The first day of Moscow´s Social Media Week ended with several presentations of the TED conference. They were about the influence of Internet and social media on the organizational possibilities of residents of different cities and countries. The TED-speakers spoke about the changes in education, culture and politics that the active development of new technologies causes.
The first video was “Seth Godin on the tribes we lead”, which described a new leadership model. According to Seth Godin, the active development of the Internet and the explosive growth of media today can change the world, not with money or power, but by creating movement. He was confident that ordinary people have many more possibilities and tools to promote their ideas now than they had before.
In “Alex Steffen sees a sustainable future” the founder of worldchanging.com focused his listeners´ attention on the “ecological footprint” that modern society leaves behind, and he spoke about the tools, models and ideas that, through their widespread use, can change that situation.
In the third video, “Alexis Ohanian: How to make a splash in social media”, one of the founders reddit.com told how their site took part in an online Greenpeace vote for the best name for a certain humpback whale. While the environmental organization wanted to give the whale a serious name, people on social networks voted for a nickname, Splashy Pants. Alexis´ conclusion was that the Internet is the field where all players are equal and, as long as people have a browser, they can find any site, regardless of their budgets.
In “Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!”, the host talked about the problems of modern education. Very often, because of its linearity and uniformity, education alienates people from their natural talents. According to Sir Ken Robinson, there are many excellent models of education, but we need to make it more personal and more tailored to the needs and abilities of students.
“Clay Shirky: How social media can make history” explained how, thanks to the Internet, it´s possible to create communities and simultaneously start a dialogue within them, whereas before, communication could execute only one of these functions. Thus, in the opinion of the speaker, people have more opportunities to express their point of view; they are not only consumers but also producers. Gradually, mass media become tools of mass management.
The last video, “Adam Ostrow: After your final status update,” reflected on what happens to our virtual identity, our representative in social networks, after we die. The speaker expressed the thought that, if new technologies are able to understand and analyze the online information that we produce during our lifetimes, then they can help our virtual personality continue to live and communicate with the outside world.
The TEDx Vorobyovy-Gory team acted as the show’s curator, and Maxim Girin moderated the debate. Girin is a marketer, a teacher at Russia’s leading MBA schools, and vice-president for education at COMAP, a professional community that promotes business development in Russia.
