????本周，我生平第一次參加了TED大會。雖然我是個逢會必到的老手，但TED還是把我震住了。今年已經是第30屆TED大會，也是它首次把主會場放在溫哥華。周一下午，與會者魚貫入場時，港口陽光明媚，是個好兆頭。

????要三言兩語就給TED大會下個定義很不容易。我坐的這趟飛機從舊金山來，同一航班上有很多各種科技會議上的常客。我旁邊坐的是一位服務于硅谷幾家最大科技公司的知名專利律師，我們身后坐著一位知名IT公司的技術總監，機上還有幾位很成功的風險投資家。

????但這次大會本身并不算是一次商業會議。它不僅不是商業會議，還可以說是一個由許多商人參加的非商業會議。順便插一句，TED大會是由一家非盈利機構主辦的，但它肯定從這次活動上賺了一大筆錢，這一點大家從至少7500美元一張的入場券和扎堆而至的贊助商就能看出來。比如光是我注意到的幾個贊助商就有Adobe、達美航空（Delta Airlines）、Jawbone、歐特克（Autodesk）、塔吉特（Target）等。會場的走廊有點像頂級棒球聯賽的外場廣告墻一樣，每一寸都鋪滿了廣告。

????然而他們的錢花得真值，TED的每一樣東西都是極好的，大會還為這次活動專門蓋了一個新的劇院。知名藝術家珍妮特?艾可曼在會場外的公共空間制作了一個非常驚艷的繩雕，還蒞臨現場向觀眾講解了她的作品，成為開幕式當晚的亮點之一。另外一個令人印象深刻的時刻是著名DJ、音樂人馬克?羅森的演講。馬克?羅森在這場非常妙趣橫生的演講中熱情探討了“采樣”（sampling）這個詞的來歷，它其實是來自嘻哈歌手從過去的作品里拼湊出新歌的做法。我很難想象馬克?羅森如果出席我參加過的其他行業會議并且登臺演講會是什么情形。【觀眾里同樣藏龍臥虎，就在我等待開幕環節的時候，我跟伊莎貝爾?阿蓮德（小說《靈魂莊園》的作者——譯注）打了個招呼，告訴她我從大學起就非常喜歡她的書。】

????開幕式的其它環節則相對沒有那么精彩。MIT媒體實驗室的創始人、未來學家尼古拉斯?尼葛洛龐蒂為大會揭幕。TED大會主辦者克里斯?安德森介紹說，尼葛洛龐蒂在1984年做了TED大會的第一次演講，但TED的創始人理查德?索爾?沃爾曼對此表示否認，令現場出現了尷尬的一刻。尼葛洛龐蒂走過了TED大會的30年，曾在TED大會上發表過14場演講，他頭頂的“地中海”面積也一年比一年擴大。有意思的是，他把一些猛料留在了最后，盡管當時他18分鐘的演講差不多已經超時了。他認為“物聯網”目前的發展“極為可悲”，因為很多智能都被添加到了手機上，而不是它們所要控制的設備。另外尼葛洛龐蒂認為，科技界最大的挑戰并不是讓“下一個”十億人用上互聯網，而是讓“最后十億人”用上互聯網。雖然他對未來的預測超時了，但安德森讓他繼續完成了演講。尼葛洛龐蒂相信，在30年內，人類將能夠通過人體直接攝取信息，而不是經過耳聽目看，大腦可以通過人體的血液循環把信息發送到需要的地方。

????開幕式的其他演講就算不那么精彩，起碼也很感人。曾登上國際空間站的加拿大航天英雄克里斯?哈德菲爾德做了一個主題為《恐懼vs危險》的演講，繪聲繪色地描述了他在太空的經歷。他還是一位出色的吉他手，演講結束時還現場彈奏了英國音樂人大衛?鮑伊的作品《太空怪譚》（Space Oddity）中的《湯姆上校》。教育活動家齊亞丁?尤薩夫扎伊講到，他的女兒馬拉拉在巴基斯坦遭到塔利班襲擊前，人們都說馬拉拉是他的女兒，而現在人人都說他是馬拉拉的父親，全場響起熱烈的掌聲。不過他的表現最終被馬拉拉本人錄自英格蘭的一段視頻蓋過了，馬拉拉選擇留在家里繼續學習，沒有來參加這次大會。

????TED大會開幕式之夜以一個盛大的派對告終，但我感覺更多人是在就科技話題進行閑聊。離開會場回酒店時，我為走在我后面的兩位正在深聊的女士撐開了門。直到走在前面的那位女士向我說謝謝，而我準備往相反的方向走時，我才發現她們倆竟然是美劇《實習醫生格蕾》（Grey's Anatomy）的演員薩拉?拉米雷茲和制片人珊達?萊梅斯。

????天啊，這還只是TED大會的第一個晚上。（財富中文網）

????譯者：樸成奎

????

????I'm attending my first TED this week, a spectacle to behold even for a hardened conference-goer like me. In its 30th year, TED has convened its main conference in Vancouver for the first time. The sun was shining on the harbor as attendees filed into the convention center Monday afternoon. It was an auspicious start.

????It's hard to pin TED down. My plane from San Francisco was full of many of the people who work the tech-conference circuit and whom I'm likely to see on plenty of other planes. I sat next to a famous patent lawyer who represents some of the Valley's biggest companies. The chief technology officer of an esteemed IT company sat behind us. A couple of successful VCs were onboard as well.

????Yet the conference itself isn't primarily a business conference. Not only is it not a business conference, it's something of a non-business conference attended by a ton of businesspeople. As an aside, TED is owned by a non-profit entity that makes an absolute killing on the event, judging from the $7,500-and-up attendance fee and the oodles of corporate sponsors, including Adobe, Delta Airlines, Jawbone, Autodesk and Target, to name just a few I noticed. The hallways of the conference are a little like the outfield walls of major-league ballparks: Every inch is for sale.

????And what their money buys! Everything about TED is gorgeous. The conference built a new theater just for the event. The artist Janet Echelman created an amazing rope sculpture in the public space outside the convention center, and she described her creation to the audience at the outset. It was one of the highlights of the opening evening. Another amazing moment was a TED talk by the DJ and music producer Mark Ronson. In a highly entertaining speech, he passionately surveyed the history of "sampling," the largely hip-hop practice of borrowing from the past with an artist's own twist. It would be hard to imagine Ronson taking the stage at any other industry conference I've attended. (The audience is eclectic as well: As I waited to go into the opening session I said hello to Isabel Allende and told her I'd been enjoying her books since I was in college.)

????The first session's other choices were less inspiring. The MIT Media Labs founder Nicholas Negroponte opened the conference. TED impresario Chris Anderson said Negroponte gave the first TED talk in 1984, however TED founder Richard Saul Wurman later contradicted that assertion, making for an awkward moment. Negroponte took an informative walk down TED's memory lane, reflecting on his 14 talks and the increasing size of his bald spot over the years. Curiously, he saved some of his best material for last, when his 18 allotted minutes had almost expired. He thinks the "Internet of things" so far has been "incredibly pathetic" because the intelligence is being added to cell phones rather than the devices they are meant to control. Negroponte thinks connecting the "last" billion people to the Internet is the tech world's biggest challenge, not the "next" billion. He ran out of time for a planned prediction, and Anderson wisely asked him to make it anyway. It was a doozy: Negroponte believes that in 30 years we will be able to ingest information—rather than read or see it—and that the brain will be able to then send information through the body's bloodstream to where it is needed.

????Other opening talks were emotional if unfulfilling. Canadian hero Chris Hadfield, an astronaut who lived on the International Space Station, gave an overproduced romp through the theme of "fear versus danger" by way of describing his adventures in space. An accomplished guitarist, he ended his talk by playing the "Major Tom" ode from David Bowie's song Space Oddity. Education activist Ziauddin Yousafzai won applause for noting that until his daughter Malala was attacked by the Taliban in Pakistan she was his daughter but now he is known as her father. He was outshone, however, by a short video recorded in England by Malala herself, who wisely stayed home to pursue her studies.

????The opening TED evening ended with a giant party that included, for me, anyway, more tech-crowd schmoozing. As a left the building to head to my hotel I held the door open for two women engaged in a deep conversation who were walking a few steps behind me. Only after the first of the two thanked me and I was on my way in the opposite direction did I notice that the two were Sara Ramirez and Shonda Rhimes, an actor on and the creator of, respectively, the TV series Grey's Anatomy.

????Ho-hum. It's just the first evening at TED.