Don’t know what TED is? Well, you should! TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, and traditionally it was an annual conference held in Monterey, California. Now there are more conferences in different places around the world, but the objective remains the same: to talk about ideas worth spreading.

Here is a quotation from Wikipedia explaining how it works:

TED was founded in 1984 as a one-off event, and the conference was held annually from 1990 in Monterey, California. TED’s early emphasis was largely technology and design, consistent with a Silicon Valley center of gravity. The events are now held in Long Beach and Palm Springs in the U.S. as well as in Europe and Asia, offering live streaming of the talks. They address an increasingly wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture. The speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and many Nobel Prize winners. TED’s current curator is the British former computer journalist and magazine publisher Chris Anderson.

Getting a ticket to attend a live TED conference is pretty tough and expensive from what I heard. But the organizers are not in for the money (at least not only for it!), and they make all the presentations available at the TED.com website. Currently there are over 900 presentations available, on all sorts of fields and topics.

If you haven’t watched a TED presentation ever (or lately) I urge you to go to the website, find a topic you like and watch it. The videos aren’t very long, and I am sure you’ll get amused and inspired by the ideas discussed there.

Next week I’ll try to post a list with my favorite presentations, so stay tuned.