Mar 19, 2012

2 TED videos, on Storytelling and about Introverts

I recently saw two interesting TED Talks.

The first was by Andrew Stanton (director of such films as WALL-E) speaking about his guidelines for storytelling. The opening joke is superbly told. He spoils the rest a tad by glancing at the monitor for help once too often.

The other is by Phoebe Buffay Susan Cain, speaking about how society needs to make itself more comfortable for introverts. As an introvert, I agree, but not with all the reasons. There have been a few articles about introverts (especially the one by Jonathan Rauch linked to in this post) over the years which have already nailed the topic. The talk becomes too sentimental for my liking.

1 comment:

D said...

Good Stuff. I didn't like the overall content of Stanton's talk as much as I liked his opening joke. Surely he is a better writer than he is a speaker. And I find it distracting to see him keep glancing at the prompter. So I tried listening to only the audio. Except for the missed irritation, I found his talk wanting on insight. It may have been better if he told a better story of his own than quote from popular culture. I found his "Lawrence of Arabia" excerpt wonderful and nicely timed.
Susan's talk is fantastic and even her opening is impressive (esp. the spelling of "rowdy"!) since she quotes from personal life more often.
I don't know if I am plain jealous but I found Stanton more earnest and his enthusiasm more infectious than hers after finding out that she had been a Wall Street lawyer.