2012 TED Simulcast - Spending Leap Day at the Nelson Atkins Museum

Today is Leap Day, an extra day every four years to get more work done, have some fun (creative or otherwise), or try something completely new. Last Leap Day, I was in the process of saying goodbye to a key member of my market research team as she left for an exciting new market research job.

Leap Day 2012, however, will be much more fun than in 2008.

This Leap Day I will be with the rest of The Brainzooming Group at the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City to watch the 2012 TED simulcast. The 2011 TED simulcast was incredible, and a very different experience than watching individual videos. It was also tremendously taxing after live tweeting all day.

This year, I will probably do some live tweeting, but will try to add some creative variety. Maybe it is a good opportunity to even try illustrating some of the TED simulcast presentations. That would really be a creative stretch worthy of Leap Day since I sketch, but not nearly as fast as I live tweet!

Here is the schedule for today’s 2012 TED Simulcast:

Session 4: The Lab (10:30 am – 12:15 pm CST)

• Henrik Schärfe, Roboticist
• Regina Dugan , Director of DARPA
• Jack Choi, Technologist
• Marco Tempest, Techno-illusionist
• Donald Sadoway, Materials engineer
• Vijay Kumar, Roboticist

Session 5: The Earth (1:00 pm – 2:45 pm CST)

• Karen Bass, Natural history filmmaker
• Sharon Beals, Photographer
• Wade Davis, Anthropologist, ethnobotanist
• James Hansen, Climatologist
• T. Boone Pickens, Entrepreneur and energy theorist
• Civilians Investigative Theater, Theater company

Session 6: The Crowd (4:15 pm – 6:00 pm CST)

• Cameron Carpenter, Organist
• Reid Hoffman, Social entrepreneur
• Lior Zoref, Crowdsourcing advocate
• Jen Pahlka, Code activist
• Frank Warren, Secret keeper
• Reggie Watts, Vocalist, beatboxer, comedian

Session 7: The City (7:00 pm – 8:45 pm CST)

• JR, Street artist
• Edward Glaeser, Economist
• Eduardo Paes, Mayor of Rio de Janeiro
• Suja Lowenthal, Vice mayor of Long Beach
• Mama Foundation for the Arts: Gospel for Teens Choir, Teen choir

My live tweets will be either on the @Brainzooming Twitter account and/or my live Twitter account at @BZLiveTweets. You’ll be able to follow 2012 TED Simulcast tweets with the overall #TED hashtag on Twitter as well. If you’re at the Nelson Atkins Museum for today’s sessions, tweet or DM me! – Mike Brown