Ryan A Graves.com

18 minutes is all the time one is allowed to speak at TED. 18 minutes to give the best talk of their life. No pressure…

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 goal of TED is to spread ideas. The annual conference brings out the worlds most fascinating, motivating, inspiring, thinkers and doers. The talks range from how we will decrease the effect of global warming on the world, to how we should think about tomorrows web search technology. The speakers are activists, innovators, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, professors, CEO’s, artists, musicians, former vice presidents of the United States, founders of non-profs, and the list could go on!

TED include tons of their best talks online for free. The video’s stream quickly and are incredibly thought provoking. TED videos have cause me to experience a plethora of emotions. Everything from being inspired to move to Africa and give my life up for stopping African civil wars and promoting literacy, to being so pissed of at the speakers views I was yelling at my computer and shut down my machine. I love TED.

I was significantly behind the times in finding out about TED but since it has been made available to me I’ve used it as a strong source for through provoking education. If you watch TED or have gained as much as I have from it I encourage you to let us know!

Starting at 8:43p EST there will be a lunar eclipse. The moon will be totally covered from 10:01p and 10:51p. This will be your last opportunity to see a lunar eclipse until 2010.

From Wikipedia:

A lunar eclipse occurs whenever the moon passes through some portion of the Earth’s shadow. This can occur only when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are aligned exactly, or very closely so, with the Earth in the middle. Hence, the Moon is always full the night of a lunar eclipse. The type and length of an eclipse depend upon the Moon’s location relative to its orbital nodes.

Here is a diagram of how a lunar eclipse occurs.

“A solid working knowledge of productivity software and other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually any career… Beyond that, however, I don’t think you can overemphasise the importance of having a good background in maths and science… Communication skills and the ability to work well with different types of people are very important too. ” -Bill Gates

(read the rest of this article here.)

I think Bill nails it on the head here. It is extremely important for our (the US) undergraduates and high school students to put more of a focus on math and science. If the United States is going to be able to compete with the students from China and India we are going to have to stress these fields of study more. We have set ourselves apart from the rest of the world because of the quality of education that we provide but that competitive advantages is dwindling away. The margin of superior education that the United States once had is quickly disappearing and it is because of the types of educations we are offering. Although communication and PR skills may be very important, I believe that these majors will not provide us with the competitive workforce we will need in the future. As an economics major I definitely believe that a good understanding of the global economy and general business is very important but more and more it needs to be backed up by a more applicable discipline such as math or science. Bill later states:

“If you look at the most interesting things that have emerged in the last decade - whether it is cool things like portable music devices and video games or more practical things like smart phones and medical technology - they all come from the realm of science and engineering. ”

Whether it is an industry revolutionizing iPod or and industry revolutionizing ultrasound machine a well educated core of math, science, and engineering students are A MUST to reach these heights and a must to remain globally competitive.

People misuse phrases in the English language all the time.  For example when people mean to say that they don’t care, they say, “I could care less”. If you could care less than you are saying that you do care, not that you don’t. 

If you have trouble with this saying here is a little image given to me by a co-worker that will help you out.  My recommendation: Pay attention to the image so you don’t sound like an idiot.

I finished reading Leaving Microsoft to Save the World by John Wood, about a week ago and now that I’ve had time to digest the book I’d like to comment.

John Wood has lived a very exciting life. He was a Director of Business Development for Microsoft Asia for years and had achieved all his financial goals. All of his expenses were paid for as an ex-pat and was thoroughly enjoying the business challenges that he was faced with at Microsoft. He worked closely with Steve Ballmer (now CEO of Microsoft) on mulitple occasions and as a single man had many exciting opportunities to travel and see the world. What changed all of that was a trekking trip in Nepal where he met a school administrator in Nepals struggling school system. His story started with a small request from a Nepali teacher, “Can you please bring us books?”

That small request led to the creation of one of the strongest, most influential, non-profit organizations around. Room to Read started with one shipment of about 3,000 books to the Nepali school and now Room to Read works in over 12 counties around the world, mostly in Asia. Room to Read was there to help out with the tsunami victims of 2004 and has built roughly 5,000 libraries around the world year-to-date.

I strongly recommend this read for anyone in the business world who needs inspiration towards starting or working for a non-profit. John faces some very natural struggles of a businessman in his journey to create this strong organization. Well done John, thank you for sharing your inspirational story.

This is the new AmazonKindle. Let me start with, I want one. It is a wireless reading device with a hi-resolution screen. It collects reading material (newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, etc.) and is designed to replace the need of carrying a book. It is about the size of a common soft-backed book.

Amazon obviously could have spent a little more money on the design of their new product the Kindle, but as far as functionality goes it looks phenomenal! I think that its a great idea that will definitely catch on. As an avid reader myself I would definitely use this product. Although there are a few things that I would be skeptical of:

• durability
• accessibility (internet connection)
• cost of content (book, magazine, newspaper, blog)

If they can keep consumers happy with those aspects of the product they will have a hit on their hands and make a lot of money.

watch video of the Kindle here.

This is the kind of class that I wish I’d taken in college. I probably wouldn’t have been able to hang as a Computer Science major but I do think the real world nature of this class is something that I would have loved. This course covers everything from the coding of these applications (technical), product development, and market launch (business).  Professor Fogg at Stanford University emphasizes the importance of the big picture of Facebook apps. He regularly hold lectures about “the psychology of Facebook”, and how to monetize these tools.   

 Om Malik wrote a post about the recent applications release by the class on his blog GigaOm.  The most used/downloaded application is called KissMe. This application gives one the ability to put big scarlet lips on top of someones profile.  The app has 36,916 active daily users, not bad for a undergraduate college course huh?