My Nokia Responsiveness Campaign video, shown in a previous post, is also available on the Nokia Responsiveness website (in addition to being uploaded to YouTube). The difference is that the Nokia site has an interactive component, where people are invited to respond to my question at the end of the video: “Do we have the courage to let go of our beliefs in order to grab on to what is true?”.

The responses are displayed graphically on my Responsiveness portal, where you can watch the video, read my bio, and see other’s responses. I hope you’ll head over and leave a response. Also available are some neat widgets, banners, and badges to display on your blog, webpage, twitter, or email signature. My widget can be seen in the sidebar here at There Are Four Lights. You’ll find all of these goodies by going to the toolkit section of the Responsiveness viewer.

So head on over and give your response! Tell your friends and post the widget on your blog!

I was second to speak, which meant following Sebastian Wernicke‘s amazing talk on how to make an amazing TED talk. My 3mins was dedicated to speaking about why I think the world needs more skepticism and how I’d like to promote that idea through manga storytelling.

What I believe is an idea worth spreading can be summed up in one of my favourite Sagan quotes “For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring”. The theme of this year’s TED conference was “What the World Needs Now”. My pick for what the world needs is more skepticism, critical thinking, and science literacy.

If we want to distinguish what is true from what we simply want to be true, we will learn to be good skeptics.

TED is a conference of the world’s leading thinkers and doers. What speaks to me the most about the TED speakers is not only that they are at the leading edge of their field, but that their work is driven by a passion to somehow make the world a better place. In my own work, I’m motivated to improve my writing and art from a technical perspective, but my major focus is often to establish what my own idea worth spreading is.

Manga is a hugely popular form of sequential art. Some of the things most appealing to me about it is the diverse readership (people of all ages read manga, including a high percentage of female readers) and the unconstrained storytelling—-you can tell all kinds of stories using manga. My goal in my work as a mangaka is to create stories that show the value in critical thinking and the dangers of mixing power and ignorance. I want to create characters that are good role models as skeptics—-overcoming problems using knowledge and evidence-based thinking.

Legend of the Ztarr is the story I’m writing with these ideas in mind. Currently, the first chapter is available online. My goal for 2010 is to get the series picked up my one of the major US manga publishers.

I had a great time getting my 3mins in front of the amazing TEDActive crowd. It isn’t often I get to talk to others about my work and my passion behind it. My fellow TED 2009 Fellowship member, Tino Chow, posted about my TEDYou talk on his blog, where he covered the TED simulcast.

©tinochow

As the day continued, my photo documentation pretty much came to a stand still. But I recently came across my fellow TED’09 Fellow, Tino Chow‘s amazing blog. Go check out his great TED posts!

Tino Chow’s TEDActive Flickr set

TEDActive co-hosts Kelly and Rives. Session 1 “Mindshift” starts with Daniel Kahneman.

Jake Shimabukuro plays “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the ukulele. Michael Shermer talks about belief in the brain.

Session 2 “Discovery”. Lunch break at the beautiful Riviera Resort with picnic baskets for six and the gorgeous snow-peaked mountains always in the background.

Session 3 “Action” with Sheryl Crow. Jamie Oliver wins the TED Prize.

My TEDActive 2010 Flickr set

I did a talk, last year, on the TED Fellows stage, and this year I’ll be doing another little talk—-this time, during TEDActive‘s TEDYou session. I’ve recently put the finishing touches on my slides (example above). My talk will be about skepticism and manga!

This is my creme-coloured ballerina skirt from YesStyle, which I wore for the first time at the TED Prize Gala back in February. The conference was held in Long Beach. This layered skirt is from the South Korean brand, Ukki. You can still grab it for about $50 US.

I also have this lovely “Flower-and-Vine” zip wallet by Let’s Fly, a Chinese brand. This particular item is no longer available, but YesStyle carries many of the brand’s other cute women’s bags and wallets.

One feature that I like about YesStyle is their “set” section. You can find some pretty affordable outfits in this sections, where items are combined together. I first came across YesStyle while looking for clothing references for my artwork. Looking through the site’s fashion always makes me want to sketch cute manga girls dressed up in their adorable items. So I did!

This set is from the South Korean brand, Beccgirl. It includes a v-neck long sleeve shirt and the check pattern skirt. Several colours are available in both the skirt and shirt, with the option of mix-and-matching your choice. Not included are the boots and the adorable suspenders. I have a thing for suspenders!

There you have it–YesStyle+manga! …And evidence that this geeky mangaka can, occasionally, get all dolled up!

I spoke with one of those creative people last week. Unless you’re a fan of manga, chances are you’ve never heard of Sara Mayhew, who just got back from a worldwide conference of ideas in California.

Mayhew is no big-city jetsetter. She’s a 24-year-old comic-book artist who lives in Kirkland Lake, in northern Ontario. She divides her time between freelance illustration and creating manga — a style of comics that originated in Japan.

She and Bill Gates have a few things in common. They both spoke at the 2009 TED Conference, and they’re both unrepentant geeks. Geeks change the world.

Yes, I think that was just a comparison between me and Bill Gates. But no pressure…

As a Canadian in the middle of winter, just being in California was nice (though, apparently 12c is “cold”, lol). I was really thrilled to meet all kinds of amazing people; Of course, all of the fellowship members were extraordinary and simply the greatest group of people I’ve been fortunate enough to become friends with. Everyone is doing something amazing to change the world for the better from all corners of the planet.

Though my family was interested in hearing about whether I got to meet Al Gore or Robin Williams, instead, I was excited about getting to meet Dan Dennett, philosopher and one of the ‘Four Horsemen’ of atheism, Brian Cox, physicist at CERN working on the LHC, and Carolyn Porco, head of imaging for the Cassini mission to Saturn (links point to Flickr photos of them and myself). I’m extremely shy, so I probably freaked them all out a bit by being so quiet!

My Twitter followers count has quadrupled since the first day at TED and my inbox has exploded with emails. There are several invites in the works for various talks/workshops that organizations are interested in having me attend. Hopefully, this TED momentum will aid in my current goal of getting Legend of the Ztarr picked up by a publisher. If there’s one feeling that a TED conference leaves you with, it’s that nothing is out of reach, and any idea is possible. TED is truly an inspiring gathering of the worlds leading thinkers and doers, that leaves a lasting impression on the rest of your life.

If you’ve come across this little blog of mine, I invite you to read Legend of the Ztarr and spread the word about it. You can find my collection of TED photos on my Flickr account, follow me on twitter here, and look me up on Facebook/Myspace as well.

I left North Bay for California on Sunday, but missed my connection in Toronto because of too much snow on the runway in North Bay which delayed my flight. Sunday afternoon was spent in the airport waiting for my flight to LAX at 5:30pm. So I didn’t end up at my hotel in Long Beach until around 9pm.

But the first day in Long Beach, here at the Hilton, was lovely! My Fellow roomate and I spent the afternoon by the pool. It’s so nice here, I don’t think I’ll be wanting to go back to the -40c weather up in northern Ontario. We registered and got our TED badges around 4pm and then got ready for the TED Fellows welcome party by the pool.

The welcome party was beautiful and everyone is so friendly and interesting. And wow, the amazing swag they had for all of us at the end–it was like being on Oprah, lol! “YOU get a car and YOU get a car!”, ok, no cars…but we all got gift bags with this neat little HD video cameras, and Nokia smart phones! Hadn’t I just been complaining that day that my phone was horribly annoying to send txts with? THANK YOU!