什麼。 第二，要記住 不要引用紐約時報的報導。 （笑聲） 最後，我要告訴你們一個好消息， 要學會不懂裝懂。 如果不瞭解某件事，就用「諸如此類...」來矇混過去。 你們都知道我在說什麼吧! 這樣很好啊！ （掌聲）
現在我們來談談視覺輔助。 在講台上最醒目的視覺標的應該就是演說者了。 統計分析顯示，若你想成為 最受歡迎的 TED 演說者， 你應該把頭髮留得比一般人長一點， 記得戴上眼鏡，然後穿得比一般 TED 演說者 再正式一點， 投影片可以用，但如果能有道具輔助會更好。 然而，最重要的事是 講台上的氣氛。 色彩佔有很重要的地位， 你選用的色彩會決定 你在網路上的評價 （掌聲） 舉例來說，被評價為「引人入勝」的 TEDTalk 都大量使用 這種藍色， 使用頻率比一般的 TEDTalk 高得多。 被評價為「機智」的演說多是這種綠色， 諸如此類... （掌聲） 我個人覺得， 我應該不是第一個做這種分析的人， 但這留給你們 自己判斷吧！
現在該是我們把所有東西拼湊在一起 製作出最棒的 TEDTalk 的時候了。 由於這是 TEDActive， 從我研究的統計資料裡， 我知道我該給你們一些實際的東西， 我不會強迫你們做出最棒的 或是最爛的 TEDTalk， 但我會給你們一套工具讓你們製作出自己的演說。 我把這個工具命名為 TED Pad。 （笑聲） TED Pad 內含有 100 組精選語句， 你可以善加組合， 製作出你自己的 TEDTalk。 你所要做的決定只有一個， 那就是：你是要使用白色的版本 來製作出優質的 TEDTalk， 內容關於創造力、人類的才華？ 還是你想要選用黑色的版本？ 那讓你可以製作出超爛的 TEDTalk， 內容大部分涵蓋部落格 還有政治這些玩意兒。 現在就下載，好好玩一玩吧！
希望你們喜歡我的演說。 也希望你們喜歡自己製作出來的 最棒及最爛的 TEDTalk。 也希望你們之中有人會受到啟發， 明年可以站在台上，我真的很期待你們的演說。
謝謝你們。
（掌聲）
Friday, January 06, 2012
Thursday, January 05, 2012
A Youngster's Bright Idea Is Something New Under the Sun
By SOPHIA HOLLANDER
NORTHPORT, N.Y.—A new way of collecting solar energy has polarized scientists around the world and ignited fierce debate on the Internet, where the innovator in question has been called everything from an alien to the agent of a global conspiracy.
13-year-old Aidan Dwyer developed a new way to collect solar energy, and along the way sparked a fierce debate among scholars and scientists. He joins the News Hub to tell his story. Photo: Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal
Maybe a better title would be an intellectual Hannah Montana. That's because the scientist, Aidan Dwyer, is 13 years old.
This past summer, Aidan won a national science competition with what seemed to be a bright idea: His research appeared to show that solar panels arrayed like the leaves on a tree collect sunlight more efficiently than traditional setups.
Enlarge Image
Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal
Aidan with his tree-branch mode
Many people on the Web called the Long Island teenager a "genius" who had achieved a true "breakthrough" in solar power. Others praised him for proving that nature's own designs are superior to man's.
But there was one little problem: To prove his hypothesis, Aidan had measured the wrong thing.
As readers figured out the mistake, the Internet went supernova. Commenters and bloggers attacked Aidan with vitriol usually saved for political enemies and the Kardashians. Blogs decried his experiment as "bad science" and "impossible nonsense." Someone called him "an alien—a cool one, though."
Aidan and his family watched in amazement as strangers around the world debated his intelligence and abilities, as well as his opinion of subjects generally beyond the scope of a suburban boy his age: politics, evolution and the state of modern society, for example.
He got some constructive advice, said Aidan's mother, Maureen. "Then there were people who were just—"
"Haters," Aidan chimed in with a grin.
The legitimacy of his original idea remains unsettled, though scientists are skeptical. Aidan is now revamping his experiment as he maneuvers around homework, sleepovers and the odd curfew violation.
But there is no disputing that he has become a star. Many in the scientific community are championing his intellectual curiosity and graceful ability to weather an Internet firestorm, making him a hot speaker at events around the world.
"It looks like there is some validity to what he's come up with. But even if there wasn't any validity, I wanted to give this young man the opportunity to sort of say, 'Here's what I learned and here's what I did,'" said Andrew Zolli, the executive director of PopTech, a nonprofit organization focused on innovation.
AIDAN DWYER
In October, Aidan got a standing ovation from more than 500 people at PopTech's annual innovation conference in Maine after discussing his work and touching on the controversy.
He has been invited to address 300 undergraduate engineering students at New York University in the spring. He has filed a provisional patent application for his research. He has had, and declined, friend requests on Facebook from venture capitalists.
After viewing one of his talks on YouTube, organizers of World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi invited Aidan to participate—and offered to fly his family over, too. He is scheduled to speak at the event's opening ceremony this month.
"Our mandate is to look for great minds, talents, technology innovations around the world," said Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the CEO of Masdar, a company owned by the Abu Dhabi government that founded and hosts the conference. "We need thousands of Aidans to help transform the way we produce and consume energy."
On a recent afternoon, Aidan and his parents admitted they were somewhat baffled by the attention for a project that began two years ago on a winter hiking trip through the Catskill Mountains.
Aidan, then 11, stared at the tree branches denuded of leaves and noticed they looked alike; he wondered why. Back home, his parents encouraged him to research the subject. Google searches uncovered that a mathematical concept called the Fibonacci number sequence underlies the structure of tree branches.
His parents had been hoping to install solar panels on their Long Island house, but their yard was too small and their roof wasn't suitable. There was, however, enough room for a tree. Perhaps, Aidan postulated, trees arranged their branches to improve the collection of sunlight. If he used the Fibonacci sequence to imitate that design with solar panels replacing leaves, maybe the structure could fit his family's limited space, look pretty—and power the house.
He did chores to earn the money to buy about $75 worth of materials. With help from his father—and after many mistakes—Aidan ended up with two models: a traditional flat-panel array and a tree-shaped solar collector designed to mimic the branch sequence of an oak tree. Over the course of months he compared measurements. To his delight, the tree structure's numbers were higher.
Exuberantly, he submitted the results to the Young Naturalist Awards, a national contest run by the American Museum of Natural History. Of 700 entries, his was picked as one of 12 winners.
"Then," Aidan said with a slight smile, "things got out of hand."
As the report went viral, attacked and championed in hundreds of comments, museum officials became worried. "We do think it's really important that information that we put forth is scientifically accurate," said Rosamond Kinzler, senior director of science education at the museum. They were also concerned for Aidan, she said.
Critics had a point: Aidan had recorded voltage, when he needed to calculate power. It is a serious flaw, explained Jan Kleissl, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of California, San Diego.
Imagine a water pipe, he said. Voltage is equivalent to water pressure. Current is the size of the pipe. Power is equal to the flow of water out of the pipe, which depends on both variables.
Dr. Kleissl praised Aidan's work, but added that even if Aidan had measured the right variables, "I'm certain that he will not find that his arrangement is better," he said. "I think it's a romantic ideal that nature has many lessons for us, and there are a few cases where this is true, but in the majority of cases we could teach nature, in a way, how to be better, faster."
On a recent afternoon, Aidan showed a visitor his newest model, tweaked to respond to his critics: a towering seven-foot tree form adorned with solar panels and painted green. He is now measuring current and power. So far, he said, the tree continues to outperform the traditional panel. "I'm thinking that it could actually change the world."
Next gen UI: Learning tools and toys for the digital age
What if you no longer needed a screen, mouse, and keyboard to use a computer? Siftables creator, David Merrill, shows us how individual, cookie cutter-sized tiles that use motion sensing, graphical display, and wireless communication will teach users a new way to learn.
David Merrill: My name's David Merrill and I'm a principal at Taco Lab based in San Francisco and we build next generation user interfaces.
Background Music My background is in cognitive science and computer science and I've been interested for a long time in how our interactions with computers can be more natural and more efficient and more delightful. My colleague Jeevan Kalanithi and I were at the MIT Media Lab as graduate students, and we started working on a new physical interface called Siftables. Siftables is one example of what I think will be a new ecosystem of what I'm calling hand tools for the digital age, ways to interact with computation that's very different than the mouse and keyboard we use today.
Background Music We have built Siftables so that each tile is a little, self-contained interactive computer with a screen on top, the ability to sense its neighbors and the ability to communicate wirelessly. So you can represent a problem, say a math equation, on the screens of the Siftables with each screen showing one piece of the equation. And then by putting them together, it can compute the results of the equation showing you the answer. The way we use computers now, or even our mobile phones and other mobile devices is usually one person per display, one person per piece of technology. But Siftables is an example of what we've been calling cookie-scale computing where you've got smaller pieces of computation, the size of cookies, and you're actually interacting with a group of them together. And that's a version of computing that we haven't really seen yet, a way of interacting with computers that we think has a lot of potential to increase the ease with which we can manipulate digital information. I think our interfaces for computers in the future are going to take a lot of different forms that are not just gonna be the mouse and keyboard. And so that's really what I'm excited about is to see the ways that we can more seamlessly connect our brain and our intentions to what we can create with the computer, because it's a wonderful tool. It's got a lot of potential, but we're not yet leveraging it in the way that we could. That's the way that I want to interact with computers in the future, is for there to be a seamless translation from a thought that I have in my head to something that I've created with the machine.
SRI invents tiny medical instruments for pediatric surgery
In order to perform surgery on children, doctors often have to jury-rig adult instruments to fit their needs. But Pablo Garcia, a principal engineer at SRI International is working to solve this problem. He's teamed up with Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford to develop new surgical tools that will fit smaller, hard-to-reach areas. SmartPlanet visits SRI and looks at a neurosurgical instrument in development that will excise cysts in the brains of small children.
iPod father Tony Fadell shows off latest gadget--a thermostat
At Nest Labs, former Apple product engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers have molded their thermostat with many of the design and technology characteristics of Apple products like the iPod and iPhone. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das visits the startup to see what they've been up to and finds out what Fadell--who oversaw the design and production of the iPod--learned from Steve Jobs.
I'm Thomas Meyerhoffer and I'm a designer.
Music
Background Music
>> I used to work for company called IDEO, a big consult firm and then I went from there to Apple where I was part of the design group and then I started my own company. For me, it's about creating a story in the end for the user so that the user will have a good experience with the product. One of my big priorities right now is surfboards. The surfboard I designed is quite radical for that audience. The design of the board looks like a peanut. Basically what I've done I had gone in taking a large board, the long board, and taking a way as much material as possible for the long board to still perform as good as a normal long board but then bring in the ability of a short board into that design. That means taking away the middle of the board, making a rounder tail where you stand which makes the board turn a lot easier in the waves. So it's kind of a combination of two designs into one.
Background Music
>> Another project that I'm working on, it's called the WikiReader and it's a kind of a low technology. So we took one of the most simple things from the internet which is the Wikipedia information and we put that on one device. Everything in the device is designed to take as little power--be as efficient as possible. You don't have to charge it. I mean that's three and a half million articles from the Wikipedia in this device and you don't have to do anything. You can bring it everywhere. For me personally, I just want to keep doing what I'm doing. I think the most challenging part is to make the right decision. It's not difficult to be creative. It's not difficult to come up with new ideas. I think its understanding what you are doing in the context of what's needed and where you need to go so that you take in the right turns and go on forward.
Loosecubes: A more intelligent way to work?
New York-based startup Loosecubes has created an office-sharing portal that helps people find and rent work spaces. SmartPlanet talks to company CEO Campbell McKellar about how her Web site is making it easier to find a work space almost anywhere in the world.
'Printing' your next house
MIT's Mediated Matter Group is developing ways to use new materials like concrete in 3D printing. See how researchers are working with biologically inspired designs in this MIT video.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Monday, January 02, 2012
Viral Video: 15-Year-Old Korean Girl Channels Adele
If you’re impressed by British singer Adele, you’ll be wowed by this 15-year-old girl covering her hit, “Rolling in the Deep,” on Korean singing show, “K-Pop Star.”
I was definitely not expecting this from the slight, sweet-looking singer:
Adele - Rolling In The Deep (Live)
I was definitely not expecting this from the slight, sweet-looking singer:
Adele - Rolling In The Deep (Live)
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
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