Everywhere Is Exotic Or Nowhere Is

At the opening of TED University, a pre-event of TEDGlobal 2010 in Oxford, England, TED Curator June Cohen emceed. During a technical difficulty, she filled the time on stage by asking us in the live audience of 600 gathered from around the world, "Who came the farthest to get here?"

A few people shouted out locations. Kenya. India. Los Angeles.

Cohen repeated into the microphone each place. When she said Los Angeles, she deflected it as a possible winner for farthest by saying, "LA isn't exotic."

But that wasn't the question she put to us. And --

Exotic is relative. The only way it belongs in a global mindset is as a constant for everyone. So, either everywhere is exotic -- or nowhere is. We are all exotic, or no one is.

For me, the moment highlighted an ingrained provincialism at a supposedly global conference dedicated to "pushing the boundaries of what is known and expanding the possible."

The idea of what global means is still badly under-developed, and like this instance, too often freighted with the most self-centric assumptions.

Cyberwarfare = Blocked Access To Cake Recipes

I’m on vacation/in post-TED Global recovery this August. Taking social networking easy as well, I posted a chocolate cake recipe on Facebook. You can whip up the quickie soufflé-like treat in a coffee mug with the help of a microwave. The indulgent little formula emailed by my Sacramento sister comes from a world I haven’t lived in for years.

Microwave cooking. White sugar and vegetable oil. It’s so mainstream retro — and a crowd pleaser.

The instant mug cake drew twenty times more reaction than an ultra-topical link to TED Fellow Evgeny Morozov’s explanation of the Russian state-sponsored censorship of a Georgian blogger which caused massive outages at Facebook and Twitter last week. Morozov, a Belorussian Internet scientist I met in Oxford, studies how the online world influences global affairs. He might have had better luck framing the issue this way: cyberwarfare trend = blocked access to future cake recipes.

Even so, the spontaneous manifestation of cupcake-community activism was cheering. Friends from Alaska to Florida, Malaysia to India to Germany engaged and collaborated. They experimented and shared results from pudding and “the perfect soufflé” to admitting a skimped-on-the-oil need “to compensate by eating it with some vanilla ice cream”. Others predicted child-friendliness or posted the instructions to their own walls.

Dog days of summer may not be the best time to come together to solve the world’s weighty problems but apparently it’s a good time to master soufflé-for-one.

Ever experience a heavy-to-soufflé moment that shifts your sync point?

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P.S.. I know you want it:

4 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 egg

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)

A small splash of vanilla extract

1 large coffee mug (Microwave safe)

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.

Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.

Add the chocolate chips and vanilla extract, and mix again.

Put mug in microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

Don't Lock Your Twitter Feed If You're Looking For Connection & Opportunity

Connected via TED's online directory with a sales and marketing director working in high tech and new media, in advance of both of us attending TED Global in Oxford. The guy explained he seeks to apply technology solutions in innovative ways to solve social issues, and he's currently looking for a new position.

Sounds good. I went to his Twitter feed to get closer and learn more but it's protected. He needs to approve me before I can see all the goodness he's sharing.

I asked him, "What's your reasoning for that, especially given you're in the market for new opportunities?"

He told me: "I have been inundated with dozens of requests of people to follow me. It is flattering to have a following, but when I look at the requests are from people I have no connection to. And, when I look at their profiles, they are following hundreds of thousands of others. Can anyone really follow 100,000 people on Twitter? I think there is a 'twitter stalker' phenomenon which likely leads to 'twitter spam'."

I have been using Twitter for a year (and am #3 Twitterer in Istanbul at moment, mainly because the Turks are not yet active on the service). I don't agree that twitter followers lead to spam. Anyone can send you spam using your twitter handle. If people follow you who have no good reason to do so, either they will drop off or never be heard from.

Many people don't use Twitter in optimal ways.

If you plan to be serious about it I'd suggest a bit of research into Twitter best practices. And follow @mashable @chrisbrogan @ambercadabra @sirhendrix and many others in the SM brand and biz coaching spaces.

One thing I'd say about this person's twitter handle (I'm not one to talk with an unpronounceable, easily misspelled name of "thandelike" but still, here I go) is that his handle itself sounds like spam. People are wary of marketers on Twitter so learning how best to be a marketer on Twitter may be in order.

The main idea of Twitter is to bring value to your network, and to grow that network organically through conversation with others. Share links (not only to your own work) and engage with the material others share. Don't make it hard for people to access what you share. Don't make it hard for us to grasp that you are a real person behind that spammy handle.