photius carolinas otherwise known as
firefly i remember as a young boy
chasing these beetles all throughout the
woods in new england causing all sorts
of havoc maybe some neighbors called the
police etc but I was always mystified by
these tiny little creatures being able
to emit such a powerful strong signal
from their little bodies in fact this
particular species once a year for a
two-week period in the foothills of the
Appalachian Mountains does something
amazing see one single influencer among
all of these beetles emits a signal
flash flash shortly thereafter another
fly goes flash flash two four twenty a
hundred a thousand within minutes
there is a illustrious symphony of
flashes this synchronization of flashes
shows a display unmatched with many
other animals here on the planet see
this type of coordination continues to
baffle scientists but we do know that it
started with a signal that was picked up
by others and emulated the European
Starling first introduced into the
United States in the late 1800s by
Believe It or Not Shakespeare
enthusiasts in fact they released
several of them in Central Park because
they were so fascinated the number of
times Shakespeare referenced these birds
over 200 years later
they grew to a population exceeding 200
million one thing that’s really neat
about these birds though is the way they
signal each other one bird according to
many scientists communicates to its left
or to its right to seven other birds who
then communicate to their left and to
the right and the result much like the
fireflies is a coordinated orchestra of
flocks that pan in turn without any sort
of other stimulus you see these birds
have an ability as they continue to
communicate to do 90 and 180 degree
turns on a dime without any sort of
however the animals kingdom is not the
only place where we see the ability to
signal masses and the result become
unprecedented meet asthma mahfooz see
asthma in 2011 was just like you and I a
normal everyday hardworking person in
fact her country was experiencing a
revolution it was January 18 2011 and
for Egyptians had set themselves on fire
outside of Tahir Square protesting the
Mubarak regime unchallenged and
undaunted
and in many ways unprecedented asthma
sent a signal she posted a YouTube video
on the 24th of January that said join me
tomorrow on the 25th of January to
stand for the rights that we deserve as
human beings what she didn’t plan for
was hundreds of thousands of people
descending on Tahrir Square this
unprecedented action reaction was
something that was unable to be
predicted so when you look at beetles
and you look at birds and you look at
people we all seem to respond to the
signal of one person or thing or animal
or insect but we can never really
understand how far our signal may go so
I wanted to learn more I wanted to
understand this I built a software that
allowed me to look at things a little
bit differently so this is Matt Matt is
an amateur blogger for the New York Mets
being from Boston I’m not offended if he
was a Yankees fan we might have some
birds so Matt one day came across a
piece of content that influenced him the
piece of content was a video built by
the rock in 1,000 grit out of China
Italy this particular video was made for
five people Dave Grohl and the members
of the Foo Fighters band the video was a
call to action for the band to come play
in Italy and Matt liked it he liked it
so much he wanted to share it in his
group so Matt represented by the dot
shared it
with his amazingly large network of 567
people what Matt didn’t realize though
is when you start a message and when you
catalyze a movement and when you emit a
signal it takes on a life of its own in
Matt’s case it was shared to his friends
and friends and friends and friends
friends he didn’t even know at the end
he had reached 2.9 million people from
his 567 the result was a network that
exceeded most modern understanding of
social networking in fact this video
resulted in an unprecedented 40 million
people in receipt Matt started a
waterfall from his one message this is
Sara Sara’s a leadership coach in one
day came across a message about this man
Richard Overton now Richard is the
oldest living World War two veteran in
the United States his medical expenses
had exceeded the faculties of the
Veterans Administration and he needed
money to stay in his house and receive
24/7 care Sara was so moved by this like
Matt she took a chance she had hope that
somebody might agree with her message or
be moved in the way that she was moved
to actually do something about it she
posted it on her favorite social network
where
she had roughly 6,000 people that cared
about her content by no means was Sarah
a celebrity like Matt however Sowers
network took the content and spread it
to their friends ultimately reaching
over 400,000 people what did this really
mean I mean the fact that Sarah took a
chance to share content with her network
the fact that Sarah endorsed the content
had hope that somebody out there that
she likely doesn’t know would be moved
like she was the content ended up
reaching over six and a half million
people within 30 days over a hundred and
sixty thousand dollars had been raised
there’s roughly seven billion people
here today on this planet according to
many stats three and a half billion of
them have in our three and a half
billion of them have internet
connectivity so what does that mean it
means in many cases we should be able to
reach through one other person the
entire world when we signal a message we
should be able to incite the force in
the collective knowledge of the crowd
that’s connected this is my dad my dad
didn’t have a network like Sarah or like
Matt in fact in 2008 when he was
diagnosed with leukemia networks were
just developing the ability for a single
person to touch a nation in many cases
was fantasy
my dad died in 2012 and had I known then
would I know now I would have approached
his problem entirely differently see he
needed a bone marrow match and at that
time the hope and the belief of many
including myself was that our signal to
get a new bone marrow match had a
limited reach there’s only certain
number of people with the genetic
attributes needed and that is true but
what if we had a network like the Foo
Fighter video what if we could leverage
40 million people to get the message out
and say are you a match do you contain
this see the paradigm today should be
one that defaults to hope the paradigm
should be anything is possible the
paradigm should be you don’t need to be
a celebrity to influence you don’t need
to have 10 million followers to induce a
revolution you don’t need to be on TV
to change a nation torturous Carolinas
otherwise known as you and you and you
and you and you who by the beginning of
a simple signal can start a movement
this movement can impact a city this
movement can impact your town this
movement can impact the world it starts
with you
it starts with believing that anything
is possible when you show your light
thank you [Applause]
firefly i remember as a young boy
chasing these beetles all throughout the
woods in new england causing all sorts
of havoc maybe some neighbors called the
police etc but I was always mystified by
these tiny little creatures being able
to emit such a powerful strong signal
from their little bodies in fact this
particular species once a year for a
two-week period in the foothills of the
Appalachian Mountains does something
amazing see one single influencer among
all of these beetles emits a signal
flash flash shortly thereafter another
fly goes flash flash two four twenty a
hundred a thousand within minutes
there is a illustrious symphony of
flashes this synchronization of flashes
shows a display unmatched with many
other animals here on the planet see
this type of coordination continues to
baffle scientists but we do know that it
started with a signal that was picked up
by others and emulated the European
Starling first introduced into the
United States in the late 1800s by
Believe It or Not Shakespeare
enthusiasts in fact they released
several of them in Central Park because
they were so fascinated the number of
times Shakespeare referenced these birds
over 200 years later
they grew to a population exceeding 200
million one thing that’s really neat
about these birds though is the way they
signal each other one bird according to
many scientists communicates to its left
or to its right to seven other birds who
then communicate to their left and to
the right and the result much like the
fireflies is a coordinated orchestra of
flocks that pan in turn without any sort
of other stimulus you see these birds
have an ability as they continue to
communicate to do 90 and 180 degree
turns on a dime without any sort of
however the animals kingdom is not the
only place where we see the ability to
signal masses and the result become
unprecedented meet asthma mahfooz see
asthma in 2011 was just like you and I a
normal everyday hardworking person in
fact her country was experiencing a
revolution it was January 18 2011 and
for Egyptians had set themselves on fire
outside of Tahir Square protesting the
Mubarak regime unchallenged and
undaunted
and in many ways unprecedented asthma
sent a signal she posted a YouTube video
on the 24th of January that said join me
tomorrow on the 25th of January to
stand for the rights that we deserve as
human beings what she didn’t plan for
was hundreds of thousands of people
descending on Tahrir Square this
unprecedented action reaction was
something that was unable to be
predicted so when you look at beetles
and you look at birds and you look at
people we all seem to respond to the
signal of one person or thing or animal
or insect but we can never really
understand how far our signal may go so
I wanted to learn more I wanted to
understand this I built a software that
allowed me to look at things a little
bit differently so this is Matt Matt is
an amateur blogger for the New York Mets
being from Boston I’m not offended if he
was a Yankees fan we might have some
birds so Matt one day came across a
piece of content that influenced him the
piece of content was a video built by
the rock in 1,000 grit out of China
Italy this particular video was made for
five people Dave Grohl and the members
of the Foo Fighters band the video was a
call to action for the band to come play
in Italy and Matt liked it he liked it
so much he wanted to share it in his
group so Matt represented by the dot
shared it
with his amazingly large network of 567
people what Matt didn’t realize though
is when you start a message and when you
catalyze a movement and when you emit a
signal it takes on a life of its own in
Matt’s case it was shared to his friends
and friends and friends and friends
friends he didn’t even know at the end
he had reached 2.9 million people from
his 567 the result was a network that
exceeded most modern understanding of
social networking in fact this video
resulted in an unprecedented 40 million
people in receipt Matt started a
waterfall from his one message this is
Sara Sara’s a leadership coach in one
day came across a message about this man
Richard Overton now Richard is the
oldest living World War two veteran in
the United States his medical expenses
had exceeded the faculties of the
Veterans Administration and he needed
money to stay in his house and receive
24/7 care Sara was so moved by this like
Matt she took a chance she had hope that
somebody might agree with her message or
be moved in the way that she was moved
to actually do something about it she
posted it on her favorite social network
where
she had roughly 6,000 people that cared
about her content by no means was Sarah
a celebrity like Matt however Sowers
network took the content and spread it
to their friends ultimately reaching
over 400,000 people what did this really
mean I mean the fact that Sarah took a
chance to share content with her network
the fact that Sarah endorsed the content
had hope that somebody out there that
she likely doesn’t know would be moved
like she was the content ended up
reaching over six and a half million
people within 30 days over a hundred and
sixty thousand dollars had been raised
there’s roughly seven billion people
here today on this planet according to
many stats three and a half billion of
them have in our three and a half
billion of them have internet
connectivity so what does that mean it
means in many cases we should be able to
reach through one other person the
entire world when we signal a message we
should be able to incite the force in
the collective knowledge of the crowd
that’s connected this is my dad my dad
didn’t have a network like Sarah or like
Matt in fact in 2008 when he was
diagnosed with leukemia networks were
just developing the ability for a single
person to touch a nation in many cases
was fantasy
my dad died in 2012 and had I known then
would I know now I would have approached
his problem entirely differently see he
needed a bone marrow match and at that
time the hope and the belief of many
including myself was that our signal to
get a new bone marrow match had a
limited reach there’s only certain
number of people with the genetic
attributes needed and that is true but
what if we had a network like the Foo
Fighter video what if we could leverage
40 million people to get the message out
and say are you a match do you contain
this see the paradigm today should be
one that defaults to hope the paradigm
should be anything is possible the
paradigm should be you don’t need to be
a celebrity to influence you don’t need
to have 10 million followers to induce a
revolution you don’t need to be on TV
to change a nation torturous Carolinas
otherwise known as you and you and you
and you and you who by the beginning of
a simple signal can start a movement
this movement can impact a city this
movement can impact your town this
movement can impact the world it starts
with you
it starts with believing that anything
is possible when you show your light
thank you [Applause]
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