Thanks for the inspiration, TEDxHouston!

TEDxHouston conference
Photo thanks to Flickr user fcarter

Our brains are full, can you hear the inspiration and future projects sloshing around in our heads?

This weekend, the Schipul team was fortunate enough to be sponsors and attendees of Houston’s very first TEDx Conference event.  Members of our team spent the day at the University of Houston soaking in the ideas and meeting new people from countless fields and industries.

For those unfamiliar with the ‘mother ship’ TED organization, it is a non profit dedicated to ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’ in three areas:  Technology, Entertainment and Design.  Every year, the TED guys run two different conferences (TED in Long Beach and TED Global) that are a little out of the ordinary from your typical conference.

Audiences, for a start, are ‘curated’ – meaning attendees are hand picked to bring the greatest diversity in fields of expertise, contribution levels and paradigms.  It is a challenge to get in, a challenge to afford to attend (for many), but considered to be a high honor and a life altering event.

Speakers are similarly curated, which has had the effect of generating a whole new slew of conference speakers – neuro marketers, environmentalists, authors, brain surgeons, politicians, artists, cartoonists…  all converging in a single conference to share their infectious enthusiasm and unique problem solving approaches with each other.

Many thanks to the Culture Pilot team for putting this production together (with a group of amazing volunteers and leaders!).

Stick around the Schipul blog for a few TEDxHouston flashbacks this week, as our team review some of the high points of this year’s conference.  But the real question is… where will we go next?  What path does a little inspiration like this put us on to change the world?  Can’t wait to find out.