Special Series
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Who Has the Greatest Philoso-fro?
December 21, 2011
Philosofro (fi - los - uh -fro): A magnificent hair nebula worn by one of the greatest thinkers of our time. Click through to review the candidates, and vote for your favorite philosofro with the Facebook like button. Watch
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Input/Output
December 14, 2011
This interview series, brought to you by HP Input/Output, captures the ongoing IT revolution which has unleashed a torrent of creativity and innovation. Companies and individuals now possess the ability to mine enormous amounts of data and information, to make informed decisions, and to solve complex problems. The videos capture insights from the top practitioners and theorists in the technology sector to help you make better strategic decisions. Experts discuss topics such as how to give people the tools to share information and to turn vision into reality, as well as how to optimize IT to get the job done -- with a healthy and secure business culture. This series will inspire you and your staff to deliver innovative and collaborative answers with practical applications and eliver the right information to drive insights, foresight to help you make better decisions. Watch
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Big Think's 10 Most Popular Videos of 2011
November 30, 2011
This year's top videos seemed to feature a little bit of something for everyone: marriage, atheism, modernist cuisine, economics, the future, and the physics of the impossible. Jim Collins. Michio Kaku. Penn Jilette. Asher Edelman. These are just four of the ten experts who delighted our readers most this year. And now, in this special series, we gather their ideas into a series of such overwhelming intensity that its intellectual gravitational pull may just create a black hole. Watch
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Re-Envision
November 15, 2011
In today's world, no individual, business leader or organization can go on acting the same way they did just a few years ago. The mandate is to change and adapt or else sink like a stone. This blog explores the way thought leaders are re-envisioning the way we act, interact with each other and do business in the world today. Through the prism of economics, innovation, the environment and social responsibility, Re-Envision looks at the impact that news and political issues of the day have on your life, and how the best ideas can be used for good. Watch
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Storming the Ivory Tower
October 27, 2011
'Lock-in': the phenomenon whereby a promising innovation becomes the basis of a sprawling system, remaining in place long after its limitations have become a dangerous liability. Is there a more egregious contemporary example of lock-in than the traditional university? Its implicit promise is this: study hard and you will succeed – in school and beyond. Yet, for an ever-growing number of recent college graduates, this promise has turned out empty. With college tuition and student loan debts skyrocketing while the job market continues to stagnate, many Americans are hungry for better alternatives, yet fearful of leaving the tried-and-true path. Could online education be the answer? Lifelong, on-the-job training? A return to apprenticeship? This series – Storming the Ivory Tower – will examine these and other questions in an attempt to index the most promising ways forward. Watch
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The 21st Century Brain
October 23, 2011
"My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?" asked Virginia Woolf. The revolution in functional imaging has brought us closer than ever to answering this question. We now have the power to map the brain, peering into the human mind to decode words from silent thoughts. But what will human consciousness look like, if we ever finally catch a glimpse of it? What new powers and possibilities might we unlock? In this interdisciplinary series, we'll explore the grand challenge of reverse engineering the brain - and its implications on every field, from neuroscience to engineering, economics, ethics, and the arts. Watch
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Occupy Wall Street: A Big Think Teach-In
October 14, 2011
Civic participation, and protest, is vastly different in the twenty-first century from, say, the 1960s. For instance, the Internet, Wikileaks, Anonymous, cell phones, Twitter and Facebook have all been used as powerful tools, both for spreading information and galvanizing popular support in the uprisings known as the Arab Spring. The ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest shares many of these characteristics, but also raises many questions about the nature of popular movements in today's world. That makes Occupy Wall Street an important teachable moment. How can citizens most effectively engage each other in today's world? How are ideas about change and reform best articulated? How do you change the system from the outside and from within? Big Think's experts weigh in on these questions and others. Watch
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The Nantucket Project
October 11, 2011
Larry Summers, Eric Schmidt, Skip Gates, Dean Kamen, Rahm Emanuel, Craig Venter and many other thought-leaders and innovators convened on Nantucket from September 30 to October 2, 2011. Those are some very big names on a small island, and if it all sounds rather exclusive, well, it was. The cross-disciplinary group of participants, which featured hedge fund managers, CEOs, artists, filmmakers, poets and writers--all shared one thing in common, according to Nantucket Project co-founder Tom Scott: they are “on the cutting edge of their field at the moment.” This blog will feature the cutting-edge thinking of these top experts. Watch
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Inside Employees' Minds
September 19, 2011
Inside Employees' Minds: Navigating the New Rules of Engagement is a new series on Big Think that corresponds with the release of the findings of Mercer’s What's Working™ survey. Inside Employees’ Minds asks leading business leaders, academics and behavioral psychologists to help our audience understand what motivates people to work, and how to bring back a sense of meaning to the work experience. Watch
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How To Think Like Shakespeare
April 11, 2011
