TED Hearts Books

One of my new favorite RA training tools is TED Talks.  Anyone who has seen one of my presentations recently knows that I thrown in a mention of TED Talks no matter the topic.  Why?  Well, a few reasons.

1. I turn to TED Talks for myself in my work as a consultant. I have learned about being a better, more concise speaker by watching experts convey a complex message in less than 20 minutes.  We can all learn from that, no matter our industry.
2. I also use the search box on the TED Talks main page to browse topics of specific interest to me. I have searched things like books, reading, romance, thriller, science fiction, fantasy fiction, and horror. Yes, I realize these are very broad search terms which leads me to...
3. By doing a broad search, I find a lot of talks that directly apply to my work with leisure readers, but I have also been able to take an “outside the box” look at these topics.  So when I search romance, I get talks about love. From these talks I am able to see a wider picture of stories of love than just romance novels. These talks get to the heart of the appeal of a love story in a way that traditional book resources cannot.  You try, it works for any topic.
4. I have also used the site to watch talks that, on the surface, appear to have NOTHING to do with RA. For example, one of my favorites is this talk about city flag design by Roman Mars. It is all about basic design principles that we can all learn from. Fascinating, useful, and I never would have watched it without following TED Talks.

So you can see that I like using TED Talks for a variety of reasons, all of which can also help you to be better at your job.  But here is another reason to love TED Talks, they love books!  In fact, here is their list of 70+ book picks from speakers and attendees arranged into broad categories.  I can tell you there is literally something here for everyone. From those who want “mind being fiction” to “books on historical moments.” From “haunting fiction” to “books on privacy.”

Many of the talks mention books. Books or authors are often the inspiration behind the entire talk. I love seeing books inspire others.  You will too.