It sounds like one of the most amazing things to use your time: just spend two months watching loads of TED Talks. Carolien Vader did exactly that – and then wrote a book about it for TEDxAmsterdam.
‘Het begint met een idee’ (It starts with an idea) is the inspiring title of the book written by TEDxAmsterdam volunteer Carolien Vader. In the book, especially written for TEDxAmsterdam, Carolien draws a red thread between the best talks on topics as the human brain, creativity, culture and passion. She does so by asking two main questions: what is an idea, and how can an idea change the world?
Carolien has a background as a journalist and media expert. After a long career in journalism she now runs two companies: Bladendokter, advising magazines, and the publishing house David & Goliat, which she describes as a cross-media experiment working on ebooks and apps. On the telephone from Amsterdam, she looks back very positively to the writing process: “The book had to be out by 11 November, so the timing was tight. Despite all this time pressure I really enjoyed the writing. It was very nice to lock myself up and only watch TED Talks.”
Carolien Vader
Carolien based the book on ideas of heroes as Sir Ken Robinson, Steve Jobs and TEDxAmsterdam 2011 speaker Barry Schwartz. ‘Het begint met een idee’ is a book on how the theories formulated by experts on science, technology and design contribute to changing the world. The stage of TED has spread many innovative ideas. When she was watching the talks, Carolien noticed many of this ideas are interrelated. They work as a virus, infecting your brain and helping to continue thinking. “In this way, I went a step deeper than all those theories by all these great speaker. I also wanted to address their essence and the process in which they are shared in a culture or society. I dove into the theory of memes, developed by Richard Dawkins in 1976. A meme is the cultural counterpart of a gene and transmits ideas in a culture. For instance, think about birthday parties: we eat cake and wear little pointy hats. There is nothing intrinsically ‘birthday-like’ about that, but it’s what we associate it with”.
After having seen so many TED Talks (could it become a world record?) we’d like to know what Carolien’s personal favorites are. Although the competition of Charles Leadbeater and Matt Ridley is tough, she picks Simon Sinek’s talk on intent. Ironically, his talk did not end up in the book. “Sinek discusses how important it is for companies and people to have a clear intention in their work. For instance, Apple has the intention to do everything different, to make their products prettier and more user-friendly. Therefore, their products give a good feeling.”
For more information or to order the book (in Dutch), please visit www.hetbegintmeteenidee.nl.
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