Dave Eggers' TED Talk really summed up many of the concepts in A Whole New Mind. His idea to begin tutoring kids in the community for free and just to make the community's children more adept at English skills. This idea spread all over the country and now there are multiple "hidden" tutoring centers in areas that need them. The fact that they are in an outside, somewhat silly, relaxed setting makes the process of homework much easier. I think that if I had a center like that with great tutors and other kids around in a fun place, I would do my homework so much sooner; Not only because I have the resources right there at my disposal, but because there wouldn't be nearly as many distractions like Facebook, the newest episode of Glee, texting, or taking a nap. Centers like Eggers' are vital to many kids' learning and progression towards eventual graduation and mastery of the English language. If centers like that popped up in not only cities with many minorities and families with English as a second language, more children would benefit from this one-on-one stimulation. Relating back to the first sentence, I believe that this approach to learning has many of the same aspects that Pink discusses in AWNM. It relates to design because of the interesting physical environment in which the children are tutored, but also in the one-on-one setup in which the tutors cater to the kids. This is all a good example of design on Eggers' part. He told the audience about this idea through a story. The story of how it all developed and is now helping kids nationally learn to write. He employs symphony when he brings everything together, the children learning in both the classroom, tutoring center, and in workshops, and the expansion of the entire program. This shows the big picture, over all the little bits that make it what it is. Eggers' entire idea was spawned out of empathy. They felt for the teachers and students who were struggling with writing, and then they decided to lend their creative and experienced hand at writing to help the kids learn. Play is put into the picture with the entire funny joke-ish store front that each tutoring center is hiding behind. This adds a bit of silliness to the learning environment to make the children more comfortable to engage in writing creatively or not. Meaning is inputted into this idea when the children actually take off with the skills they learn and when other centers begin popping up in other cities, like they did in Brooklyn and Los Angeles. It is rather interesting how applicable to everyday situations, such as this, that the principles Pink discusses are.
The way that Eggers engaged his audience was an interesting and different one to say the least. Compared to other speakers, Eggers was exceptionally nervous... And he let his audience know that he was. I think he did this to make the audience feel more comfortable and just to let them know honestly from the beginning that Eggers might slip up a bit from nerves. He also inserted random bit lets of his own humor, which further comforted and engaged the audience. He used the background to project pictures of his program mostly to give people an idea of what they should be visualizing. Eggers also used a quote and story example from a child who went through the program and really exemplified the results. I believe he actively engaged his audience, including me.
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