podcast: TED's Transition from Conference to Platform
IT Conversations | Web 2.0 Conference | June Cohen

"June Cohen, Media Director for TED media, runs through the history of TED. It has grown from a conference, to a media company, to a platform for spreading ideas globally. She has been involved with TED in one way or another since its start in 1984. In 2006 the new owner Chris Anderson, felt the talks deserved a wider audience. He was able to take TED to the internet and offer these talks for free.

The goal was to spread ideas, not to make a brand and sell more tickets. To June's surprise there are now 700 talks on TED. She answers the question "What's causing this viral spread?". Her analysis is most instructive for those wishing to understand how viral messaging works.

Ms. Cohen believes in embracing open models. She shows how this philosophy is working at TED. The struggle with loss of control has led to unintended consequences. The dynamic growth experienced by TED, explains June, is managed through smart scaling.

TED's strategic plan is centered on listening to what people want. June Cohen, a dynamic speaker with a keen mind, shows that the volunteer translation team at TED and their standard of professionalism has encouraged a variety of new programs called TEDx and TED open TV projects. When we stopped imagining ourselves narrowly as a conference, and started aligning ourselves with the spread of ideas, we could remake our audience as team members."

podcast: Day to Day Quantum Theory
IT Conversations | Tech Nation | Michael Fayer

"Dr. Moira Gunn sits down with Stanford University professor and author, Michael Fayer to learn how Quantum Theory relates to everyday life, from the pages of his new book, Absolutely Small: How Quantum Theory Explains Our Everyday World."

podcast interview withMuhammad Yunus
Audio lectures from Social Innovation Conversations

Today, international development frequently involves offering microcredit to the poor to help lift themselves out of poverty through entrepreneurship. In this audio interview, conducted by Ashkon Jafari, Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent, Nobel Peace prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, talks about how his enterprise in Bangladesh makes tiny loans for self-employment to some of the poorest people in that country. He discusses how he started Grameen Bank, partnerships between Grameen companies and Fortune 500 companies, challenges and lessons learned, and directions for the future. He also offers a glimpse of his new book, Building Social Business, and reflects on what keeps him inspired in his work.