If you’ve never heard of TED then you can’t begin to understand what TedxAmericanRiviera is. TED is an annual conference held in Long Beach that is invitation only. The event is 4 days long and has 50 live presenters, ranging from the Dalai Lama to Bill Gates. There are usually about 1,400 in attendance and the price is steep at $6k/head.

Sounds snobby right? Well, I have never been but according to what I’ve read from those who have and what I’ve seen TED is the farthest thing from snobby. The tag line for TED is “Ideas worth spreading,” and after tearfully watching a video of Jamie Oliver giving his speech on saving our future generations from obesity, I began to understand what TED is really all about. (The cost of attendance goes towards the TED Prize and Jamie Oliver’s speech won him the TED Prize for 2010. To watch Jamie Oliver’s amazing presentation click here).

Basically TED has grown from being simply an event to becoming a monumental movement. Jack Myers explained in a recent post “TED is no longer just an experience either. It has transcended the event and become a global movement. TED is more than 100 speakers over a five day period and an audience of 1,400 gathered in Long Beach. It’s also a satellite event in Palm Springs and thousands of online simulcast viewers around the world. It’s the several million video downloads just during the conference itself and more than the 200 million video views of TED Talks in the past two years. And it’s more than 40 independently organized TEDx events that have sprung up organically around the world in the past few months, with hundreds more planned. But mostly TED has evolved into a platform for recognizing achievement, sharing visions for the future, and engaging with a global community of uncommon interests, needs and hope.”

Hope. That is what TED is about. Hope, and the inspiration to have that hope and then take ACTION to do something about the problems we see in the world. CEO of Make It Work Eric Greenspan heard about TED and went to see the magic in action for myself by attending TEDActive 2010 in Palm Springs. Seeing Eric Greenspan enter the office on that first day back from the week long event, you couldn’t help but feel that the experience had changed him. Eric is always enthusiastic but the energy that he carried with him that day trumped anything I have ever seen in him before. (Check out this video below of Eric Greenspan at TEDActive 2010 to see the excitement I am talking about).

You can buy almost anything in life but you can’t buy enthusiasm and passion and that is why TED, TEDActive and TEDx are priceless.

TEDx is the independent version of TED, where a local group, individual or organization becomes licensed by TED to put on their own mini-TED event. The Santa Barbara event is TEDxAmericanRiviera (Make It Work CEO Eric Greenspan is the official licensee) and will be held on 10/10/10 at 10:10:10am.

For more information or to become a fan of TEDxAmerican Riviera on Facebook click here.