TEDWomen in Washington DC

It's been a week since TEDWomen.  I wanted to let the experience settle in before I wrote about it.  I'm such a TEDster that I was enthusiastic at the drop of a hat about all things TED.  But somehow this effort was a bit of a mixed bag for me.

 

I'm still pondering the reasons for that.  Perhaps among them was that it seemed at times the end goal was not clear. On the one hand the program took on the aspects of other women's conferences in an earnest effort to examine women's progress thus far in the world, as well as the challenges to women everywhere due to poverty, discrimination, prejudice and many other factors that have been discussed in many venues.   That's worthy activity, but not what--in my opinion--TED is all about.

My expectation, which was met in some ways, was related to what appeared to be the other goal: that this would be another TED Conference, i.e. a collection of people at the top of their game in fields of interest to us all and the only difference from other TEDs was that the audience and speaker population would be mostly women.  Following this scenario, rather than spend time talking about gender issues (covered well elsewhere) these speakers would talk about the work they do about which they are so passionate and so informed and just so outright amazing that we'll all be mesmerized.   We'll walk away with things most of us had never known of before and about which we want to know more, much more.  That's what happens at TED.  Brain candy.  And you can't get enough of it; after four days you're exhausted but ready to learn even more.

 

There were some TEDWomen speakers who met that standard.  Others did not, where it appeared that the selection process had not aimed high enough to get the best of the best.  In a few cases, they seemed to be capable of having carried off a true TED talk, but their topic was so focused on gender issues we didn't get to hear about what they do.  One who comes to mind here is Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook.  Wow!  The movie is barely out, we've all got questions and opinions about the impact of Facebook and the world of social networking itself, so I was eager to hear her take on it from the inside.  Instead, Sheryl gave a speech about how women with corporate opportunities often miss the mark because they fail to meet the challenges in ways that would promote them more advantageously.  That's a speech I've heard many times from others; in fact, I've given it myself more times than I can count.  So this was not news (but in fairness, it may have been news to others in the audience) and I felt cheated out of the chance to get to know more about Sheryl Sandberg and her perspective on the global impact her company is having on all of us and our communities, even the very personal way in which we live.

 

Let me tell you, though, about some of the truly impressive speakers whose comments have stayed with me every since DC:  One was Deborah Rhodes, a physician and cancer researcher at Mayo clinic who with a another scientist has developed a gamma ray camera that can detect breast cancer tumors that are not detected by mammography.  This is huge.  Dr. Rhodes began by explaining that there are four quartiles of density in women's breasts.  If you fall into the least or next to least dense quartiles, mammography works well on you.  But if you fall into either of the last too, not so much.  And most of us in the audience took this news seriously.  First of all, those women sitting around me--and me, too--didn't have a clue about the density level of their breasts, so until we heard Dr. Rhodes speak, we did not know that if our breasts are in the dense category, those "You're fine" pronouncements after our mammograms may have been not true.  This is a big deal.  Believe me, I'm planning to find out where this gamma ray based procedure is being performed in New York City.  Rhodes is the real deal.  She explained at the beginning of her comments that she will not benefit financially from the success of her gamma technology so, as she indicated, "I will tell you the truth."  Her talk is sure to spur conversation about the radiology lobby and the force with which they may attack efforts by Rhodes and her colleagues to change the setup that has all women running for mammograms every year, even though for some of them they are probably a waste of time.

I'll let you know of more of these terrific TEDWomen speakers later. 

Comments

[Kris Manos]

Deborah was the speaker that has stuck with me most powerfully. Her gamma technology appears to be true "disruptive innovation" in the Clayton Christenson sense of the term -- less expensive with more powerful results for a specific customer (women with dense breasts). I am left pondering how difficult it is to innovate disruptively in healthcare, and any other highly regulated market.