TEDxCopenhagen

The TEDxCopenhagen blogger panel writes about TEDxCopenhagen: The event, the theme and anything else related. This post is written by Tom Stenson.

I really enjoyed TEDxCPH last week and heard some truly inspiring speakers. A week later I can still remember the big pictures but some of details are sadly beginning to fade.

In the morning I sat next to Sten (@grandtofu) who made the most awesome notes & was kind enough to email them to me.

I’ve included a selection of Sten’s notes below, I hope they help prompt your memory or simply make you smile. I especially love his “shit of mercy” …

Yesterdays TEDx Copenhagen was great, it was truly inspiring. Congratulations to the TEDx crew on a smooth, well organized and very pleasant conference experience. It’s always hard to tell what will “stick” after such a full day of talks and inspiration. But a few mental images pop into my head as I write this; A car with a huge health warning sticker on the side, some highly impressive abdominal-muscle-movements, the thought of gene-info wikileaking onto the net, looking out over Copenhagen towards the towering mountain in the distance, the difference between beeing satisfied and happy, the cool Copenhagen Suborbital logo with the fake latin, and last, but not least; the awesome crowd of people. Big thanks to the organizers, please be back in 2011!

What was your favorite talk or biggest takeaway from the conference?

We all like to celebrate innovation and new ideas – as long as they don’t scare us or make us too uneasy or question our basic assumptions in a radical way. But real innovation is often unpredictable and potentially scary, and one of the huge emerging areas where radical new things are happening is the field of genetics. That is why I am very much looking forward to Lone Franks talk at TEDx Copenhagen.Her acclaimed book “My beautiful genome” is on my reading list for december. She says;

This book is my very personal take on personal genomics. It chronicles my meetings and interviews with leading scientists and lays out the – somtimes disquieting – discoveries I make in my own genome.

I very much enjoyed her earlier works “Klonede tigere” og “Det nye liv” which covered similar topics.

The TEDxCopenhagen blogger panel writes about TEDxCopenhagen: The event, the theme and anything else related. This post is written by Tom Stenson.

Attending a conference is a surprise. There are some talks that you think are going to be great, and some which blow all expectations. For what its worth, here are three where I’ll be glued to my seat.

Alexander Kjerulf: Happiness at Work

Alex’s blog is full of short, simple and positive suggestions on how to make your workplace happier and more effective. In its own way it has helped me to seek out happier employment.

Mikael Colville-Andersen: Why We Shouldn’t Bike with a Helmet

As an ex-londoner living in Copenhagen, I just love biking here. I love the attitude to biking and how it fits into the everyday. I can’t wait to find out more.

Stig Severinsen: How to Hold Your Breath for 20 Minutes

Great title. I feel short of breath thinking about it. I must see this.

I’m looking forward to seeing you there. What are your top picks from the line-up?

The TEDxCopenhagen blogger panel writes about TEDxCopenhagen: The event, the theme and anything else related. This post is written by Bjarne Tveskov.

“The Good Life” somehow made me think of death for a brief moment. Recently, I was watching Steve Jobs legendary Stanford commencement speech once more (Full transcript here, video here). The last part of Mr. Jobs speech is especially poignant;

“Death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.”

Death as life’s change agent? I like that. The train of life doesnt stop, eventually we will all have to get off the train, hopefully not for a long, long time, but it will happen some day. So let’s make it a great ride. Onwards!