Peter Diamandis Explains Why We Need the X Prize

Fresh from his appearance at the Long Now Foundation, which you can see here, X Prize chief Peter Diamandis presents an extraordinary EG '08 presentation, including video of physicist Stephen Hawking floating in space. Now, the automotive X Prize, bringing to market a new generation of cars. In a chat we had backstage, Peter asks the question: "What is on the intersection of audacity and achievability?"

FORA.tv Staff Favorites: Philip Zimbardo on the Psychology of Time

In a recent video post, psychologist Philip Zimbardo discusses his findings while writing The Time Paradox. He divulges in how each of us perceives the concept of time and how it affects our way of interacting and living. It's absolutely fascinating.

After learning of the two time-oriented personalities, I challenge you to reflect on which is a better representation of you: present hedonistic or future oriented.

Until next time, greetings from Maureen!

Personal Courage: Ken Kamler and Peter Coyote

Prolific actor and writer Peter Coyote gives the history of the Diggers and, in the process, San Francisco in the '60's at a Book Passage reading of Ringolevio, in honor of author and friend Emmett Grogan. He reads his own preface and sections from the book and discusses his own political odyssey, and struggles. It is an intimate look at local and national politics from one of the great voices of film and TV.

On today's FORA front page, another EG Conference gem, this time from Ken Kamler, the heroic Everest doctor from the ill-fated 1996 expedition immortalized in film and literature ("Into Thin Air," etc.). The audience hears both extraordinary acts of personal courage and endurance, and painful, revealed moments as the trip turned tragic for several climbers. Backstage at the Conference, Michael Cronan asked Ken about his personal preparation for the climb as a doctor, his relationship with his Sherpa guide and how climbing brings out the best in him. Kamler told Cronan, "It does bring out what I think is the best in me, pushes me to my limits and it shows me I have more in me than I ever thought I had. If you don't test yourself in some way, you'll never find out what you've got inside you... It challenges me to bring out the best qualities that I think I have in me, which would otherwise maybe lie dormant." I have the interview on one of the Flip video cams FORA distributed for backstage discussions at the Conference and will try to edit and post it tonight (blogger software does not allow large files).

Cronan, Wurman and Ferren at EG 08

FORA.tv has published thousands of public forum events online and we have been using Flip video cams to explore what happens backstage at events from the Aspen Ideas Festival to the Democratic and Republican Conventions to last weekend's EG: The Entertainment Gathering at the storied Monterey Conference Center. So, it was a joy to watch Michael Cronan, creator of the FORA.tv brand and one of America's great designers and brand builders, chat with Ricky Wurman and Bran Ferren on how the Pantheon was REALLY built. And why there has never been a Nobel Prize in Mathematics.

EG 08 Conference: The Master (Ricky Wurman) Speaks

Two men who greatly influenced the birth of the FORA brand are Ricky Wurman and Michael Cronan. Wurman is the original impresario behind TED and EG, and provided me with much valued advice at the end of the EG 08 Conference (thanks for the 3 P's, Ricky). The TED Conference has been around a quarter century; the poster for the 1997 NY TED proudly hangs in my office, signed by attendee Peter Max. Michael and Ricky go way back, and I had the chance to record some of their backstage conversations on my Flip video cam (the ultimate in convenience, not always the ultimate in audio capture in a noisy room). Here are Michael and Ricky on the joys of learning and the influence of Louis Kahn.

EG 08 The Entertainment Gathering now on FORA.tv

Check out the string of programs we are presenting from the just completed EG '08 conference in Monterey, California. First up is a hilarious look at technology by The New York Times' David Pogue whose presentation is book-ended by two piano performances that are not to be missed. On today's home page, a showstopper from MythBuster's Adam Savage on the mind of the obsessed. I ran into Wired founder and chocolate maker Louis Rossetto at the event, who described the similarities between starting media and chocolate businesses and why, sorry, David, the New York Times will not be around in 5 years.

FORA.tv Staff Favorites - Pitcairn: A Paradise Lost

Now that 2008 is almost over, I thought I'd take a quick look back at one of my favorite FORA.tv programs that I've come across all year.

Kathy Marks' discussion on her book Pitcairn: Paradise Lost is a riveting and disturbing look at a remarkably isolated society in the South Pacific. Populated almost entirely by descendants of the mutineers from the H.M.S. Bounty, the tiny British colony of Pitcairn Island found itself reluctantly thrust into the international spotlight several years ago in a series of highly-publicized sexual assault trials involving many of the island's top leaders.

Here's my take on Marks' excellent presentation of this fascinating story.



In this highlight, Marks explains the bizarre social dynamics at work on the island, where accused rapists must work side-by-side with the very men whose daughters they've been accused of raping:



For more information, please check out the full program on FORA.tv, courtesy of our friends at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A quick correction: in the video, I describe Marks as an Australian journalist. I think she's actually British.