P Morgan Brown

If you’re a marketer and serious about improving not only your craft but how your profession impacts the world around you then you must watch these 5 TED talks and share them with fellow marketers and human beings around you.  They will get you thinking, they will get you working harder and most importantly, they will get you caring more.  If there’s a talk you love that I’ve missed please leave it in the comments!

Malcolm Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce

Gladwell, best selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink talks about the pursuit for the perfect spaghetti sauce and how looking outside your preconceived limitations can pay huge dividends. Gladwell makes you think and his stories take a small application and suggest big ramifications. I love reading his work and listening to him speak; because every time you do you have a little moment of eureka that makes you better.

 

David Pogue Says “Simplicity Sells”

If you’re responsible for product design and development, particularly in technology, Web services or consumer electronics you need to watch this video. Simplicity is elegant and sophisticated. Simplicity is what has made the iPod, Twitter and countless other devices best sellers. Removing features, making things easier, more intuitive and consumer friendly. As Twitter founder Evan Williams said “What can we take away to create something new?”

 

Tim Brown encourages designers to think bigger

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, has presided over some of the most incredible “design” work in the world. IDEO is the leader when it comes to design thinking, especially their work put into the idea of Human Centered Design. In this talk Tim Brown encourages designers to think bigger – like not how to build a better ship, but how to move people from one city on one continent to one city on another. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you remember it’s ok, in fact critical, to think big.

 

Dan Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation

Best selling author Dan Pink dives into what makes us tick. He uses a great psychology experiment called the candle problem to show how many of our corporate rewards diminish creative thought. If you’re in leadership in marketing, or you’re wondering how to get the best out of people around you watch this talk and read his new book “Drive.” Also, make sure to read “A Whole New Mind” his earlier work on the rise of the creative class – a must read.

 

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nuturing Creativity

The best selling author of Eat, Pray, Love talks about coping with the pressure of creativity and success and the idea that maybe we’re not entirely responsible for our creative successes and failures. What I like about this talk is that it takes a very humble person to disown success or lay success at another place than our own feet. I also like how she talks about dealing with the pressure of being creative for a living and how it’s ok when we’re not creative.

 

Seth Godin on Tribes We Lead

And what would a marketing talk at TED be without a bonus one from Seth Godin? So here’s a bonus sixth one.