Ryan C. Miller.com – Social Media, Business & Small Things -

7/15/11 – Hendrick’s

Posted on July 16, 2011 by MillerNo Comments

Getting over a cold. Spending a quiet evening with some Gin and watching TED Talks.

What Egypt and TEDx have in Common

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Miller1 Comment

This past weekend I attended a viewing party for TEDx Manhattan – Changing the Way We Eat, which was put on by The Foodshed (an awesome local website / group which supports local agriculture). I’ve been huge fan of TED for several years now but this was my first opportunity to watch a livestream with a group context, with individuals who were looking to be inspired and who want to work towards changing the way we eat. I was not disappointed.

Take away what is by default awesome about TED (incredible speakers with inspirational messages and amazing ideas)… and you’re still left with something remarkable. Our party was one of over 135 viewing parties around the world who were simultaneously taking in TEDx Manhattan. Throw in all of the people watching the livestream on their computers at home, and all those who were exposed to those messages in real-time via social media. It scales pretty quickly.

What amazes me is the velocity at which these ideas and experiences can be shared by people all around the world in real-time. We’re hundreds and in many cases thousands of miles apart, but are all sharing the experience. It can be digested, remixed, re-uploaded, amended and shared again in so many forms of media which hopefully will inspire people to act to bring about change on a large scale on issues ranging from sustainable agriculture to factory farms.

We’ve seen this in Egypt and Tunisia. Now I’m not giving credit to Facebook and Twitter to for starting the revolution – but they were without a doubt the conduit with which people could spread ideas at the speed of light, organize, and get their message out to people around the world. A way for us all to share their experience. I also believe that the speed at which these ideas and movements spread really helped to minimize casualties and violence in Egypt. Speed and communication was everything. And because of this communication, ordinary Egyptians were able to bring down a government that had been in power for 30 years in - about 18 days.

Always remember that these tools work just as well for micro movements as they do for major movements. Are you ideas, content, and brand messages easily shareable? More importantly, are they worthy of being shared?

Speaking of sharable ideas – here’s one talk that was shown during TEDx Manhattan that I especially liked:

Jason Fried at TED – a must watch

Posted on December 15, 2010 by MillerNo Comments

When you have a moment (actually 15 moments – I’m not here to interrupt you), I’d HIGHLY recommend taking in Jason Fried’s TED talk on why work doesn’t happen at work. I’m a huge fan of his book Rework as well – so if you’re inspired, def go out and grab a copy. It’s been passed around our office to everyone over the past several months. This begs the question – where do YOU get your best work done? Leave a comment and we’ll chat.

Are we making Lolcats or Ushahidi

Posted on August 10, 2010 by MillerNo Comments

I saw this great TED talk by Clay Shirky recently about how we’re starting to have a cognitive surplus in the world and shifting from a society based on consumption to one that is starting to be about creation, production and sharing. According to Shirky, the earth has about 1 trillion hours of downtime per year and the question is what newly empowered masses of people will do with the opportunities presented by digital technology. Will we make LOLcats or more versions of Ushahidi?

PopTech: It’s Like TED but – well, it’s really like TED

Posted on November 5, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

I can’t believe I’ve never heard of PopTech. Really. I’ve been a huuuuuuuuuuge fan of the TED conference (someday I hope to actually attend) because the videos and concepts are consistently inspiring and change the way I think about a lot of different issues in tech and politics. But mostly they just amaze me with how smart and creative some people are.

So, PopTech. Again, very similar to TED but I’ve also really dug the talks and am super happy that they’ve been posted online. Here is an embed of Jonathan Harris (who I first saw via TED) talking about web stories and how technology and data has changed the way we’re able to tell them. You’ll be amazed, I promise. It’s an updated version of the talk he gave at TED but I still wanted to share. More PopTech talks will be embedded here for sure as I weed through them all.

The Science of Motivation

Posted on August 25, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

As you probably can tell, I’m a huge fan of TED talks. Last night I watched this presentation on the science of motivation and wanted to share. I think the points here are especially true for people in creative roles, and if I could make a generalization, very true especially for those who are under 40 at the moment. Carrots and sticks, as well as standardized rewards are not as important to us as things like autonomy and loving what we do. Hope you enjoy.