Live From TED2023

You decide if this is testament to the power of meetings in general or of the TED conference in particular: As part of their viral-marketing campaign for the upcoming summer blockbuster "Prometheus," filmmakers Ridley Scott and Damon Lindelof have released a TEDTalk from the year 2023 by one of the film's characters -- industrialist Peter Weyland, played by Guy Pearce. The three-minute video was created with the full cooperation of TED, and even has an official page on TED's blog, complete with "About This Talk" and "About the Speaker" tabs.

Why TED? "'Prometheus' takes place in the future, but it's a movie about ideas, and I just felt like it would be really cool to have one of the characters from the movie give a TEDTalk," Lindelof tells a TED interviewer. "Obviously, since the movie is set in the distant future, it would have to be a little more contemporary. But wouldn't it be cool if it was a TED talk from a decade in the future? And what is a TEDTalk going to look like in 10 years? And what would this guy have to say?"

Well, among other things, he might say that a conference is just the place to announce that you're going to change the world.