Clay Shirkey TED talk #4

            Clay Shirky effectively shares his interesting ideas through his TED talk, “How cognitive surplus changes the world.” He defines cognitive surplus as the ability of the world to volunteer, contribute, and collaborate on large and sometimes global projects. He says it is made up of the worlds free time, (1 trillion hours/year), and the way we like to create and to share. Shirky says it’s motivation, and the modern tools that allow this motivation to be joined up in large scale efforts, that are the new design resource. This means that by experimenting with cognitive surplus, we are capable of great and vast improvements in science, literacy, artistic and political areas. He uses an example of a girl in Kenya who had so much information to put online that she desperately needed a way to automate it. As a society who yearns to design, create, and contribute to large, sometimes global projects, we fixed that problem and what was created impacted people globally within three years. If in three years, a website can make a global impact using cognitive surplus, just imagine what we can achieve in the next fifty.

            Clay Shirky came about his TED talk with a more professional approach than other TED talks I have watched. There was little to no humor in his talk, but that certainly didn’t take away from it. He spoke matter-of-factly, dressed adequately, and made a clear impression on his audience. A connection I made was how he used the word automate like Daniel Pink talks about in his book, A Whole New Mind.” Shirky also talks about the media abundance, similarly to Pink. A technique Shirky used towards the beginning of his speech was repetition of an important fact to emphasize it. This was effective in making the audience take away what he meant for them to take away. Shirky does not pace back and forth, but he moves around and uses his hands to give another kind of visual instead of just pictures and maps. As an observant audience member, I noticed a few different things that I might incorporate into my personal TED talk. First off, I learned how to move around without pacing back and forth. Also, if I want my audience to take seriously a point I make, I might repeat it once or twice. Shirky delivered a powerful TED talk, and I hope to make mine just as powerful and effective.