TED Talks are a great way to spend some time getting inspired or to learn something new. This non-profit “talk” series is dedicated to spreading meaningful ideas, and influential, thought-provoking discussions on a variety of global topics. For marketers, these short, filmed talks also demonstrate the benefit of powerful video content.
As 2016 comes to a close, here are 16 of the most popular, interesting, funny and helpful TED talks of the year.
Business
In order to achieve long-term company success, there must be a balance between exploration and exploitation. Knut Haanaes explores how companies can change and innovate before they become obsolete.
Software and robots will continue to take over jobs currently performed by humans. According to Tim Leberecht, the work that will be left requires something more than just being efficient. He provides advice on how to build a beautiful organization that preserves its inherently human characteristics.
Technology
In a world of online dating sites and apps, and where people spend more time on their phones than interacting with people, has the way we love changed? Helen Fisher doesn’t think so. In this talk, she analyzes the data that explores how the human drive to love is impacted by technology.
Sam Harris wants to make you think, and even get nervous. This thought provoking talk explores why we need to be thinking about the long term consequences of artificial intelligence and superhuman machines.
For Marketers
If email marketing is part of your company’s strategy, you’ll definitely want to hear James Veitch’s hilarious saga of what happens when trying to unsubscribe from an email. In our modern world of information overload, it’s important to remember that the Internet has given us incredible access, but has also “given everything access to us.”
Wael Ghonim experienced the power, and danger, of social media firsthand during his involvement with the Arab Spring in Egypt. In this talk, he encourages finding a way to move past the shortcomings of social media as a platform that magnifies behavior and makes it easy for people to act on their negative impulses, and proposes a platform to promote civility and thoughtful conversations.
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Entrepreneurship
The average lifetime of a company is only 30 years. Martin Reeves proposes a biological way to think about business longevity, based on the human immune system. He challenges you to think beyond your short-term competitive strategy and consider how long your business’s game will last.
Rewarding failure is the philosophy behind Google’s “Moonshot Factory.” Astro Teller explains that when people worry about failure, they aren’t able to take on big, risky projects and tackle the hardest part of a problem. Creating a culture where it is safe to fail unlocks the potential in every idea, no matter how impossible it seems.
No one likes rejection, but when Jia Jiang found that his fear of rejection was keeping him from trying things he wanted to do, he decided to act. In this talk, he explores what happens when he sought out rejection everyday for 100 days, and how to define yourself by how you react to rejection.
Personal Development
We all do it, but Tim Urban has perfected it. This talk brings you inside the mind of a procrastinator and exposes their dark playground where leisure is overindulged. Urban also explores the two types of procrastination that leads to the question, “What are you really procrastinating on?”
Seeing is believing, so what we physically see must be real. In this inspiring TED talk, Isaac Lidsky explains that what we see is a virtual reality constructed by the brain and that how you feel can change what you physically see. He wants to empower you to step out of fear and become the creator of your own life reality.
People are not always what they seem to be. Brian Little explores the idiosyncratic parts of people that make them different, as well as the traits that make us all similar. But it is the personal projects, the “doings” of our lives that truly make us all different.
Chances are, you were raised not to speak to strangers for safety reasons. Kio Stark wants to change how we think about strangers. In this talk she describes how a quick interaction with someone you will never see again can be a significant moment of fleeting intimacy, and a beautiful interruption in the expected flow of daily life.
Career Advice
What happens when you commit to saying yes to everything? Shonda Rhimes, who admittedly loves work, didn’t know what to do when the work that used to bring her joy and satisfaction no longer did. Then, an innocent request from her child to play changed everything. This talk explores the power of play and giving your full attention, if only for 15 minutes, to the joys of life.
Magda Sayeg didn’t expect that wrapping a door handle in knitting would lead to a career as a textile artist, warming up urban landscapes with bright, colorful “yarn bombs.” Her talk explores how in our fast-paced and digital world, we are looking for something to connect to, and that we have skills just waiting to be discovered.
How do “originals” come up with great ideas? In this TED talk, Adam Grant explains that original thinkers don’t look like how you would expect and experience fear and doubt just like everyone else. However, what's worse than the fear of failure is the fear of not trying, and Grant concludes that being original “is the best way to improve the world around us.”
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