On Saturday I attended a TEDx event in Edinburgh.
If you don't know TED, you should. Drop what you're doing, and head to ted.com.
Billed as "Ideas worth spreading", TED is a series of conferences and events where the world's leading thinkers do short presentations on a truly remarkable variety of subjects.
The name comes from "Technology, Education, Design", but the speakers cover much, much more than that.
TEDx events are those run not by the TED Organisation, but by local supporters. Saturday's, live in London and simulcast to Edinburgh, Brighton, Liverpool and other cities, was set up and sponsored by the Observer newspaper.
I expected to be a 'sometime' attendee - to dip in and out as the whim took me, based on whether I thought the speaker was going to be interesting or not. That didn't happen. I sat transfixed, enjoying ALL the speakers. They engaged and involved us on subjects ranging from losing children in Israeli attacks (Izzeldin Abuelaish on "I shall not hate") to Climate Change, Ecology and Modern Art (the incomparable Vivienne Westwood). The unbelievably brave Katie Piper (turning her suffering sustained in an acid attack on her face into support and charity) and Martine Wright (who lost both legs in the 7/7 terrorist attacks and is now aiming to compete in the 2012 Special Olympics) showed us the strength of the human spirit in adversity - true adversity.
I did the hand-jive (all in the name of neurological research, of course) and joined in with people across the UK singing Zadoc the Priest in four part harmony. Honest.
I left the event with a notebook full of ideas, and a mind full of energy and inspiration.
Attending an event like this might be the most creative act you could ever do. It will inspire you, re-energise you - and most of all, fill your mind with possibility, with new ideas, and completely new ways of looking at the world.
It's like a turbo-charge for your imagination.
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