TEDxManhattanBeach - Scott Witthoft & Scott Doorley - Cultivating innovative behavior using design November 8, 2011

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Talk title: Cultivating innovative behavior using design

What do you think about when you think about a table? A surface with four legs, or an object that can function in many ways? It can be a liberating experience to think about objects in terms of how they function. A table can be tiny, barely big enough for a coffee cup, or round so that people sit in a circle, or adjustable and functional, like an operating table. Tables, or classrooms and other objects and places can advance ideas. By asking ourselves which aspects of infrastructure we want to leverage, and what sort of infrastructure will allow people to engage, we can create the atmosphere we wish to encourage. A table, or any other designed object or place, can encourage mingling, the exchange of new ideas, a human bond and a richer experience.

Engineer, designer, and artist Scott Witthoft is a member of the faculty of d.school, Stanford University's hub for innovators. He's an alumnus of the Graduate Joint Program in Design at Stanford, the Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Texas at Austin. Scott dedicated much of his early career to the field of forensic structural engineering, investigating "just about every type of possible failure" in buildings, bridges, tanks, and tunnels, and developing new applications for nondestructive testing methods. Scott's interests include capturing craft within the burgeoning do-it-yourself design movement, and the physical and philosophical implications of the current direction toward localized manufacturing.

Scott Doorley is Director of the Environments Lab at the d.school at Stanford University. He has many years of experience in the motion picture industry and has held almost every imaginable position in film production, from art direction to producing to acting and more for CBS, Fox, and ESPN. He is currently a practicing digital media artist and founder of the Dacha Art Collective; his work has been exhibited at the San Jose Museum of Art, the ZeroOne Festival and at San Francisco's Grey Area Foundation for the Arts.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxManhattanBeach, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxManhattanBeach event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.