TED2013 is going on right now (and where are you?).

As always, there will be a bevy of amazing speakers and topics presented in quick-hit sessions, but this year—with a record 70 speakers—the time-per-speaker has been cut from 18 minutes down to 9-12 minutes, according to Wired.com.

You may or may not want to watch all 70 of those presentations, but while waiting for the sessions to be posted online, why don’t you read the original One+ profiles of a couple of this year’s speakers?

Lakshmi Pratury: host of The INK Conference and co-host of TEDIndia 2009

Jennifer Granholm: former governor of Michigan

And while I’m on the TED drum, might I suggest you read or re-read our profiles of organizers for TEDx regional events?

Image: (CC) TED Conference

The TED phenomenon is changing the world and the way we meet. I’m not, of course, alluding to the new Seth MacFarlance comedy or the seemingly related Teddy Ruxpin (seen in the above photo bringing joy to an audience of one), rather the fabulous idea fest TED and it’s regional offshoots, TEDx (dig the One+ feature of TEDx planners and our profile of Lakshmi Pratury, TED India host and founder of an idea fest for the subcontinent).

The New Yorker, that bastion of high-ish-brow storytelling (and bland cartoon humor), has called out “Five Key TED Talks.” I agree the talks cited are all great, but I can think of other game changers—Bill Gates releasing mosquitos into the crowd during his malaria talk immediately comes to mind.

What are the most important or eye-opening TED videos you’ve seen?

Image (CC) Hendricks Photos

One+ Columnist Douglas Rushkoff penned a piece for CNN this week on key learnings from the Occupy Wall Street movement. "What does this have to do with my business or my meetings?" you may ask. The details have yet to be realized; your meeting tomorrow won't necessarily be influenced, however, the future of meetings will be.

It is not a protest, but a prototype for a new way of living. The urban survival camps they are setting up around the world are a bit more like showpieces, congresses and "beta" tests of ideas and behaviors the rest of us may soon be implementing in our communities, and in our own ways.

"Beta test of ideas" sounds an awful lot like the exceedingly popular and mainstream TED (and TEDx) events ("ideas worth spreading"). This notion of "beta test of ideas" also rings true as a descriptor for the actions now filtering out of Rushkoff's own Contact event, which occurred in NYC last week.

Before you dismiss the value of those seemingly disorganized masses (albeit sometimes "clumps" is more appropriate) of Occupiers taking residence in parks and downtowns of more than 1,500 cities worldwide, consider the larger messages and lessons we can all take away from their actions. Then start testing in your own domains.

Image: Creative Commons (CC) Another Believer

That's not a typo. It's next year's hit.

Or, as Richard Saul Wurman puts it, a celebration of improvised conversation. You might know Wurman as the creator of the TED, TEDMED and eg conferences. So you know what to expect—the unexpected. 

And so we look forward to WWW.WWW which will NOT feature presentations, schedules or expensive tickets. "Simply pairings of amazingly interesting individuals prompted by a question, generating a conversation. For 10 minutes to 50 minutes." 

Think: astrophysicist meets microbiologist, actor meets playwright, jazz musician meets classical maestro. To quote the website, "In the future, the truth will be our most valuable commodity. It is fitting that truth, a commodity that we most value and desire, is amazingly scarce. If among all the buttons on your remote control there was one button called truth, wouldn't you push that button? WWW.WWW is designed to metaphorically provide such a button and create a setting that will allow truth to be revealed."

Huh.

I've taken improv classes for the past year, and it's really opened me up creatively. Employees and employers worldwide, in fact, could benefit from the lessons improv teaches—openness, innovation, focus, etc.—and I highly recommend taking a class. 

Improv isn't just relegated to comedy or the theater stage, though. It's also a big part of music and the songwriting process. In the following TED video, musician and researcher Charles Limb talks about how the brain works during musical improvisation. By putting jazz musicians and rappers in an fMRI machine, he discovered a new understanding of creativity and how it works.

Ready for a conference about nothing but good news for once? TED Global 2010 is doing just that. Forget the topics about world hunger, terrorism, war, disease and down economies. Speakers this year will be Annie Lennox, Joseph Nye, Ethan Zuckerman, Mitchell Besser, Peter Molyneux and Arthur Potts Dawson, just to name a few of the positive thinkers. TED Global 2010 started today in Oxford, England and runs through 16 July 2010.

I'm always up for some good news . . . I'll be watching online for sure!