Interaction 2.0: Chris Anderson: Owner and Curator of TED (www.TED.com)

The purpose of sharing these interactions is to inspire others to take action in their own way after reading them. I started this platform, Impactful Ideas, to help others find their passions and work on them. As Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook mentioned at a fireside chat at Stanford Graduate School of Business this year, “In your short-run career plans, it is not about what you accomplish but it’s about what you help other people accomplish and what you’ve learned from them”

TED (as you all know) is a non-profit global organization that provides a platform for innovators, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and change makers to share their ideas and experiences both locally and internationally.

Even though Chris is globally admired as a successful entrepreneur and public speaking coach, I will consider him an “ordinary” man (a humble guy). I met Chris at the Harvard College Leadership Conference in 2015. He was the keynote speaker for the conference, and the message of his speech was on generosity, which I thought was an interesting word choice. He took the audience (mostly Harvard undergraduate students) down this memory lane from when his foundation bought TED in 2001 at a time it was literally collapsing till what it is now. He specifically shared the internal debates within his team in the early years whether the TED talks should be accessible online for free or not. He finally decided to go with FREE as well as eventually allowing local organizing across the world with a license agreement with TED (it is known as TEDx; x=independently organized). His explanation for sharing this story was to convey the significance of openness and accessibility for all when building a platform or enterprise (Facebook has a similar philosophy). Being “generous” with the openness and accessibility of TED Talks”, enabled millions across the world to share their stories and millions more to be inspired and take action.

Paraphrasing Chris’s closing advice, “you get 1000x back on your cause and sometimes unquantifiable in the case of TED if “generosity” is one of your directional coordinates.

I hope this piece inspired you to consider generosity (in terms of inclusiveness, openness, and accessibility) in anything you do.

More about Chris Anderson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Anderson_(entrepreneur)