TEDxUSC: Annotated Tweet Curation - Themes & Selective Summary

A How-To How To

I already gathered my livetweets about TEDxUSC, made a screenshot and tweeted it:

My summary of yesterday's #TEDxUSC event: http://yfrog.com/h7rf8p http://yfrog.com/h8arbp Thnx http://quoteurl.comless than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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And I also had to tweet how I did that:

This lets you grab tweets, put them in a window. http://www.quoteurl.com/ This lets you capture that window: http://tinyurl.com/ko36tgless than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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Meta-tweeting? Meta-meta-tweeting?

But I also wanted to annotate these tweets.

It's amazing/ridonkulous that you can't just search & pull all the tweets you want, and then wrap a commentary/discussion around them.

But there it is. Twitter is still evolving.

There is, however, a tool for embedding the tweets in a blog: http://media.twitter.com/blackbird-pie/

So that's what I did below: pulled my and others' tweets together and annotated a tiny bit.

This is not a complete discussion of the event, just some highlights--with links.

(And if you want to see another Tweet summary, check out one of the best livetweeters there: snidelyhazel. I also mention coachkays below, so here are his #TEDxUSC tweets.)

Big Themes.

• Participation. Getting involved feels good.
• Help others. This feels good, too. It's not square. There's some new impulse towards altruism. Maybe after the Great Recession, we understand its value more.
• Doing and making. These feel good, too. And it needn't be digital, electronic, computerized or 2.0.
• Re-use, economize, invent. It's not only ecological to re-use, it's smart, requires smartness, and can help others.
• Value. What do we value? Who creates it? Who gets to share in it? Our society seems to be going back to fundamentals here.

Talks, Performances, Movies

I was worried before the event started: they lost my registration, and people were tweeting about their VIP status (which I tried to parody).

FYI When #TEDxUSC loses your registration, you have to wait 30 minutes. Thnx.less than a minute ago via Twitter for Android Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

Generic brag about seating and/or status at #TEDxUSC --from my iPad....less than a minute ago via HootSuite Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

(And I wasn't the only one whose registration was lost.)

RT @tastyjules #tedxusc is a major clusterfuck. Event crew shmoozing as at 30 ppl w orchestra seats relegated to 2nd balcony. #disappointedless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

"Oh no," I thought: "another way for people to feel superior."

But that quickly went away.

Steve Connell did a wonderful monologue: a memory of learning from his mom and dad, their insights and hardships, that superheroes fight everyday struggles--including and especially to help others.

RT @snidelyhazel: Steve Connell: "The fight starts when you leave the phone booth as Clark Kent." #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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• Whom do we lionize?
• Whom do we revere?
• Billionaires because they are billionaires?
• Or when they create value and connect people--no matter how much they earn?

(Warning: if you go to his personal web site, you get re-routed to some media-heavy page that takes forever to load and may well crash your browser. Be forewarned.)

The session quickly moved to a sing-along: basically the room got divided into parts and taught some harmony.

Auditory proof WE are better than me. RT @edwardoneill A sing-a-long? Really? #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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This underlined a running themes: social action, doing things and doing them together, participation, a greater good.

On this topic, Jose Antonio Rosa talked about the poorest people in the world not as an emerging market (as I first thought he was saying) but as inventors and creators of value.

Scavengers scavenge to CREATE and INNOVATE to fill real needs. #TEDxUSC J. A. Rosaless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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Pomona basketball coach Brian Kays (among the best live-tweeters on the premises) insightfully pointed to the less-is-more aspect of this talk. We are so distracted by technology and newness that we collapse the two. What if the greatest invention used rubber bands and bailing wire?

RT @coachkays: The poor are producing the beat DIY innovation around as they don't have the advantage of tech, results are astounding #T ...less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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Rosa also underlined the importance of hope: that without hope there is no creativity. Hope may be a delusion, but it is a healthy one.

RT @derekfromson: Biz prof Jose Antonio Rosa (University of Wyoming): "Hope allows us to engage in healthy delusion and creative devianc ...less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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(He also pointed out that creativity can be illegal, violent and inimical, too: this wasn't a greeting card.)

USC professor Josh Kun (casually dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt) talked about music and borders--notably our border with Mexico.

Most interesting, I thought, was his description of deejay parties where participants can have the deejay shout out the names of distant (even dead or missing) loved ones--then buy a CD of the shout-out.

At the Solidaro Party, the DJ shouts out to your loved ones. You get the CD and send it across the border to your loved ones. #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

Maybe I spelled the name of this kind of party wrong. Kun called them 'transnational messaging events':

RT @RickyHang: Sonidera parties allow transmission of messages to those across borders- basically transnational messaging events - Josh ...less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

Rick Nahmias from Food Forward explained how gleaning unpicked backyard fruit could feed our hungriest, notably farm workers who themselves are poorly paid--fruitanthropy.

Rick Nahmias talks about the 1.1 million CA farm workers who feed our whole country. #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

California farm workers earn $11k per year, feed the country, but can barely feed themselves. #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

Rick Nahmias gleans fruit and food for the hungry. They've harvested over 1 million servings of food. #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet Replyedwardoneill
edwardoneill

This is also a tax deduction for the homeowner!

Rick N. called it win-win-win-win: food pantries get food that's fresh and wholesom, homeowners get a tax break, volunteers participate, and hungry people get fed.

(Where is our next Cesar Chavez, I wonder?)

One screening was a short film shot entirely on an iPhone4--and edited on it too (at least the rough cut).

RT @derekfromson: Watching "Apple of My Eye," a short film shot and edited entirely on iPhone4. Very cool! See it here: http://bit.ly/d4 ...less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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The fact of the technology produced more ooh's and ah's than the film, which is interesting. But I think this set up very powerfully the message: technology can lower the bar for skillful media content-creation.

Against the tendency to fetishize computer technology, Dale Dougherty showed actual physical objects--some even without batteries!

His "slides" were hand-made pieces of cardboard with letters cut out of them.

Dale Dougherty uses his own handmade slides--physical objects, not software. KEWL! #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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He used salty Play Dough to make electrical circuits, and he built up to using an Arduino processor.

These were low-tech but joyful devices. He sang the praises of simplicity, play, productivity and poverty, even.

Homemade Play-Do, musical instruments and rockets? Sing-a-long's? We are craving to make & participate at #TEDxUSC!less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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Behind social media, which can seem alienating and distancing, there is a deep desire to CONNECT. You could see it at TEDxUSC in the opening participatory sing-a-long.

Annenberg graduate Aram Sinnreich proposed the design requirements for a network that belongs to citizens, not phone providers or the government.

RT @derekfromson: MondoNet (http://mondonet.org), Aram Sinnreich's ad-hoc wireless mesh network, shows new approach to web connectivity ...less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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Jennifer Pahlka described a project in which programmers work for a year doing small projects for local government.

Code for America is like Teach for America--but for geeks. #TEDxUSC #redundant They develop apps for government/citizen use.less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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I could go on about this one for hours, so I'll have to make it a separate blog post.

Elisabeth Stock explained what a student-centered education looks like--including helping parents have a clear role and not expecting teachers to make learning appear from nowhere.

RT @snidelyhazel: Elisabeth Stock: Rethink digital learning through student-centered lens. Learning follows child, teacher and parents s ...less than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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Her organization offers hundreds of digital assets for teachers, parents and kids to access.

RT @neilspears: Over 600 digital learning assets at http://t.co/6NPsgQd #TEDxUSC #CFY http://t.co/tM0a08sless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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And she told a charming story about a teacher realizing that play could be part of learning, not a distraction.

Elisabeth Stock tells a killer anecdote about teacher realizing a game can be a platform for learning. http://www.cfy.org/ #TEDxUSCless than a minute ago via Twitterrific Favorite Retweet ReplyLearning Technology
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This is the kind of 'a-ha' moment we need more of.

There was more. But I found these speakers and ideas very compelling.

--E. R. O'Neill