Yesterday afternoon, Lecture Theatre F at Leeds’ Rose Bowl was one of 82 locations around the world that participated in the TEDxChange global webcast.
With just over a couple dozen attendees, TEDxChange in Leeds brought together an eclectic bunch of writers, entrepreneurs, activists and technologists from Leeds and nearby cities; a cross-section of people that is a small-scale preview of the engaged crowd we’re hoping for at TEDxLeeds2010.
Clive Grinyer closed the Design session at TEDxLeeds2009 with a discussion on the democratisation of design skills and practices beyond the role of designers; where every decision taken anywhere, is an act of design.
Clive has an incredible pedigree, ranging from Director of Customer Experience roles at Cisco, Orange and France Telecom, to Head of Design at TAG McLaren and notably, Director of Design & Innovation for the Design Council.
Our final screening of TEDxLeeds2009 and the introduction to our closing session on Design, was particularly topical.
With the unfolding collapse of the newspaper industry and a crisis in professional journalism, Jacek Utko, a Polish newspaper designer, argued that great design could save the newspaper and reconnect with readers.
Our second guest speaker at TEDxLeeds2009 was Charles Cecil, leading the Entertainment segment of the evening’s programme.
Managing Director of Revolution Software – creators of Beneath a Steel Sky and the Broken Sword series – Charles is also part of the BAFTA Interactive board and on the board of Game Republic, a consortium of regional games developers
With the opening Technology session of TEDxLeeds2009 dominated by heavy-hitters Kevin Kelly and Norman Lewis, we chose to set the opening of the Entertainment session to a more light-hearted tone.
Our second screening of the evening was the poet Rives, a regular on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Rives shared a three-minute typographic fairy tale that was short…and bittersweet.