Phil Hansen’s ten minute TED Talk is as important as it is poignant. Faced with a condition that made his hand shake and thereby seemed to destroy his dreams of being an artist, he took his neurologist’s advice to “embrace the shake.” When he did, he eventually discovered a number of remarkable ways to make art that didn’t compensate or overcome or even transcend his shaking but rather employed it to lead him to new creative ventures and vistas. What Hansen discovered was that far from reducing creativity, limitations actually increase it. Limitations set boundaries, close off the obvious routes forward, and invite – actually...

There are few people I enjoy listening to more than Ken Robinson. An educator and expert on creativity, he is the author of the excellent book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, and his TED Talk on schools and creativity has been watched by more people than any other Talk. In this presentation, he offers both a candid description of why our current education is failing us as well as clear suggestions for making it better. The reason education is such an important topic, of course, is that it doesn’t just affect children and their parents, but all of us. Education shapes the emerging generation, the generation we will...

Ever try to limit yourself to just three words when you try to describe something special: a wonderful meal? a great movie? a favorite book? It can be really, really challenging. But at other times, on rare occasions, it’s incredibly easy. That’s the case with this TED Talk by Hyeonseo Lee as she talks about her escape from North Korea and subsequent life as a refugee and, eventually, activist. Three words: courageous, compelling, and (especially in light of our recent discussions) beautiful. I’ll say no more, except that to watch this video is to gain an appreciation for freedom, courage, and the human spirit. Note: If you are...

With Earth Day in mind, I’m going to suggest you find the time to watch Bill Gates’ TED Talk about why he’s backing – and investing heavily in – a new kind of energy technology that has phenomenal potential to change, well, just about everything about the energy conversation. The challenges we face, as Gates describes, are monumental. But so also is the creativity and commitment of some of the folks leading the charge to find solutions to our problems. If you’ve seen Bill Gates give earlier presentations, it’s kind of neat to see his growth in terms of his confidence, his use of illustrations and data, and his ability to engage...

Framing is everything. Do you call it “gun control” or “gun safety”? Are they “taxes” or “contributions”? Is your work in “fund raising” or “development”? The way you name these issues is not simply semantics, nor is it “spin.” The language we use contributes to the reality we perceive and interact with. This is never more true than when it comes to issues that touch upon cultural values. Which is why I think this TED Talk on mental illness is so important. We’ve heard a lot about mental health in the news of late, particularly the inadequate resources we have to help those suffering from mental illness and...

I wasn’t sure where to put Shane Koyczan’s TED Talk performance of his spoken-word poem “To This Day.” It’s about bullying, and the lasting impact that the harsh words children speak to each other can have. That’s something I experienced as a kid, both as a receiver and giver. And both – being called names and calling others name – shape some of the memories of my youth I would most like to forget. So perhaps, I thought, I should put it under “parenting,” inviting parents and all those who care for children to take these taunts and slanders more seriously so that we may children our to honor each other and to be resilient...

Eric Whitacre is known for his breathtaking compositions of choral work. He has published more than four-dozen pieces and recorded several albums. More recently, he’s become known as the guy who puts together virtual choirs. What is a virtual choir, you ask. Well, his one first involved inviting 185 voices from a dozen countries to sing and record their various parts in their living rooms, door rooms, or wherever, and send them to him. Whitacre then combined all of these recordings into a single “virtual choir.” The finished piece became an instant You-Tube sensation in 2010. A year later, he gathered more than 2000 voices from 85...

One of the first questions I ask when I think about donating to a particular charity is what their overhead is – that is, how much money the spend on personnel and marketing and everything else it takes to administer their relief efforts. This kind of information is readily available and I use it to determine a sense of the charity’s efficiency – the lower the overhead, the more money goes directly to the recipients of the aid I and others give. Of course I assume the reverse is true as well: the higher the overhead the more wasteful the charity is and less deserving of my support. In this provocative TED Talk based on his book...

I’m not sure what you’ll think of Amanda Palmer. She is, well, different, perhaps particularly from the kinds of folks that usually show up at our churches. (Although perhaps for that very reason we should listen to what she has to say!) She’s a former street performer turned alternative rock icon. She’s known for pushing boundaries…in her art, her appearance, her lifestyle. She’s bold, brash, unconventional, and at times irreverent. But I think she’s also onto something. Something important, something beautiful, something so deeply human that it is also and simultaneously something divine. She is onto the art of being in...

Which setting do you think is more likely to produce a good idea? A quiet room in the library, the auditorium where a prestigious lecturer holds the floor, or a crowded coffee house in the late afternoon? If you guessed the library, you’re to be forgiven for imaging that the good ideas are solitary achievements. If you imagined it was the lecturer, you can be excused for thinking we get our best ideas from experts. But if you instead suspected that it might be the crowded coffee house, then you already know something essential about creativity. It is largely about connection and conversation. Creativity, that is, emerges not from...