I’m headed for Australia! (and I’d love your help.)
I’ll be there Dec 8th – Feb 4th. Five weeks in Melbourne, one in Sydney, remainder traveling up the coast. My goals are to get in great shape, have as much fun as I can, and outline my next book (assuming I get Carbon Zero out the door before I go).
1) I’m still looking for a responsible housesitter. If you know someone who needs a place in Seattle Dec-Jan, *please* put them in touch with me.
2) I’d love your suggestions: people to meet, places to go, weird little finds, whatever. Direct me to the awesome, please!
3) I’m actually going to start blogging again, here at http://www.alexsteffen.com/ if you want to keep up with what I’m working on. (I’m also tweeting a lot at @AlexSteffen which is also the easiest way to reach me [you can also email my gmail acct: alexsteffentrip@])
Thanks to all who pushed me to get out of the Seattle winter and into what is already becoming a great summer adventure! More soon.
Here’s the video from my TEDxOxbridge talk this last summer, about How Our Future is a Thing of the Past…
I think it’s critical that we understand that The Future, as we’re used to thinking of it and discussing it, is itself a cultural artifact, not an empirical description of what may happen tomorrow. It says more about where we’ve been than where we’re going. And its uses are not always benign or helpful.
Today I’m off to the TED conference in Long Beach. If past years are any indication, it’ll be five straight days of ideas, short and intense conversations, seeing old friends and meeting some amazing people. (It should be a pretty busy week as well, with my new book hitting stores this week and lots of media and promotions to be done while I’m there!) I feel privileged and grateful that Chris Anderson has made it possible for me to attend TED on scholarship.
It also gives me the chance to do something I’ve been wanting to do for a while: answer the question, What would TED be like if I organized one? What would my TED be?
Luckily, with video of online talks so widely available now (in some real measure because of TED’s decision to make its own talks freely available on line), I can do more than list speaker’s names: I can show you their talks. (You can play this game, too: in fact, I think it would be really fun to see what line-ups you come up with for your own TEDs!)
So, here it is. TEDAlex2011. My theme would be “A Machine for Making Futures” and it would be all about cities and how they’re changing us, and changing the future. Enjoy!
Hans Rosling on peak population and the rise of the global middle class
Stockholm Environment Institute’s Johan Rockström on planetary boundaries
Photographer Ed Burtynsky on our manufactured landscapes