Conferenza

SuperNova2008 - celebrates network science

Supernova launched its seventh edition here at the spiffy new "Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF" south of south of Market, in, well, Mission Bay. The conference, born in the midst of the Internet investment "winter" following the bursting of the bubble in 2000-2001, has been among our perennial favorites - edgy, open and full of dynamic format experiments.

In fact, this year's opening afternoon constitutes the main plenary session of the three day conference, allowing participants to delve into work groups for the next two days - reversing the format of some previous years and concentrating more on creative, participatory involvement.

This year's theme "Challenges for the new Network Age," is as appropriate as ever, since we are still in so many ways at the dawning of the consciously networked world.

"We aren't really wired to grock networks," notes Kevin Werbach, the founder and grand maestro of SuperNova, noting despite his own telecoms expertise, etc., we are still developing our understanding of network science, to some extent a discipline he notes hardly existed a decade ago.

TED2008 - RSW returns to the TEDstage!

Richard Saul Wurman has just been invited to the stage for a conversation with Chris Anderson...a remarkable TED moment. Surrounded by a Sputnik satellite, Guttenberg Bible and other artifacts from Jay Walker's library, RSW, or Ricky as he's known to many long-time TEDsters, began with some tears, then described how marvelous it was to take the stage as part of a session dubbed "is Beauty Truth?"

RSW's return was particularly poignant as he and TED curator Chris Anderson had participated in some bitter feuding over the conference for more than half a decade after Anderson acquired it from its creator - a feud RSW announced had recently and finally ended - and also because Anderson has announced he's pulling TED out of Monterey next year, determining the ever-growing audience to have outgrown the facility here.

"It is true we've had an acrimonious relationship the last four to five years, and we don't now, and that's beautiful" Richard Saul Wurman said.

RSW has often described the TED conference, which he began in 1984, as "the ultimate dinner party" he always had wanted to have... and while he and three others in the audience were there at that first TED, it has created a huge following and inspired both a year-long community of attendees and a slew of TED "Wannabe" conferences.

Richard said he had realized much of the period of acrimony resulted from misunderstanding, and he only recently came to learn how may attendees had come to believe that TED had changed their lives (for the better!). Many had attested to Richard that TED had given them license to engage in wondrous new undertakings in their lives.

In the meantime, RSW had launched a one-time rival, called eG, the entertainment gathering, in the Los Angeles area. MIT's Michael Hawley revived in a second edition of eG last December, and now promises to make it an annual event.

The TED conference is now doing some collaboration with eG, and is expected to distribute some of the eG presentations as part of its "TEDtalks" offering of past conference presentations.

Adobe - Illustrator and Photoshop and Acrobat were all announced from this stage, as was (Sun Microsystems Inc.'s) Java (programming language), even before it had a name, RSW recalled.

"This is the best conference that every happened, and the clones are nothing... well the clones, they are interesting, too, and they give people license to do other things..." he said.

Anderson and Wurman embraced, and said they were collaborating to create the 25th anniversary conference next year, which will be staged at a larger theater in Long Beach, California, under the theme "The Great Unveiling".

"The picture has already been taken," said Chris, at Wednesday night's opening gala, when your co-respondent commented this was a picture that needed to be made! Nonetheless, they were willing to mug again, and RSW could be heard praising the excellence of what he'd witnessed at the opening sessions - welcome words not only to Chris Anderson, but to all tedsters, young and old.

EG'07 - Grand Finale

The final session of eg '07 has just wrapped up with a knockout final section, Keys to Happiness, which drew the audience to its feet repeatedly. Norman Corwin, the 97-year-old writer, essayist, journalism teacher and radio producer who just signed a three-year contract as writer in residence at USC, exited with a standing ovation after reciting a classic tribute to returning soldiers, comedy writer Bruce Vilanch also brought the crowd to its feet after many peels of laughter over his monologue rift, and comic actor Jonathan Winters, 82, drew the audience to its feet both at the start and end of his performance.

Nathaniel Kahn concluded the gathering with a short documentary on pianist Leon Fleisher and his struggle to return to overcome a debilitating condition in his write hand to train himself to play at concert level again with both hands. And, of course, Michael successfully prevailed upon Fleisher to play an exquisitely wonderful closing piece.

"The greatest joys in life are meant to be shared," said Fleisher, in discussion with Michael Hawley, adding that being a soloist is by definition a solitary undertaking.

As usual, we'll post more following the conference, including pictures and our three points abstract, following the conference.

Jonathan Harris shows his latest work.

EG'07 - Comic Interstitial Interludes

eg's team have picked out a hearty selection of interstitial segments, including the Sony Bravia color rabbit commercial (see also this one - and this), and a host of wonderful New Yorker cartoons distributed via Ringtones.

Enjoy.

EG'07 - the Master - RSW

{Photograph: Richard Saul Wurman prepares for a professional photo session against the travertine backdrop of the Getty Center.}

A wondrous stroke of eg - entertainment gathering was having Richard Saul Wurman take the stage at the outset of the third and final day. Following what he described as the "Trash Talk" of Chris Jordan, who has turned monumental photographic compilations of post-consumer detritus into scale-evocative artwork, RSW began with praise for the speakers, volunteers and Michael Hawley's premier event in the role of producer.

As some participants have noted over the last two days, this year's eg really has lived up to what RSW had for years said was his objective with TED - to treat it as a huge dinner party to which he would like to invite people of great genius to share discovery and discussion. This has been, as he called it, "a celebration of conversation," without grandiosity or technical hindrance. "They have not made a computer that nods," he said, referring to the importance of face-to-face interaction.

Wurman concluded by introducing another phenomenal new project that grew from his interest in the growing mega-cities about which comparable data is not available or well understood, much less accessible in a usable and useful manner. The project, 19 cities in the world which will have 20 million people in the 21st century, can be seen here. As is classic with projects Wurman has developed, the graphics are clear, and I recommend bookmarking the website to watch its progress.

Perhaps the one most difficult task which has been a challenge on the second, and now the third, days of eg is clock management. To his credit, Hawley has been kind to speakers running overtime, though gourmet chefs serving Monday's dinner did force some readjustments. Only a small handful of occasions did he mount the stage and start taking slow, small, polite steps towards the speaker to urge a speedy conclusion. Ironically one of these 'offenders' was RSW himself, who beseeched Michael to ignore the talk-ending tactics Richard had suggested for a couple minutes so Richard could finish with a romp through his latest project.

EG'07 contretemps and nuggets

Many of the most poignant moments at the eg style of conference are what happens in the betwixt and between - realizing commonalities or contrasts often sparked by some comment, reference, gold nugget that's been uttered on stage.

This morning, for example, I began with a discussion on Libertarian solutions to cutting bureaucracy, and perhaps improving education, over morning coffee with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Harvey Allison of Attractor, IDEO's Doug Solomon and Krisztina "Z" Holly, who runs the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation. One focus of discussion was Bezos' comment that the learning/feedback loop in education is long, and can impact a generation, though education overall is probably improving by more than schools are credited. He notes it took the Romans 80 years to realize linking acquaducts with lead was not a healthy innovation. While that may have been relatively fast, an education experiment that took as long to determine to have failed might be intolerable. Allison noted perceptible changes in schools are spread rapidly.

Minutes later, RealNetworks founder Rob Glaser kicked off session 3 "Media Biz" with the first public discussion of the results of his "progressive education branding project" undertaken with the Center for American Progress. The project created eight 30-second television spots and test marketed them. The spots include two that are take-offs of Apple Inc's PC/Mac advertisements.

"Aren't YOU a Progressive?", the ads ask in closing. Turns out, in at least one sample, progressive self-identification increases by 67% in these recent tests. The Youtube versions, linked above, were posted a few weeks ago.

No doubt the debate will continue in discussions outside the auditorium, as the contrast of the Progressive record of achievement along and the Libertarian critique make good fodder.

During Monday morning's "Media Biz" and "Nerd Alert" sessions, presenters frequently cited earlier presentations, as Jamy Ian Swiss had done Sunday evening.

Among the most oft-cited was Emily Levine, a perennial favorite "humorist philosopher" of RSW's TED conferences. Levine recounted how she had dealt with diagnosis of apoptosis of her prostate, and with a combination of gravity and humor led the audience through her evolution from comic writer to comic philosopher to "comic oracle", or "Emily 3.0". Apoptosis, it seems, leads to enlargement of the head and extremities. Levine concluded the entire country may be suffering from the malady - starting with the head of state.

Some other observations:

- "99% of medicine that we practice today was developed in my lifetime." - Keith Black, neurosurgeon who has conducted more than 5,000 brain surgeries over two decades.

- Working for the government I was reminded there was a situation the government could actually put me to death - treason, noted Keith Schwab, a Cornell physicist who expressed with a certain nervousness that his work was being supported by an employer who was "now threatening to kill me" if he were to misbehave...

- "There's only three things I've ever been afraid of - electricity, heights and women," - the words of a high wire power line repairman, in a video short interstitial.

- There are 10 times as many stars in the planetary system as there are grains of sand on Earth's beaches. - Paul Horowitz, Harvard professor of physics.

- "We live in a world governed by chance and probabilities," quantum physicist Brian Greene.

- "The web community is a big community. It's not the repository of all knowledge. It's the repository of discovery," Adam Savage, co-star of Mythbusters.

EG'07 feeling in your feet, building Cathedrals with 2 fingers

Michael Hawley has already delivered, as promised, a number of the "magical moments" connecting of synapses and themes between presenters long devised by Richard Saul Wurman as the genesis of the so-called "TED moment".

As Donald Jackson, HRH's Royal Calligrapher, lead 500+ attendees in the packed auditorium in scripting a stylized letter "A" with one hand in the air in front of us, he told us it was important to feel the motion in our feet.

A session later, magician Jamy Ian Swiss expressed appreciation for Jackson's remarks in telling the audience the trick to good magic could also include what happens in your feet. Swiss then proceeded to explain one of his card tricks - "I have a surprise for you," which he said takes most of his students six months or more to learn. He compared it with romantic comedy, and focused on the moment of 'Aristotelian catharsis' which he described as critical to the success of an entertaining trick.

In a different sort of catharsis... Hawley offered a screening of Michael Lawrence's elegant work in progress, the Bach Project. A collaboration among a number of terrific musical artists in homage to the great composer, the film includes music and interviews with some of the most successful contemporary artists, such as Bobby McFerrin. "Bach with two notes, one with the right hand, the other with the left, he can build a Cathedral, said Joáo Carlos Martins, the Brazilian pianist and conductor.

What more suitable metaphor for an event taking place within architect Richard Meier's $1.2 billion travertine-coated Getty Center stone edifice perched on a hilltop above Los Angeles.

EG'07 soars to life above L.A.

The bold, audacious, grand phantasmagoria of eg '07, the entertainment gathering, has just kicked off with the strings of the violinists of the Colburn School here at The Getty Center, perched in its sunshine-bathed peak overlooking the City of Angels.

We are delighted to bring you coverage of this second edition of the conference created by TED founder Richard Saul Wurman and presented this year by Michael Hawley, who has announced he intends to make it an annual extravaganza delivering magical moments from an ecclectic mix of creative minds and performers.

As a classic reacquaintance with the spirit of discovery that had inspired TED over two decades, Hawley has assembled a wondrous constellation of familiar and new. In his first session alone, he followed the superb violin strains with an update by former Microsoft CTO and gourmet chef Nathan Myhrvold of his reflections on the meaning of "cute" in the animal (and human!) kingdom, then turned to two 'newbies' UK Royal Calligrapher Donald Jackson and snow crystal photographer Ken Libbrecht, a physicist at Caltech.

Jackson had the whole, packed auditorium waving our arms and 'feeling' the motion of calligraphy in reproducing a stylized "A" in the air, while Libbrecht's photographs of single snowflakes ranging up to 10 mm in size, as well as exotic crystalline shapes.

Following this were some animated New Yorker cartoons sketches from the site ringtales, and a discussion of how they came to being, and Golan Levin's observations and experiments with media formats - ranging from concerts of attendees' cell phones as the sole musical instrument, but choreographed and seeded with ringtones supplied as they arrived at the concert, to voice-generated environments and self-creating face montages.

Jonathan Harris, who also spoke this year at POPtech, closed off the first session with his terrific presentation on the emotions and demograpics of people's feelings as expressed on the Internet. His parsing allows one to search, for example, for women who feel lame in their 30s when it's raining, as well as individual statements like "I feel as though I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe." Harris focusses on small scale personal stories, as well as diving into larger stories in the physical world, such as a narrative-selectable rendition of a whale hunt in Alaska. Harris ended with a superb series he had collected in Bhutan capturing people, their life's wish, and their sharing of what makes each person happy.

Last year's assembly at the nearby Skirball Center boasted a sense of irreverence and punctuation for RSW, who had vowed it would be a last shebang of his virtuoso gatherings, scheduled as it was practically on the eve of TED. This year, TED helped promote the conference to its own community, and committed to distributing videos of some of the presentations down the road, in a manner presumably similar to the popular TEDtalks.

Pop!Tech envisions Human Impact

Pop!Tech 2007 kicked off its annual feast of ideas amid the chill autumn folliage of downeast Maine with the incredible data visualization work of photographer Chris Jordan and the urban sensory mapping work of Christian Nold.

This year's theme, "Human Impact" was creatively visualized Jordan's work, which demonstrates in his Intolerable Beauty the patterns made by around 425,000 cell phones - the number tossed away by Americans every day, or 15 million sheets of paper, the amount used by Americans every five minutes, a phenomenon whose visualization he describes as allowing him to chronicle the detritis of human consumption.

His latest show, in LA, is "Running the Numbers" and turns such images into artwork - such as creating an image of Mount Denali comprised entirely of images of the badge of the "Denali" SUV, with some altered to spell "Denial" in the same typeface, and an image of two billion plastic bottles - the number used by Americans every FIVE minutes.

Nold showed how he used a sensory mapping device to record the emotional states over time and in various locations in Greenwich, England and San Francisco, California.

Follow the links above to see these works, and better understand how they provide true insights on the level of visualization visionary Edward Tufte.

RSWurman's EG offers an encore!

For all of us who are fans of the events and designs of Richard Saul Wurman, news two years ago that he was producing EG2006 [the Entertainment Gathering] at the Skirball Center north of Los Angelesbrought hope of a new series of intimate, high brainwave events, in the tradition of TED [Technology, Entertainment Design] which he'd painstakenly created and led through its sale in 2002 to publisher Chris Anderson.

As that event approached, Ricky (as he's known to dearest admirers) disappointed many when he said this was a one-off, and not a series. So, it is with great anticipation and joy that word started slipping out a few weeks back that The Entertainment Gathering will have (at least) an encore at the Getty Center in Los Angeles December 2-4 under the leadership of Michael Hawley, the gifted MIT professor who became known to RSW's crowd as much for the genius of his piano performances as for his professional accomplishments.

"To be honest, I'm a bit weary of high-end packaged conferences, but I never tire of spending great time with incredible people," Hawley wrote to a friend who inquired about his objectives. "I'm designing EG to be the kind of conference I would beg to attend."

Featuring stalwarts of past gatherings like physicist Brian Greene, former Microsoft executive Nathan Myrvold, philosopher-comic Emily Levine and perennial favorite musician Jill Sobule, this edition also inclues concert pianist Leon Fleisher, Toy inventor Caleb Chung and Donald Jackson, the calligrapher to Queen Elizabeth II. And, of course, Wurman as "himself."

No doubt the event will be as extraordinary as ever, and Hawley hints strongly there will be plenty of room to spawn those special moments like occured last year, when on the spur of the moment Bill Nye (the science guy) and Blair Tindall tied the knot in an impromptu wedding in the middle of the conference on the urging of Pastor Rick Warren, who presided over the ceremony.

"So, what I'm aiming for is an event that will be a breeder reactor for magical, wonderfully unexpeted connections like these," he wrote, in an email distributed to several potential attendees, referencing the wedding and other magical moments of EG2006. "I am keeping EG intimate (no overflow room); it isn't an orgy."

Hawley adds that he is agonizing over each presenter, among them many national treasures and people of unique talent, as well as over each attendee, saying he aims to be in touch with each attendee personally to help insure he brings out the best of the best.

Presuming this event builds on the brilliance of the past - and there's every reason to believe it will - participants will certainly celebrate Hawley's almost incidental comment that he intends to continue EG as an annual event, as what he terms "a great big cherry on top of the sundae of LA" - a notion and venue he attributes to RSW himself.