Kevin Cottam

Kevin Cottam is an elite figure skating coach and choreographer, and has the great responsibility to do the final talk.

Have you have ever had the experience that you were so concentrated so much you completely lost track of time? How can you get 'in the zone' and reach such a state of flow? It's all about connection. Connection to your mind, body and spirit will help you to get into the zone where everything goes automatically

Visualisation is key for connection with your mind. As a figure skating coach, Cottam told his athletes to recreate the image of their performance in their head before they stood on ice. It's a common tactic used by athletes. The great Olympic swimming champion said he already finished the race in his head before he jumped into the water. 

Breathing is the second crucial aspect. How many people pay attention to your breathing, unless a TEDx speaker makes them reflect on it? When we don't breath, we don't live. A connection with this vital energy source is fundamental to get into the zone.

Meditation is another method the achieve this. Seek your internal knowledge and reach your spirit, says Cottam: "you deserve to be the best. Connect with mind, body and spirit and get in the zone". That's where the magic happens.

David Perrett: eat fruit, be beautiful.

David Perrett knows what women want - as far as faces are concerned.

People get an impression of people from your face. The structure of your face affects how people see you and what they think. So is there nothing you can do? Fortunately, that is not the case: your consumption of fruit, believe it or not, can affect how people evaluate your beauty.

Doctors advise you to eat five pieces of fruit and vegetables. Apart from being good for longevity and health, the nutritients in the fruit give colour to your face, making it look more healthy and beautiful to others.

I like your face, I'll vote for you
It is quite obvious we take face features into account when we evaluate people's beauty. But face characteristics affect our judgment of people in many other regards. For instance, people with wide faces are seen as more exploitative and less trustworthy.

David Perrett has also studied the looks of our leaders. We already know that people prefer taller leaders over short leaders. But even their height is reflected in the shape of a face: facial structures already give some indication about the height of a politician.

Ultimately, we might pick our leaders not because their merit and policies. Politicians that look tall will be evaluated more positively. This is even proven by studies where people where asked to compare two pictures of politicians from another country and to decide who would have won. In a significant number of cases, they were right! Democratic elections, this great symbol of modern society, may be more complicated than we think.

Work/life storified

In addition to our enormous buzz of tweets, Facebook posts, pins on Pinterest and blog posts here, we're also following everything that happens on Storify.

To experience the Work/life session in short soundbites, we made three stories:

• Happiness at work at TEDxGhent
• Personal stories count
• Work/Life

Leo Bormans: do worry, be happy!

We are in crisis, left behind. But is the glass really half empty? Leo Bormans will answers the question. Leo Bormans believes in the lessons of positive psychology. Of course, life is not a party. But it really matters how you think.

As he says, "when you smoke, you get lung cancer. When you become an optimist, you get happier. Why wouldn't you want to be an optimist?".

Leo Bormans is the author of the World Book of Happiness, a best selling inquiry in the science of happiness. Going beyond common believe and philosophy, he asked hunderd professors in fifty countries what the lessons science is teaching about happiness - in max 1000 words. One only needed two: other people!

Happiness is decided by so many factors, such as relationships, health and freedom. Money is not important as many think. Both on the individual and the country level, it doesn't really improve after a certain minimum treshold has been surpassed. Mexicans, on average, have ten percent of the wealth of the French, but they are happier.

Your life is decided for fifty percent by genetics and for ten percent by luck. That means there is still fourty percent you can affect! Focusing on the positive, without ignoring what can't be ignored, is the best strategy to cope. What you focus on is what you get. So do worry, be happy!

Anna Coote on the 21 hour work week

We are back after the break here at TEDxGhent. And we start our session Work/Life with Anna Coote of the new economics foundation. A 'recovering workaholic' herself, Anna Coote tells us why she believes a 21 working week can change our society and our lives for the better.

Time is money, goes the expression. But also: money can't buy you happiness, or love,  as the Beatles say. We deserve to dedicate our time to creativity, innovation and above all: the people that matter rather than being locked up in the treadmill of work.

Anna Coote does not propose a draconious law prohibiting working more than 21 hours. It should be a gradual decrease, taking into account hours have already decreased enormously over the last decades. Hundred years ago, 60 hours was normal. Now, 40 hour is the standard.

21 hours is not such a crazy idea as it seems. The great economist John Maynard Keynes believed that continuous increases in productivity would make it possible to only work 15 hours a week in the 21st century. However, as producitivity rose, we prefer to get more money for our work rather than spreading the jobs more equally.

An urgent need for redistribution of labour
Anna Coote believes in the urgent need to redistribute paid and non-paid work. It will be good for the environment, the economy and for ourselves. Redistributing jobs will help women to build a career and help fathers to have more time for their children.

And consider, there is no evidence that long hours are linked to prosperity. Productivity even decreases after 40 hours! But of course, there are concerns about lower pay, problems for employers (who have to hire more workers) and the general attitude to public.

To conclude, this is not just a story from Utopia. Following the publication of a report in two years ago, Anna Coote received a lot of emails, including one from a specialist law firm that had embraced the 21 working week. They were even more successful than competitors where 70 hours were normal. Maybe 21 hours is the key to a new economic system.

Guido Sterkendries' battle for life in the Amazone

Guido Sterkendries didn't study in university. His university was called wilderness. Some people call him the Eco-Tarzan.

Sterkendries has worked exploring and documenting the Amazone. This brought him to realise a lot of things about nature, the natives populations and himself.

Being a photographer has its sexy aspects. Our Eco-Tarzan climbed with ropes in the trees of the Amazone to get the best images out there. And he learnt valuable lessons from the locals. The natives don't have the same fears as we do.

Over the time, Sterkendries got to love the rain forest. But love is not always reciprocal. And of course the tough clouds of black flies hit exactly when there's something worthwhile to grasp. It's all document in Battle for Life, whose images speak for themselves.

Markus Kayser: 3D printing in the desert

Markus Kayser gave a talk in our first session, City/Nature, on his "Solar Sinter" project. Through this project, he explores the boundaries of what man can manufacture in the desert through 3D modeling on solar energy. A concrete application: printing a bowl using solar energy and sand.

You can watch a demonstration video below.

Markus Kayser - Solar Sinter Project from Markus Kayser on Vimeo.

Michael Arens & Toon Vermeir: E-cube

Suppose you are starting to work and want your own place, Michael Arens and Toon Vermeir thought. Wouldn't it be great to build a cheap and easy sustainable house?

They developed the E-cube, a simple and affordable housing solution. It is powered by solar energy and can be built by anybody who succeeded constructing their Swedish furniture themselves. It only takes 10 students, and 24 hours, to bring the E-cube into place. And to be ready for the future, it's already solar energy-powered.

But what if you need more space - when the family is getting bigger or it's time to start a business from home? The E-cube is also prepared for that. It can be easily expanded to fit new requirements.

Photo via @Wimmmmm

TEDxGhent: the story on Storify

Here at TEDxGhent, we like to keep track of what we are doing. Of course you're following us at Facebook and Twitter (hashtag du jour: #TEDxGhent), but we also have our reporting on Storify, where we collect some of the best tweets and pictures.

The first stories are online:
sfy.co/k01t on the first half of the session 'City/Nature'
sfy.co/c0Ew covering the start of this amazing day

'Low Impact Man' Steven Vromman: A glimpse of the next world

Our first speaker just got off stage. 'Low Impact Man' Steven Vromman presented his quest to reduce his carbon emissions to the level of the average world citizen. 

He started with asking one minute of silence for the victims of our system of growth and consumption. Because we urgently have to find a way to live a good life with less resources.

How would the world look like if we would all do that, if we succeed to power ourselves with renewable energy and cut our carbon emissions?

Bikes and local food

We don't even to change too much in our habits. Some solutions are very simple. The bike is the means of transport for the future. Vromman is convinced the concept of a personal car is looking ridiculous in forty years.

But what do eat? We stay close to where we are. That means local food, organic food, less meat, seasonal products and an end to wasting food.

Finally, we'll have to change the way we are working. In this regard, Vromman quoted Tim Jackson: "We do work we don't like to buy stuff we don't need to impress people we don't like." How long is this sustainable?

Yes, Vromman admitted, this is going to change our lives. We are amongst the 10% richest people in the world. We will get less rich, but there will be many less poor people. And that is good for everybody. A future worth working for.

Our social media channels during the Meeting of Minds

Hello world!

Today, we will be posting some meaningful insights on the TEDxGhent "Meeting of Minds" through social media. Are you coming to the Meeting and do you wish to engage in the conversation? Stuck at home, but still interested in updates? Youc an consult several social media channels, listed below.

This blog: an overview of all conversations on TEDxGhent, complemented with longer posts on the speakers, venue, partners, etc.

Twitter: fast and witty updates. Follow us on @tedxghent, or take a look at the hashtag #tedxghent.

Facebook: regular status updates and photos. Like us at TEDxGhent.

Pinterest: photos, pictures, video - everything visual connected to TEDxGhent 2012. We will repin your posts tagged with #tedxghent. Stay tuned for innovative Pinterest thing going on during the Meeting of Minds.


Foursquare: check in at TEDxGhent 2012: "Meeting of Minds" to find your fellow 4sq'ers.

As from 9.00AM, our TEDxGhent microbloggers will give you the latest insights