So, here I am at Krakow airport, my life ruined because of Fog. I may get back home today. There again, I may not. For now I sit and forlornly watch my laptop battery run down…

Yesterday was the first time I had seen a TED event in action. TED is a clever formula for spreading ideas and insight via fast live presentations streamed also on the Web. Here’s the homepage which explains all. A speaker has a choice between an 18 minute slot or something notably shorter – a sort of Twitter for public speakers. No room for waffle or equivocation. No questions from the audience – on to the next speaker!

The Krakow TEDx event was themed as ‘Texting the Dragon’ (a reference to the famous Krakow dragon statue which has been known to puff smoke when people send it a text): in other words, the tension between Tradition and Modernity.

The speakers on this occasion did not really address that theme as such, rather giving different presentations on subjects of interest ranging from Nazi/Jewish family history, outside-the-box thinking for developing computer games, Woytek the WW2 Polish Soldier Bear, helping central European migrants in London, putting green roofs on New York buildings to reduce air conditioning costs, local farming values, and so on.

Judging by the Twitterfeed  the range of subjects and sincerity/insight of the speakers impressed the 600 or so people in the live audience; a huge number more round the world were following via the Web livestream. All the presentations soon will be available to watch via the TED site.

For my own presentation I reworked my thoughts on Physics and Diplomacy (with added strangled Polish to catch the audience’s attention), arguing that EU diplomacy added Mass but crucially reduced Velocity and so was doomed to be ineffective as currently configured.

I started with Aesop, one of the world’s first Ambassadors who a few centuries BC was thrown off a cliff by the disgruntled residents of Delphi and on the way down showed a generous pioneering spirit for linking Physics and Diplomacy by inventing the formula for Terminal Velocity.

At least one happy customer: