The other day I decided to try my hand at BIG CURLS 🙂 I had seen the look on several pictures and wanted to experiment with a softer look. So my day started really well. Whilst my hair was drying I spent some time catching up with some of my friends on their blogs and reading what they were getting up to.
I started to read an article about creativity and inventiveness and I caught sight of this picture 🙂
I guess this is what the inside of my head looks like 🙂 I am sure that most of you already thought that anyway. I love the idea of someone’s creativity simply just bursting out and engulfing those around them.
Then this morning I took a walk down to the RCS to see what was going on. I found myself in the foyer and there was certainly a bit of a buzz going on. I found out that there was a TEDx conference being held there and although I had seen some TED videos on-line I had never attended such an event before. I asked if there were any tickets left and the staff arranged an amazing deal for me allowing me to get hold one of the few remaining tickets, with lunch included 🙂
From one of my earlier blog posts in which I wrote about inspirational speakers I knew that TED was an organisation devoted to sharing and developing ideas to enable a deeper understanding of the world around us. So for a creative dreamer on a Sunday morning who loves to explore new things this seemed too good to miss.
The Stage was set up with a projection screen, a red carpeted circle on the floor to show the speakers where to stand and two small screens on the floor, one was the dreaded timer for the speakers so they could see how they were using their 15 minutes. And the other was a screen with their presentation so they could see what was being projected behind them.
There were so many incredible speakers and I wrote lots of notes!
It was actually a great day and I found it very enriching to listen to the speakers and take on-board some of their ideas and suggestions.
Alex Willcock
Is a musician, craftsmen, furniture-maker and father of five, Alex still finds time to work closely with his business team to build the world’s largest psychographic database with over 300 million profiles.
Alex’s talk brought me to the subject of what makes us who we are and how technology can be used to help us communicate effectively. He explained why we communicate the way that we do and the importance of this communication in building a better understanding of our societies.
Alex helped me understand a little better why I love to share my experiences with my friends on the internet and how in turn these friends provide me with help and support at each fork in the road.
Alex was a lovely man who took time after his speech to talk with me, very memorable.
William Mitchell
Is a Design Director of 4C Design Ltd, Will graduated from The Glasgow School of Art and has spent 15 years working in a wide range of industries as a specialist engineer.
William sparked my interest with his approach to learning through questioning. He explained that in order to move forward and achieve your goals you have to constantly question everything that you encounter. He explained that no matter how much you think that you understand about your chosen subject there is always something new that you can learn His approach of being super curious reminded me of my younger brother Tom, as he constantly questions everything until he thoroughly understands it.
Josh Littlejohn
Entrepreneur Josh Littlejohn is the business brain behind Social Bite, a sandwich shop in which 100% of profits are given to good causes and 1 in 4 of the team has been homeless until offered a fresh start and job.
It was great to listen to his views on social enterprise and get a feel for what drives him. I understand his drive and his utter belief in what he is doing.
I know that moving forward I have to positively ooze belief in what I want to achieve as I know I am going to face loads of obstacles in the year to come.
Josh’s talk helped to put a little perspective on what you can achieve if you set your heart on a goal and then focus all your energy on achieving that goal.
The other speakers were :
Mark Shephard, Corinne Hutton, Remzjie Sherifi, Katherine Trebeck, David Sibbald, Colin Birchenhall, Laura Montgomery, Martin Hendry, Talat Yaqoob, Paul Stallan, Cam Donaldson and Sir Harry Burns. Who each delivered splendid speeches and gave me loads to think about .
So the weekend started great and finished even better, which just goes to show that sometimes it is the unplanned things in our lives that provide some of the best experiences.
This is the link to the TED site if you want to take a look and this is the link to the TEDx Glasgow site.
In closing I am posting a picture for George Todica to help promote his forthcoming recital in London this coming Thursday 12th June. George has been a tremendous help this year providing beautiful piano accompaniment for me and inspiring my performances. If you can catch his performance I am sure that you will have a wonderful afternoon.
This is George playing Enescu “Pavane” op. 10
