On the 28th of march I attended TEDx Central Saint Martin here in London. The topic was really interesting to me, since it was about emergence, something that while I’m not an expert at, it’s at the centre of my attentions in the recent years.

The location was amazing, the organization was also up to the game and overall I’m satisfied of the event. There was a good variety of talks, and even if there were a couple of them that I noticed were difficult for the crowd, being a bit too high or abstract, overall these played well in the balance with the more pragmatical ones.

Unfortunately I have also a criticism: while the event was indeed good, in the end basically nobody talked really about emergence with the exception of Jamie Brassett. Most of the talks were either referencing to it in an incredible loose way or using the term with a completely different meaning — giving me the uncomfortable impression that some of the speakers weren’t even knowledgeable about emergence at all.

I’m not really good in doing reports afterward, but as I did during dConstruct 2011, I sketched a PDF book during the event with all my notes. You can download it here (I hope it’s readable).

A few interesting concepts or quotes:

• Michael Wolff: “People tolerate pretty terrible behaviours” and on the other side “People will never forget how you made them feel”.
• Jamie Brassett: “The challenge is to articulate an open space with simple rules, like a flock”.
• Richard Seymour (video): “Why did you write something in the back of the clock where nobody sees it? — God can see it”.
• Anais Nin (cited): “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are”.
• Tom Hulme: “Our ability to plan is disappearing”.
• Misha Glenny (video): “Certain disabilities turn in incredible skills with a computer”.
• Julie Jenson Bennett: “We should stop looking for the new but look for the better”.
• Nadia Berthouze: “Our body speaks to others as it speaks to ourselves”.
• Barry Buzan: “Individuals today can achieve relatively big power”.

You can see all the videos on the event website.