TED Auckland

The first New Zealand TED event was held yesterday in Auckland.   

I am a fan of TED (www.ted.com), but I really wasn’t sure what to expect from the local franchised event.  Was it going to be all hype and no substance – or was it going to induce a genuine “wow”?  So I made sure I was there yesterday evening for the show.

The event was faithful to the TED ethos – and the organisers managed to create a sense that the 300 people in attendance were there to experience something special.  Interesting to me was that the entire event was marketed virally using twitter, facebook and the TED Auckland website with zero cash spent on marketing.  Compare that with the significant marketing budgets for most events!

Of course, having a strong brand like TED to leverage locally was an advantage – but ten points to the organisers for bringing TED to New Zealand and for making this happen virally.

The nine speakers gave some good thought provoking talks – ranging from the inspirational to the intellectual and on to innovative ways of making social change.

Some of the ideas that caught my attention from the talks were these:

The importance of being “committed” to a new idea or project as opposed to being “attached” to it.  By being committed, a person gives it their all – and as long as they are not attached to it per se, the concept of failure is not such a personal issue, and the idea can be allowed to fail early if that is approprate.

The idea that this planet is around half way through its 8 billion year life expectancy, and that we should contextualise our thoughts about the future into this framework.  Everything that has come before us has been a prerequisite for the world we are currently enjoying – and what we do today will later prove to be a precondition for the future world.

The idea that New Zealand’s long term future is either as a “well country in a well world”, a “poor county in a well world”, a “poor county in a poor world” or a “well county in a poor world” – and that whilst some elements of this are outside our control, we should be making our long term plans as a county in accordance with where we want to be in this framework. 

The idea that corporations should conduct their internal affairs more like primitive tribes – where the full engagement of the members, and therefore the long term good of the tribe is enhanced by the relationship being treated as more important than the result.

There were plenty of innovative and unusual concepts and thoughts being presented – and these are just a few that jumped out for me on reflection during the long drive home to Tutukaka last night.

So would I attand again next year?  For sure.

Fraser Hurrell is one of three directors of Elevate CA Limited, Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors in Whangarei, New Zealand.