Yeah, Right, Everybody But You Got One

This is the shirt that launched a thousand lies.  OK, I’m exaggerating for the sake of literary allusion. It was maybe a dozen cases of mistaken idenTEDy.

www.mondonation.com allows you to complete the sentence “i believe”  and put it on the back of a t-shirt.  I got a long-sleeved pink one that says “i believe heaven is a ted conference that never ends.” I wanted it to say “I believe Heaven is a TED Conference that never ends,” but that’s not what mondonation.com wants to believe I believe.  They insist on all lowercase letters. Instead, they’re doing the capitalizing. The company seeks to make a profit “while being environmentally sensitive, ethical, and socially conscious.” 

I also ordered the short-sleeved green one you see in the picture. That’s my back, distorted because I leaned forward and hunched my shoulders so my TED pal Kokoe could get a good shot. Kokoe once did a TED U talk on the subject of living on a commune, based on his experiences living on a commune in Tennessee.

It wasn’t The Farm, though. Many people have heard of The Farm, in Summertown, Tennessee, led by the legendary Stephen Gaskin (www.stephengaskin.com).  The Farm was often called a commune, but the people who lived there described it as a spiritual community.  In the 1970s,  The Farm modeled many “far out” concepts that are now mainstream: home births attended by trained midwives, vegetarian cuisine, soy dairy products, solar energy, charter schools, self-sufficiency, publishing their own books,  and more. Stephen got busted once because someone was growing, er, sacramental plants in addition to the other crops.

In one of his many books, Stephen wrote something to the effect of “This is the chapter where everybody said I should mention the names of all the cops who [shared the sacrament] with me, but I won’t,” and that’s the whole chapter. Ditto another chapter for journalists. When I read that “chapter,” I was hurt.  I was a journalist who did many, many stories about The Farm, and I never saw, smelled, or suspected a thing. I thought I was a better reporter than I apparently was, and Stephen apparently felt more, uh, spiritually connected to other journalists.

Anyway, in the spirit of Stephen Gaskin, this is the blog post where I won’t name the names of the TEDsters who told me they saw the “i believe planet earth should be rechristened ‘ted’ and curated by chris anderson” shirt everywhere and wondered why they didn’t get one. 

Somebody told me he was the only person who didn’t get one like that – everybody but him got one, he saw them everywhere he went in Long Beach. He got a black one and everybody else got a green one. I said, “Gee, that doesn’t seem right. I’m sorry.”

I overheard two people talking about how that shirt was only for TED Hosts. (TED Hosts didn’t get special shirts. We got little blue “Host” tags to hang on our name badges, and a lovely dinner at L’Opera on the night before TED, and the joy of having a reason to talk with anyone and everyone as we tried to make them feel welcome and included.)  One woman complained to me that she was the only Donor who didn’t get one in her Donor gift bag. (There was a Donor gift bag?)

Anyway, perhaps there were TEDsters who thought they saw that t-shirt everywhere, even though I am pretty sure I own an original, and I wore it on a single day.  If you were one of the people who complained that you were the only one who didn’t get yours, well, you are so not busTED.

Seth Godin’s books can help you avert a lifetime of unfulfilling wheel-spinning.  Don’t have time to read his latest, Tribes? Watch the interview at www.tedfellows.posterous.com and get the gist.  Don’t have the time or $ to attend a TED conference? Watch the TED Talks free online at www.ted.com.

When I spoke via Skype at SoCon2009 and talked about how TED Curator Chris Anderson had made the previously hush-hush super-exclusive TED more accessible, I got pushback from someone who says a $6000 conference pricetag is still  elitist.  The Palm Springs satellite conference is cheaper. As for the Long Beach event, if you are chosen as a TED Fellow, you don’t pay. If you are invited as a guest of TED, you don’t pay. There are ways to go to the in-person events without paying.  But my larger point was that before Chris bought TED from the founder, Richard Saul Wurman, it was deliberately small and secretive. Back then, your high-priced ticket bought exclusive info and access.  Now, the fee helps underwrite the worldwide dissemination of TED’s “ideas worth spreading.” Big difference.

I admire Chris for his willingness to trade comfortably smug exclusivity for risky, less personal outreach. If it’s an idea worth sharing at TED, it’s an idea worth spreading. It’s Chris’s great gift to the world, putting his own comfort, his own resources of time, cash, energy, skill, and talent, in the service of this work. And to his further credit, he acknowledges that the TED community has agreed with this shift and is willing to help him by giving up their precious little club of insiders in order to offer the ideas and sense of community to all. To YOU.  You are inviTED. Are you interesTED?

As friends of Bill W. say, “Hi, Virginia.” I, too, am a TED addict. I’m going for my big fix next week. The rush is indescribable. You can get a contact high at www.ted.com. Like the usual dealer of addictive substances, TED gives you the first one free. Unlike other suppliers,TED Curator Chris Anderson and sponsor BMWlet you get high on their dime every time.Good ideas are not only worth spreading, they MUST be spread!

That was Bill W.’s idea, too.

I’m not a friend of Bill W. but Iam a friend of Bill G. Gates, that is. (OK, he doesn’t know I’m his friend, but I am.)

Today I received his first Annual Letter from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bill knows the value of a viral idea. He writes:

“And as we execute our strategies, we need to share what we learn, because the biggest leverage is in getting many others to adopt best practices. Since we are in this for the long run, we need to develop credibility by the strength of our evidence, and by not claiming to know more than we do….In the areas we work in, we want to make sure the foundation is drawing other players in the best way we can. Given the business sector’s broad expertise and resources, we particularly need to get more of its innovation power focused on our issues.”

What idea do YOU have that’s worth sharing, worth spreading, worth getting others to adopt?