The power of better questions : Christian Briggs at TEDxBloomington

In the midst of our accelerating digital lives, we often seek gurus and researchers for answers. At TEDxBloomington, Christian Briggs explores the idea that "everyday mentors" -- ordinary people developing expertise in practice -- hold untapped knowledge, and that digital-age progress hinges on how well we learn from these ordinary people. Briggs is Co-Founder of SociaLens and Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing. He is also co-founder of Choir, part of the Million Skills Project, that provides an online community for people to learn from mentors and increase their digital fluency. Briggs' research seeks to apply Nobel Prize-winner Elinor Ostrom's Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework to organizations, focusing on the role of digital technology in collective action. He co-authored Digital Fluency: Building Success in the Digital Age, and has worked in creative, management, and consultative roles for Palladium Group, Ziff Davis Interactive, Surfwatch, Walt Disney Imagineering, One to One Interactive, and Walmart.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)