How Excess Thinking Can Help the World

Clay Shirky: How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World

Clay Shirky is a professional in the field of the internet's effects on social and economic changes, which he has been writing about "since 1996".  He has explained that there are 2 types of cognitive surplus, one that is only beneficial to a small specific group of people, and the other helps the world, society, as a whole.  One is communial, such as the example which is used, Lolcats.  The other is Ushahidi, which allows users from across the world to cross-reference differenent snippets of information to get the whole picture.  They both seem to be the same type of idea to me, one is just more beneficial, yet it takes more effort to complete.  Is there a level where there could be too much "communial cognitive surplus"?  Communial surplus seems to be easier to process and carry out, while Global surplus seems like it could take years.

He also explains how there is a spectrum between mediocre ideas and good ideas when it comes to creativity.  Yet, when you put things on a spectrum, it's complete left-brained thinking, leaving no room for creativity, and just "the good stuff".  Lolcatz was a simple, mediocre idea that he used for his TED topic, and yet he turned it into something much more.  Even that amazing presentation might just be a little of the whole picture, and yet we label his presentation as amazing.  Yet he still took the time to create an amazing idea.

I felt that Clay Shirky's presentation was very serious and straight to the point.  He didn't use humor nearly as much as other TED Talkers, but he was able to use a variety of expressions in order to still keep the audience's attention.  It was pretty easy to grasp the concepts that he was teaching rather than giving very general rules on " how to lead your life".  He used good examples for the different kinds of thinking, and both showed different sides of the story, one serious that matted to everyone, and another that was funny but easily understandable yet only applyable to one group.  I would say if you are more Left-Brained, and more intellectually-bound, this would be an amazing video for you.  If you feel that you can stand 20 minutes of this kind of talking, watch it for sure!  Otherwise, look elsewhere for a few 5 minute long, inspiring videos that use a little more emotion, rather than a single 20 minutes of explanation.  Overall, this was a good TED Talk, and I would say he did a good job presenting what truly matters.

Wait, rewards DON'T make people faster?

Daniel Pink and the Surprising Science of Motivation

Daniel Pink, the renowned author of A Whole New Mind, starts off his presentation like most of the other TED Talks, with a joke. He made a mistake while he was still young and impulsive, “I went to law school”. He makes his presentation unique by making his TED Talk into a “hard headed, evidence-based, dare I even say, lawyerly, court case”.

His first point references to “The Candle Problem”, created by Karl Duncker, a psychologist in behavioral science. There is a candle, some matches, and a box of tacks and you have to tack the candle to the wall without having any wax drip on the table. Some people will try to tack the candle to the wall, others would try to melt the candle and adhere it onto the wall, but neither worked. The solution turned out to be simply tacking the box onto the wall and putting the candle inside. There was a test recorded the average time to get the problem done. Then there is a second group the top times will get money for if they are in the top 25%. Normally a reward or incentive makes people work harder, yet they took on average, 3 ½ minutes longer than the 1^st control group. How can this be? When there is an incentive, a person’s mind narrows down on the task at hand, and can miss the answer right in front of them. Yet, when the tacks were out of the box, it took no time at all to solve the problem. So rewards work best when there is no mechanical skill required for the task at hand, and the larger the reward, the more efficiently the job is done. If the task requires any thinking at all, the exact opposite happens. Everyone has candle problems in their life, in the world, and yet we’re all going about it wrong. If-then rewards worked in the 20^th century, but not in the 21^st century. All in all, we used to be a left-brained thinking world, and these old techniques worked just fine, but now we are changing into a conceptual age, and we need to look at how we learn, work, and go about our lives.

The world needs to focus on autonomy, mastery, and purpose. They are described as wanting to direct our own lives, the desire to get better at the things that matter, and yearning to do what we do. These three things combined with equal pay, no rewards, will allow the world to become a better place, a Utopia. There have been many examples for companies that these types styles have worked for. Wikipedia, Google’s 20 percent time, FedEx, and Rowe.

Daniel Pink used humor to draw in and keep the crowd interested. He also came up with all the “what if’s” and “so what’s” making his presentation much more believable and backing itself up. He put the presentation into his style of a court case, and made everything fit into the style he created. I enjoyed listening to Pink's unique style of teaching and what he had to say. I would definitely recommend watching the whole video to discover more about the world, what it is now, what could be, how it effects the types of people in it, and even how your children's lives will be.

Mick Ebeling: The invention that unlocked a locked-in artist

Freeing a paralytic from his prison of a bed

Mick comes across as a pretty average, normal run of the mill kind of guy. His video almost seems self-promoting at first: "Look at me! I did something great!", but it contributes more to

the idea of "Anyone can do this. I'm just a normal guy but I still made this happen".

Mick eases into his presentation off by saying that he has worked on many projects in his life, but the one that was the coolest was around a guy named Tempt. He was one of the first graffiti artists in the 80’s and came home from a run one day saying: “Dad, my legs are tingling”. Now he is completely paralyzed except for the use of his eyes. His company decided to sponsor and gave his brother the money, but first asked what they were going to do with it. And he simply said; “All I want to do is be able to talk with my brother again”. He soon found out that unless you are in the upper class of people, it is not possible to get a device that will allow paralytics to communicate. So Mick decided to set with a check that he had no idea how he was going to pay.

He met a group of people called the GRL, Graffiti Research Lab, and he discovered a technology that used light and lasers to draw on any surface. After about a year later he forced an insurance company to get Tempt one of these devices known as a Steven Hawkins machine.

http://www.graffitiresearchlab.com

Then they got seven programmers from all around the world to come to his house and they took over for about two weeks. In the end, using only a cheap pair of sunglasses, some copper wire, various supplies from Home Depot and Radio Shack, they hacked open a PS3 Camera which was mounted to an LED light, he made the EyeWriter. It is a completely free device, the code and software are published online, and they make absolutely no profit.

After seven years, Tempt was able to do graffiti for the first time and express himself. Mick and those who contributed to the project, along with the EyeWriter itself got several recognitions, and even awards including the top 50 inventions of 2010 in TIME.

Mick uses humor at the appropriate moments to keep the audience interested, makes everything he says line right up, and states the point concisely. Mick's points at the end are that: "If you see somthing that is impossible, make it possible", "If not now, then when?", "If not me, then who?". This video has inspired me to make any improvement I can in general to the world, not just making life easier for myself. I would recommend this video to anyone you can get to watch it, because this WILL grab you attention by the neck and motivate you to make a difference too. I feel that anyone can do anything if they can get the right talent, ideas, and hard work. If the whole world worked like this, then we would have a utopia on Earth.

To view more TED Talk Videos, go to: http://www.ted.com/talks
To see the best inventions of 2010, go here: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2029497,00.html
To make your own EyeWriter, go to: http://www.eyewriter.org/diy/

Sir Ken Robinson TED Talk

Sir Ken Robinson is a British author who used humor, and still stated the facts simply and clearly, to stress his message about literacy and creativity to give an outstanding TED Talk. He started the beginning of his presentation by cracking a few jokes to pull the audiences' attention in and then he begins the intro to his talk. He states that education "runs deep with people", the same way that religion and money do. Everyone's education varies from the next person, so it's unique to each person you ask. This system has a “hierarchy of subjects” including Mathematics and Languages at the top of the pyramid, then Humanities, and Arts are the last priority. Even though this system of education may be viewed as great, it still has its downsides.

The one point that stands out the most, is the effectiveness of the education system to obliterate a child's sense of creativity. Children are taught how to be one type of person that conforms to the educational system with all the information crammed into them, rather than being able to expand and learn things within their own style. Creativity is as important as literacy in education. Just like a child, you cannot be creative if you are not prepared to be wrong, but at the same time, you cannot be literate if you do not try to work within the guidelines. In a play Sir Ken mentions, three children are representing the three wise kings who came to visit baby Jesus. “One child said: 'I have brought gold', another said 'I have brought mirth', but the last one said 'Frank sent this'”. As children we are all prepared to take a chance to be wrong, and we get creative, but the system of education teaches us to be right all the time within the guidelines, crushing our sense of creativity.

The last of his points was that we all have the chance to maintain our creativity. There was a dancer who was kinetic learner, and needed to be able to move/be doing something to learn efficiently. This put her at a disadvantage in regular school, and she was told outright that she would not be successful. When she was moved to a school that correctly catered to her needs, she surpassed all expectations, and is now a famous dancer and choreographer.

Overall I found Sir Ken's TED Talk very informative and applicable to student's daily lives. For the students who are not able to fit into the cookie-cutter shape of the perfect student, they have trouble succeeding in school and are not able to get the good grades that all of the other students receive. I completely agree that creativity is just as important as literacy, and that we should not neglect it. He kept the audience listening and interested with his jokes, and made clear the importance of creativity and other right-brained types of actions. I would defintely recommend this TED Talk to a friend, because of how relative it is to real life, and Ken's great sense of humor.