TEDxToronto

I was fortunate to attend this last week, and I've been thinking about what the people there said since it took place.  It struck me that this is the aspect I'd want to repeat about it, to engage other's desire to visit the talk replays to listen, think and imagine.

TED talks are a little like fine wine.  While you can slurp it, and drain the bottle in pursuit of a quick high, the objective is to savour it.  I'm referring specifically to the act of drinking the wine, not the whole evening that the drinking takes place.  When you sip a nice glass, you keep it in the your mouth, run it around a little and only then swallow it.  The desire is to link the smells and textures to explore the wine - which fruits, flowers or musks do you sense, is there too much or not enough oak-cask in the wine, and how does it sit after you drink it. Does it flow and hum and make the corners of your mouth rise as the mirth inherent in the wine continues to play out ?

I hope you have a wine experience like that.  I know I had a TED experience like that.  The temptation was to explode with an "awesome, great or fantastic" throughout the day. Lots of that popped up in the twitterverse throughout the event.   And it was certainly good in that sense.  But the litmus test of a self-proclaimed inspiring conference like this is the after-glow for me.  Does it still make you think days later ?  Do you still want to link every story you tell to something you heard..?  Are you still humming the music you heard?

TEDxToronto did all that and more for me and I'll encourage you to go find it online and watch the talk replays.  Have a glass of nice wine at the same time, and think of it as an investment in your perspective.