TED Parties Part I

By the time I got there the rain was coming down in dog and cat format. No worries. You just have to stand in it to get a beer.

Inside the pavilion, however, the collective body heat of hundreds of TEDsters simultaneously dried and fluffed, even if there was a permanent press. Especially around the food.

Oh, the food. I think I ate my weight in Murgh Makhani. And Rogan Josh. And Dal Sabzi.

Ran into a few friends, too. Gary White of water.org spotted me from across the room. Jay Walker and his wife Eileen said hi. And Nilofer Merchant asked me to pass along her thanks to Duarte for helping craft her TED University presentation.

But it's the Fellows, the next generation of TED, who always impress me the most. Mostly in their thirties, they're all starting ventures--not to make money, but to save the world.

Worker-owned production in Africa (as opposed to the Chinese model, ironically), public service film making focused on educating the poor to reduce disease, pregnancy and violence against women, automotive engineering as a means of technology transfer and ecological innovation--each is representative of what's to come.

And it makes me feel awfully far behind.