Most of us are familiar with TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks -- short speeches given by experts in their fields, made up of equal parts information and inspiration. The speaker typically describes what he or she does, then explains how we as viewers can apply certain aspects of the speaker's expertise to our own lives, regardless of what we do. As you might expect, TED speakers are often the names you know -- Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Al Gore -- and cover topics ranging from story-telling to acrobatic robots (both of those two are awesome; watch them now).
The popularity of the annual TED conference -- held in lovely Long Beach, CA, by the way -- led to the TEDx, the x indicating an indepedently organized TED event. Enter Stanford head coach David Shaw, who spoke recently as part of a TEDx at Stanford University. His topic was eye-opening: "Can Stanford Football Change the World?"
In his speech he focuses on themes and philosophies he's been espousing for the past few years, but this is much more than a twelve-minute recruting pitch for Stanford football. He doesn't just point out that Stanford runs its football program the right way, he questions why other schools don't.
He had me at hello.
