Clay Shirky's TED Talk

Clay Shirky's TED Talk is about cognitive surplus- according to the summary of it in the bar next to the video. I wouldn't be able to say what it is about, myself. The entire time he was talking, I felt like I could understand his words, but not his points. This may sound like I was not paying attention, but I swear, I was- but he never drew me in. He never made me care. He never mentioned anything that I thought involved me.

It's not that his ideas aren't interesting, because they are. I think it's so cool that people from all over the world can collaborate on things via the internet. If two heads are better than one, how about a billion? But that's one piece of information, not really something you can base an entire TED talk on (well, a good TED talk, at least....). If the world has so much potential, then what can we do with it? What can we look forward to? What should we be careful to avoid? There are so many things he could have talked about relating to this. And most of all, a thing that he's missing... A call to action. As far as I can tell, there wasn't one. I don't know, maybe I missed it. But at the end on the TED talk, I felt like saying to him, "Okay, Mr. Shirky, that's a very interesting theory that you have there, and I would like to hear more about it. But first of all, what do you want me to DO about it?" Because I honestly had no idea.

1. I honestly don't know. I think it is very interesting to think about the fact that everyone collaborates on the internet. We can do almost anything, together. I think it is probably something I will think about whenever I use Wikipedia from now on. But other than than, nothing left a big enough impression on me to say that I 'took it away' from the talk.

2. Clay Shirky's effective speaking techniques- hmmm. I am not sure what to say. He was very fluent, he had done his research, and I felt like he had some of the good elements that we saw in other TED talks. The visual aids- lol catz, and the interesting story about the woman at the very beginning of his talk. I felt like he intended the cat pictures to be funny, but they weren't- and they could have been had he presented them differently. I kind of felt like his presentation was monotone- nothing changed, the entire talk. He should have found ways to break it up, to make it more attention grabbing. And a final thing. I didn't know what he was trying to talk about until the very end. I kept waiting for him to announce it, but the announcement never came. At the end, i didn't know what he expected from me. His he want me to get out there and start collaborating, or something else entirely. I just wasn't sure about anything.

3. Very monotone, very fast. I felt like Clay Shirky almost rushed through his talk, and he didn't change his tone, or pause in talking ever. Like he was too nervous, and he thought no one would laugh. Like he just wanted to get everything over with. As far as presentation styles go, this is not one I would recommend.

4. I think the thing that matters that Clay Shirky talked about was that we can collaborate and do almost anything. I think that if enough people work together, we can solve all the world's problems. It is important for people to realize that we all can and should collaborate. Hopefully, when they do realize it, it will make the world a better place.