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DOCUMENTO CONTENENTE I RIASSUNTI DEI TED TALKS RICHIESTI ALL'ESAME ORALE DI LETTORATO 2....

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Riassunti Ted Talks - Keynote Lingua Inglese Università di Torino 5 pag.

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Ted Talks Unit 1: Renny Gleeson, 404 the story of a page not found x The speaker Renny Gleeson talks about the 404 page, the famous web page that appears when you look for something in the web but you can’t find it. The speaker finds this web page so annoying, and he describes it as a “broken relationship” between the user and the web. In fact, finding a 404 page is normally a negative experience, because it is not what you were looking for. Renny Gleeson explains that actually the 404 page comes from a family of errors, all of them beginning with 4xx. These numbers signal different types of errors that can occur on the web. These types of errors can be found in every site, even in global sites of all languages. Some websites found a way to make this experience funnier: for example by adding videos, quotes, photos or advertising. As a consequence companies can use this page as a message to communicate with their online audience. Actually everyone can create and insert its own content in a 404 page and share it with the world. The background idea is that a broken experience, or rather an “error”, can become an opportunity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHrcRqu_Es4 Unit 2: Derek Sivers, keep your goals to yourself This ted talk starts with a question asked by Derek Sivers to the audience about their biggest goal. Normally, whenever we establish an important goal to reach, we have a spontaneous need to share it with our friends and family. Derek Sivers explains, in a very scientific way, what happens on our brain when we talk about our personal goals. Initially, telling someone what we intend to do, receiving their congratulations, can make us feel good and satisfied. But this good feeling, in reality is dangerous, because it can make your goal less possible. In order to support this idea, Derek Sivers gives some psychological proof: several psychologist have found that it’s like a self-illusion. In fact, our mind mistakes the talk for the real action, making us feel like we have already reach our goal. Also, this satisfaction makes us feel less motivated to do the work necessary. One of the proofs presented by Derek Sivers is an experiment: 163 people were asked to write down their goal. Then half of them had to share it with the room and half of them didn’t. Then everyone was given 45 minutes to work. At the end of the experiment, only those who had kept their goal secret worked for the entire 45 minutes. Afterwards when asked they said that felt very tired, but that they had still a lot of work to do in order to achieve their goal. On the contrary, those who had announced it, stopped several minutes before. For this reason the speaker recommends the audience not to talk about personal goals or at least to talk about them in a way that gives no immediate satisfaction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4 Unit 3: Hans Rosling, global population growth, box by box In this ted talk Hans Rosling talks about world population and economy. The author begins saying that he’s going to explain the changing occurred since 1960 in the world’s population, but by using plastic boxes instead of digital technology. Using these boxes he shows the differents levels of wealth in western and eastern countries, in a period of time that goes from 1960 to the current here (2010). Then Hans will also try to make a prediction about what will happen in 2050. Each box he uses contains 1 billion people. During 1960 the world was populated by 3 billion people: 1 billion lived in the western countries. This part of the population were educated, wealthy, and there were most of all little family units. The other 2 billion people lived in the developing countries, where they suffer for lack of food. There was an enormous gap in the world concerning the level of wealth of people, but this gas has also shifted in way of conceiving the world mentally and also linguistically: in fact the world was divided in the west countries and the “rest”. Since 1960 to 2010, the world population has doubled and these 4 billion extra people are living in the developing part of the world. In the meanwhile in the west part of the world there has been a economic growth. The most successful part of the developing countries have moved, becoming emerging economies: they are quite healthy, relatively well educated. The majority of population lives in this middle part. The problem is that the 2 billion peoples

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still live in the “developing” world in need for food and healthcare. Today The larger part of the population lives in a quite good condition but the gap between the richest and the poorest countries is even bigger than ever. Talking about the future, Hans states that the situation will get better only if we stop the world population growth. In fact the poorest part of the population will increase up to 4 billions and only if they can get out of poverty, get educated, get a good healthcare system and as a consequence improve child survival, the world population growth can stop in 2050. Only in this way life’s expectancy will increase to almost 90% also for the developing world. In this way those families won’t feel the need to give birth to so many children in order that almost half of them could have the chance to survive. That’s why organizations like Unicef are so good and essentials. As a consequence the distribution of wealth will be more homogeneous in the world. In the author’s opinion there are good possibilities that this will happen, but only if we invest in green technology, investments to reduce poverty. The role of the western countries in this vision, is that of the foundation of the modern world. Only involving both the poorest and the richest countries this change could be made. Unit 4: Richard St. John, success is a continuous journey In this ted talk Richard St. John talks about success. He asks himself why do so many people reach success and then fail. One of the reasons is that people think that success is a one-way street. On the contrary, in Richard’s opinion success is a continuous journey: we don’t have only to achieve success, but also to sustain it. The main problem is that when people reach the top of success, they stop: they stop doing everything that leads them to success. Richard explains that using as an example, his personal experience. He says that in the moment when he reached success, he stopped working hard because he thought he didn’t need to improve anymore: he stopped observing and listening to the world and as a consequence he stopped having good ideas. He stopped also focusing on the clients and projects, because he started caring about money. Richard tells that he had reached a sort of “comfort zone”, but he wasn’t happy with that. He was very depressed so he started taking antidepressant, but he also lost a lot of their clients and had to fire all their employees. After this he started again doing what he loved and stopped taking antidepressants, recovering step by step. His partner and him took 7 years to reach again success, but in the end business was better than ever, and most of all he was happy with his work. Unit 5: Nilofer Merchant, Got a meeting? Take a walk In this ted talk Nilofer talks about the importance of physical activity. He states that nowadays people are sitting more than sleeping. This can cause main health problems like colon cancer, heart disease, diabetes, along with the increase in weight. He tells that he was once invited to a walking meeting by one of their colleagues that had to take their dogs out during the working time. After this experience he got the idea of having walking meetings with their clients and employers, in order to combine work with health. He tells that this idea changed her life. Before this moment she had always thought that obligations and health could not join together, instead if you focus on one of them, then you will overlook the other. After this experience he learned that it is possible to link work and health, but most of all this is also benefic: fresh air can bring new ideas and teach you to look at the world in a different way.

Unit 6: Jill Shargaa, please, please people: let’s put the “awe” back in “awesome” In this Ted Talk Jill Shargaa insists on the fact that we can’t describe anything using the word “awesome”. In fact, if we use whatever word to describe any situation, that will lose their power. She thinks that the word “awesome” is frequently overused and that people exaggerate in using it. Then she give some examples of what is really awesome: ● ● ● ● ● ●

the pyramids: they were the tallest structures made by humans in the world for 4000 years Grand Canyon: it’s almost 80 minion years old Bees: they pollinate flowers Woodstock: changed the history of rock and roll the internet: allows global communication Etc.

Unit 7: David Sengeh, the rose problem with prosthetic limbs David Sengeh grew up in Sierra Leone, a small country in West Africa. In ‘90s this country was affected by a civil war, during which many people had lost their arms and legs. Many of the amputees do not use the prosthesis because they are uncomfortable. David designed a cheap prosthetic socket that is more comfortable than the conventional. He used a 3D printer to create a material which relieves pressure in accordance with the anatomy of the patient. David wanted to create a tool that can help everyone in the world and also those who have been affected by war.

Unit 8: Nigel Marsh, how to make the work-life balance work In this ted talk Nigel Marsh offers the audience some suggestions to have a balanced life between work, family and personal time. He starts talking about his personal experience: at the age of 40 he realized that he wasn’t living in a balanced way. He was spending too much time working, overlooking his family. After one year spent at home with his family he realised that this decision was not the right idea to have a balanced life, so he went back to work. From that moment for 7 years he engaged herself studying and working in order to reach this balance. From this period he came up with some observations: a lot of companies propose flexi-time, dress-down Fridays and paternity leave in order to help workers spend more time with their family, but all of these measures only hide the reality, that some careers are simply incompatible with family. In Nigle’s opinion we have to fight this problem on our own, because government and corporations will not solve this problem. The individual should take control and responsibility for the type of life he want to live. It is important that people themself project their life, because otherwise someone else will do it for you. Another important thing is to pay attention to the time that we choose in order to reach a result. In order to have a balanced life we have to take care of our spirituality, our emotional side, intellectual side, ecc. instead of focusing on one part of our life. At the end of the talk Nigel Marsh affirm that what really matters in real life are the small everyday things. In order to be balanced we don’t need to revolutionize our life, but with those small actions we can radically transform the quality of our relationships, our life and most of all other people's lives. Actually if more people do this, we can change society. Unit 9: Sunni Brown, doodlers, unite! In this ted talk Sunni Brown talks about doodling: a visual language that have a great impact on the way in which we process success information. Sunni Brown tells that, in her life, she spent a lot of time trying to teach adults doodling in the workplace. Pursuing this objective she encountered a lot of resistance, because doodling is considered anti-intellectual. She found that the definition of “doodling” most spread among people today is “doing nothing”. For this reason doodling has always been forbidden at school and in the workplace. Also she mentions Freud’s studies about doodle: this scholar discovered that we can analyse people’s psyche basing on their doodle. For this reason, many times, people are inclined to hide their doodles. On the contrary, in Sunni’s opinion doodling is a very important tool that help yourself think, and she also gives scientific evidence of this: according to a research, people who doodle when they are exposed to verbal information retain 29% more information. In reality doodling is a way adopted by our brain to prevent losing focus. Also it has been found out that doodling engage all four learning modalities (visual, auditory, writing/reading, kinesthetic) with also the possibility of emotional involvement. She explains that it is essential, in order to learn, to use at the same time almost two of these four learning modalities, or at least one learning modality with an emotional involvement. For this reason Sunni thinks that doodling can have an important role in learning and should not be banned in schools and workplaces. On the contrary doodling should be exploited especially in those situations in which information density is very high. Unit 10: Julian Treasure, 5 ways to listen better In this ted talk Julian Treasure talks about the importance of listening. He begins expressing his worry about the loss of the skill of listening nowadays. In fact we remember only 25% of what we hear. At the beginning the speaker gives a definition of “listening”: it’s a mental process thanks to which we make meanings from sound. Another important function of listening is placing people in time and in space. Then he explains some important techniques that people use to listen. Julian thinks that there are several reasons why nowadays people are losing their listening: the first reason is that we

invented ways of recording (writing, audio recording and video). The second reason is that modern world is so noisy all the time that it is really hard and tiring for people to listen. Many people use headphones in order to escape from this noise. In this situation it is very difficult to listen to the world around us, and most of all to have authentic contacts with other people. Only conscious listening creates understanding among people, and in Juluan’s opinion this technique should also be taught at school. At the end the speaker gives the audience 5 advices to listen better: the first is to enjoy at least 3 minutes of silence per day. The second is to try to recognize as much as possible channels of sound you can in a place. Another interesting exercise is to enjoy mundane sounds, like the coffee machine, ecc. The next exercise is to move through listening positions. Finally, Julin uses an acronym to explain the last exercise: he uses the acronym “rasa” that means receive (pay attention to the person that is talking), appreciate, summarise and ask. For these reasons Julian thinks that humans needs to listen consciously in order to live fully, connected in space and time with the physical world, understanding each other. Unit 11: Gavin Oretor-Pinney, cloudy with a chance of joy x Gavin Pretor-Pinney is science writer and founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society. This organisation studies and promotes cloudspotting. The aim of this association is also to encourage people to take time to enjoy the world. Mr. Pretor-Pinney uses clouds as a metaphor claim-state (to tell his audience) that we all pay too little attention to everyday experiences (things) and for this reason we are not able to notice how marvellous nature can be. In fact, according to Gavin Pretor Pinney, it isn’t necessary to move away from our familiar places to find something that can surprise us. It’s enough to step outside and look at the sky to explore nature. Nowadays adults seems to have forgotten daydreaming, but Mr. Pretor-Pinney belief is that looking at the sky helps us imagine. After showing some of his favourite clouds (the cirrus, the lenticularis, the fallstreak holes and the Kelvin-Helmholtz), he explains that these varieties in shape allows us to find the exotic side in our everyday life and, what’s more, clouds stimulate our curiosity. According to Gavin Pretor-Pinney, cloudwatching can be an antidote (remedy) to our lifestyle, almost completely based on new technologies. Today, people don’t have to worry about basic needs and they are continuously with activities like updating social network profiles or replying to emails. In Mr. PretorPinney’s opinion activities like cloudwatching are important because they are aimless, and so a perfect excuse to free ourselves from the business of the digital world. Comment: I chose this ted talk because I agree with the idea of Gavin Pretor-Pinney that nowadays people are losing contact with reality and with its little things. I think this is due to the type of society we are living in, a consumerist and capitalist one. Especially in big cities, people are always busy while working or surfing the internet. Our life is so chaotic that we don’t even notice the world around us. Activities like updating social media or posting online are becoming so important in our life that much of our time is devoted to these activities, even if we don’t realize it. Today’s society push (urges) people to always be engaged, so when we have a free moment we look for social contact online. This behavior leads us to turn inwards, we prefer to spend time on the internet rather than establish face-to-face contacts even when we are surrounded by other people. As a consequence, we are used to employing every single minute of our life working or reading news on social media. For this reason, social media can be very dangerous, because we don’t take time/ moments for ourselves to reflect or just relax. We are also losing our sense of imagination, a feature that we usually lose while growing up. In fact, children are more often used to watching the sky, enjoying nature. In Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s opinion, for example, cloudwatching can stimulate our childhood memories. I think that it is important to revalue the importance of time, not only to actively engage in something prolific (in our daily activities), but also to rest and enjoy ourselves. Unit 12: Margaret Heffernan, dare to disagree Margaret Hefferman starts telling the story of Alice Steward, a doctor who lived in 1950. She was interested in a new science, epidemiology and tried to solve the emerging problem of childhood cancers. After several researches she found that the majority of these children had a mother who had been x-rayed during pregnancy. That finding shocked the public opinion and put into doubt the new x-

ray technology. This discovery also upset the doctor’s idea of their work: their role was to help people, but on the contrary they were causing many deaths. Alice published her preliminary findings in 1956, but it took 25 years the british and american medical establishments to abandon the practice of xraying pregnant women. Alice worked with a statistician named George Kneale. They had a very particular and unusual relationship, but thanks to him Alice could be sure that she was right. They had extremely opposed personalities and behaviors, and as a consequence they had a conflictual relationship while working. This was a positive feature for their work, because it was possible to have very different points of view: infact George’s work was to disprove Alice theory. This idea was very productive, because only by not being able to prove that Alice was wrong, they will know that they were right. For Heffernan this is the right method that must be used by researchers and by organizations in order to think in a different way, to put into question what is believed certain and true and maybe find new solutions. That requires a lot of patience and energy: it is necessary to find people who are very different for ourselves, with differents backgrounds, different way of thinking, ecc. After a search it emerged that among american and european executives, only 85% admitted that they had worries at work that they were afraid to raise. That proves that most o...