TED talks – learning from people who really know stuff

TED ranks as probably the greatest showcase of collective smart thinking on the planet. It's held in Monterey, California every year and attracts some of the world's most interesting thinkers and speakers. The 2007 TED is imminent and features the likes of Bill Clinton, Edward deBono, Lawrence Lessig, Paul Simon, Philippe Starck, Richard Branson – the list goes on and on.

I would love to go but the time, distance and considerable expense kind of rule it out. However, as the next best thing, you can see many of the previous years' presentations here. Warning though: this is a productivity black hole – I've spent some serious time in the last week checking these out (I'll put it down to training).

It's an amazingly diverse and eclectic group of speakers. One minute you can see cosmologist Martin Rees talk about the universe, the next see Wired's Kevin Kelly draw parallels between evolution and technology. The many others include Richard Dawkins, Malcom Gladwell, Steven Levitt, Nicholas Negropote and Al Gore. Hopefully the 2007 presentations will become available soon too.

Of course it puts my inferiority complex into overdrive – but that's a small price to pay.