Have You Met Ted?

No, I'm not here to write about the greatest sitcom currently on TV (How I Met Your Mother). I am talking about Ted.com.

You may be asking, "What the hell is Ted.com?". I can't claim to be an expert, as Dan just recently turned me on to it, but it appears to be a very interesting website where you can find all types of great speeches and presentations.

From the Website:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 400 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week.

Dan started me with a video of a speech by Dan Ariely. Ariely asks the question, "Are we in control of our own decisions?" Most people would say, "Yes, of course we are." But after watching this video you might start to think differently.

Ariely lists many studies that he has conducted to test the theory, and the results are quite scary. He shows how we are effected by the elements of a question.

For example, in Europe there is a large difference in organ donation from country to country. You would think that this would be based on cultural, political, or religious differences, but he shows us that similar countries fall on both sides of the table. Upon further review of why the differences are so large, he concluded that in the countries with high organ donations rates, the question on the drivers liscense form stated "Check here if you DO NOT want to donate organs." Whereas on the countries of low organ donation, it read, "Check here if you DO want to donate organs." It was simply a matter of how the question was stated that made the difference of 70%.

That was just one quick example, but I highly recommend taking a few minutes out of your busy day to check it out. Its actually kind of funny as well.

If you like the video and happen to watch another good speech, let me know, so I can check it out. I have watched a few others already, and I will put up info on them at some point.

~Joshua