TEDxZurich 2011
Sebastian Wernicke: 1,000 TED Talks in six words
Sebastian Wernicke: 1000 TEDTalks, 6 palabras
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Sebastian Wernicke piensa que cada TEDTalk se puede resumir en seis palabras. En TEDxZurich muestra cómo hacerlo incluso usando menos.
Sebastian Wernicke - Data scientist
After making a splash in the field of bioinformatics, Sebastian Wernicke moved on to the corporate sphere, where he motivates and manages multidimensional projects. Full bio
After making a splash in the field of bioinformatics, Sebastian Wernicke moved on to the corporate sphere, where he motivates and manages multidimensional projects. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
There's currently over a thousand TEDTalks on the TED website.
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Actualmente hay más de 1000 TEDTalks en el sitio de TED.
00:19
And I guess many of you here
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Y supongo que muchos de Uds.
00:22
think that this is quite fantastic --
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pensarán que es estupendo...
00:24
except for me. I don't agree with this.
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salvo yo. Yo no estoy de acuerdo.
00:26
I think we have a situation here.
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Creo que aquí hay un problema.
00:28
Because if you think about it, 1,000 TEDTalks,
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Porque, si lo piensan, 1000 TEDTalks
00:31
that's over 1,000 ideas worth spreading.
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son más de 1000 ideas que vale la pena divulgar.
00:34
How on earth
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¿Cómo diablos
00:36
are you going to spread a thousand ideas?
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se pueden divulgar 1000 ideas?
00:38
Even if you just try to get all of those ideas into your head
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Incluso si intentáramos meternos esas ideas en la cabeza
00:40
by watching all those thousand TED videos,
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mirando esos 1000 videos de TED,
00:42
it would actually currently take you
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sólo hacer eso nos llevaría
00:45
over 250 hours to do so.
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más de 250 horas.
00:47
And I did a little calculation of this.
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E hice un cálculo simple.
00:49
The damage to the economy for each one who does this
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El daño a la economía por cada persona que lo haga
00:52
is around $15,000.
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es de unos 15 000 dólares.
00:54
So having seen this danger to the economy,
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Dado este problema para la economía
00:57
I thought, we need to find a solution to this problem.
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pensé que debíamos encontrar una solución.
01:00
Here's my approach to it all.
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Este es mi enfoque al tema.
01:02
If you look at the current situation,
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Si vemos la situación actual
01:04
you have a thousand TEDTalks.
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tenemos 1000 TEDTalks.
01:06
Each of those TEDTalks has an average length
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La longitud media de cada TEDTalk
01:08
of about 2,300 words.
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es de unas 2300 palabras.
01:10
Now take this together
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Juntemos ambas cosas
01:12
and you end up with 2.3 million words of TEDTalks,
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y tendremos 2,3 millones de palabras en las TEDTalks;
01:15
which is about three Bibles-worth of content.
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el tamaño de unas tres Biblias.
01:18
The obvious question here is,
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La pregunta obvia es:
01:20
does a TEDTalk really need 2,300 words?
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¿Una TEDTalk necesita 2300 palabras?
01:23
Isn't there something shorter?
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¿No se puede acortar?
01:25
I mean, if you have an idea worth spreading,
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Digo, si tenemos una idea que vale la pena divulgar,
01:27
surely you can put it into something shorter
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seguramente se puede expresar más brevemente
01:29
than 2,300 words.
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que con 2300 palabras.
01:31
The only question is, how short can you get?
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La pregunta es: ¿cuánto puede acortarse?
01:33
What's the minimum amount of words
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¿Cuál es la mínima cantidad de palabras
01:35
you would need to do a TEDTalk?
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necesarias para hacer una TEDTalk?
01:37
While I was pondering this question,
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Mientras pensaba en esta cuestión
01:39
I came across this urban legend about Ernest Hemingway,
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encontré una leyenda urbana sobre Ernest Hemingway,
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who allegedly said that these six words here:
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que supuestamente dijo que estas seis palabras:
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"For sale: baby shoes, never worn,"
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"A la venta zapatitos sin usar",
01:48
were the best novel he had ever written.
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era la mejor novela de su obra.
01:51
And I also encountered a project called Six-Word Memoirs
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Y encontré un proyecto llamado "Recuerdos en seis palabras"
01:53
where people were asked,
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donde se pidió a las personas
01:55
take your whole life and please sum this up into six words, such as these here:
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resumir la vida entera en seis palabras, como éstas:
01:58
"Found true love, married someone else."
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"Amor verdadero... en otro matrimonio."
02:00
Or "Living in existential vacuum; it sucks."
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O, "Vivir en el vacío existencial apesta".
02:03
I actually like that one.
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Me gusta esa última.
02:05
So if a novel can be put into six words
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Entonces, si con seis palabras se escribe
02:08
and a whole memoir can be put into six words,
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una novela y todo un recuerdo,
02:11
you don't need more than six words for a TEDTalk.
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no hace falta más de seis palabras para una TEDTalk.
02:14
We could have been done by lunch here.
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Podríamos haber terminado para el almuerzo.
02:16
I mean ...
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Digo...
02:19
And if you did this for all thousand TEDTalks,
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Y si hiciéramos lo mismo con las 1000 TEDTalks
02:21
you would get from 2.3 million words down to 6,000.
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bajaríamos de los 2,3 millones de palabras a 6000.
02:24
So I thought this was quite worthwhile.
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Por eso pensé que esto valía la pena.
02:26
So I started asking all my friends,
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Empecé a pedirle a mis amigos
02:28
please take your favorite TEDTalk and put that into six words.
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que expresaran su TEDTalk favorita en seis palabras.
02:31
So here are some of the results that I received. I think they're quite nice.
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Estos son algunos resultados que recibí. Creo que son bastante buenos.
02:33
For example, Dan Pink's talk on motivation,
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Por ejemplo, la charla de Dan Pink sobre la motivación
02:35
which was pretty good if you haven't seen it:
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que es bastante buena, si no la han visto:
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"Drop carrot. Drop stick. Bring meaning."
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"Sin garrote, ni zanahoria: aporte sentido".
02:39
It's what he's basically talking about in those 18 and a half minutes.
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De eso habla en los 18 minutos y pico.
02:42
Or some even included references to the speakers,
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Otros mencionan características oratorias
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such as Nathan Myhrvold's speaking style,
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como el estilo de Nathan Myhrvold
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or the one of Tim Ferriss,
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o el de Tim Ferriss,
02:48
which might be considered a bit strenuous at times.
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que a veces pueden considerarse un poco extenuantes.
02:51
The challenge here is, if I try to systematically do this,
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El desafío de hacerlo de manera sistemática
02:54
I would probably end up with a lot of summaries,
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es que quizá termine con muchos resúmenes
02:56
but not with many friends in the end.
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pero con no tantos amigos.
02:58
So I had to find a different method,
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Por eso tuve que encontrar un método diferente,
03:00
preferably involving total strangers.
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preferiblemente involucrando a extraños.
03:02
And luckily there's a website for that called Mechanical Turk,
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Por suerte hay un sitio llamado Mechanical Turk
03:05
which is a website where you can post tasks
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donde se pueden publicar tareas
03:07
that you don't want to do yourself,
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que uno no quiere hacer
03:09
such as "Please summarize this text for me in six words."
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como "Por favor, resuman este texto en seis palabras".
03:12
And I didn't allow any low-cost countries to work on this,
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No permití que la tarea se realizara en países de bajo costo
03:15
but I found out I could get a six-word summary for just 10 cents,
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pero descubrí resúmenes de seis palabras por solo 10 centavos
03:19
which I think is a pretty good price.
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que creo es un precio bastante bueno.
03:21
Even then, unfortunately,
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Aún así, por desgracia,
03:23
it's not possible to summarize each TEDTalk individually.
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no es posible resumir cada TEDTalk de forma individual.
03:26
Because if you do the math, you have a thousand TEDTalks,
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Si hacen la cuenta, hay 1000 TEDTalks,
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the pay 10 cents each;
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se paga 10 centavos cada una;
03:30
you have to do more than one summary for each of those talks,
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uno tiene que hacer más de un resumen por cada charla
03:33
because some of them will probably be, or are, really bad.
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porque alguna quizá sea, o son, muy malas.
03:36
So I would end up paying hundreds of dollars.
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Terminaría pagando cientos de dólares.
03:39
So I thought of a different way
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Por eso pensé algo diferente;
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by thinking, well, the talks revolve around certain themes.
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bien, las charlas tratan ciertos temas.
03:44
So what if I don't let people summarize
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Y si, en vez de pedirle a las personas
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individual TEDTalks to six words,
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que resuman las TEDTalks en seis palabras,
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but give them 10 TEDTalks at the same time
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les damos 10 TEDTalks al mismo tiempo y les
03:50
and say, "Please do a six-word summary for that one."
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pedimos: "Por favor, resuman esto en seis palabras".
03:53
I would cut my costs by 90 percent.
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Recortaría los costos en un 90%.
03:55
So for $60,
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Por 60 dólares
03:58
I could summarize a thousand TEDTalks
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podría resumir 1000 TEDTalks
04:00
into just 600 summaries,
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en 600 resúmenes
04:02
which would actually be quite nice.
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algo que no estaría mal.
04:04
Now some of you might actually right now be thinking,
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Alguno de Uds. podría estar pensando
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It's downright crazy to have 10 TEDTalks summarized into just six words.
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que francamente es una locura resumir 10 TEDTalks en seis palabras.
04:09
But it's actually not,
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Pero no lo es
04:11
because there's an example by statistics professor, Hans Rosling.
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porque hay un ejemplo del profesor de estadística, Hans Rosling.
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I guess many of you have seen one or more of his talks.
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Supongo que muchos de Uds. han visto alguna charla suya.
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He's got eight talks online,
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Tiene ocho charlas en línea
04:18
and those talks can basically be summed up into just four words,
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que pueden resumirse en sólo cuatro palabras
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because that's all he's basically showing us,
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porque es eso lo que nos está mostrando:
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our intuition is really bad.
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"nuestra intuición es pésima".
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He always proves us wrong.
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Siempre muestra que nos equivocamos.
04:27
So people on the Internet, some didn't do so well.
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En Internet algunas personas no lo hicieron bien.
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I mean, when I asked them to summarize the 10 TEDTalks at the same time,
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Cuando les pedí que resumieran 10 TEDTalks al mismo tiempo
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some took the easy route out.
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algunos tomaron el camino fácil.
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They just had some general comment.
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Ponían algún comentario general.
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There were others, and I found this quite cheeky.
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Había otros que, y esto me pareció bastante descarado,
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They used their six words to talk back to me
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usaban las seis palabras para responderme
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and ask me if I'd been too much on Google lately.
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si había pasado mucho tiempo en Google últimamente.
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And finally also, I never understood this,
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Y finalmente, nunca entendí esto,
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some people really came up with their own version of the truth.
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algunas personas salieron con una versión propia de la verdad.
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I don't know any TEDTalk that contains this.
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No conozco ninguna TEDTalk que diga eso.
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But, oh well. In the end, however,
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Pero, bueno. Al final, no obstante,
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and this is really amazing,
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esto es lo realmente increíble,
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for each of those 10 TEDTalk clusters that I submitted,
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para cada grupo de 10 TEDTalks que envié
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I actually received meaningful summaries.
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recibí resúmenes significativos.
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Here are some of my favorites.
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Estos son algunos de mis favoritos.
05:05
For example, for all the TEDTalks around food,
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Por ejemplo, para las TEDTalks sobre alimentos,
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someone summed this up into: "Food shaping body, brains and environment,"
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alguien lo resumió así: "La comida es cuerpo, mente, ambiente",
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which I think is pretty good.
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que no está tan mal.
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Or happiness: "Striving toward happiness =
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O la felicidad: "Forzar felicidad es
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moving toward unhappiness."
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desembocar en infelicidad".
05:15
So here I was.
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En eso estaba.
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I had started out with a thousand TEDTalks
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Comencé con 1000 TEDTalks
05:19
and I had 600 six-word summaries for those.
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y tenía 600 resúmenes de seis palabras.
05:22
Actually it sounded nice in the beginning,
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Al principio sonaba bien
05:24
but when you look at 600 summaries, it's quite a lot.
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pero luego 600 resúmenes es demasiado.
05:26
It's a huge list.
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Es una lista enorme.
05:28
So I thought, I probably have to take this one step further here
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Entonces pensé en dar un paso adelante
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and create summaries of the summaries -- and this is exactly what I did.
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y crear resúmenes de los resúmenes... y así hice.
05:35
So I took the 600 summaries that I had,
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Tomé los 600 resúmenes que tenía,
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put them into nine groups
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los dividí en nueve grupos,
05:39
according to the ratings that the talks had originally received on TED.com
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de acuerdo a las valoraciones de las charlas en TED.com
05:43
and asked people to do summaries of those.
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y le pedí a las personas que las resumieran.
05:46
Again, there were some misunderstandings.
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Otra vez, hubo algunos malentendidos.
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For example, when I had a cluster of all the beautiful talks,
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Por ejemplo, en el grupo de las charlas hermosas,
05:50
someone thought I was just trying to find the ultimate pick-up line.
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alguno pensó que trataba de encontrar la frase suprema.
05:53
But in the end, amazingly,
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Pero al final, sorprendentemente,
05:56
again, people were able to do it.
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nuevamente lo lograron.
05:58
For example, all the courageous TEDTalks:
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Por ejemplo, las TEDTalks valientes:
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"People dying," or "People suffering," was also one,
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"personas moribundas" o "personas sufriendo" eran una:
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"with easy solutions around."
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"rodeadas de soluciones fáciles".
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Or the recipe for the ultimate jaw-dropping TEDTalk:
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O la receta de la TEDTalk más pasmosa:
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"Flickr photos of intergalactic classical composer."
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"Foto-Flickr de compositor clásico intergaláctico".
06:09
I mean that's the essence of it all.
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Digo, es la esencia de todas ellas.
06:12
Now I had my nine groups,
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Ahora tenía mis grupos de nueve,
06:14
but, I mean, it's already quite a reduction.
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eso en sí ya es una gran reducción.
06:17
But of course, once you are that far, you're not really satisfied.
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Pero claro, si ya hemos llegado tan lejos, queremos más.
06:20
I wanted to go all the way, all the way down the distillery,
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Yo quería ir al final, llegar al fondo de la destilación,
06:23
starting out with a thousand TEDTalks.
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a partir de 1000 TEDTalks.
06:25
I wanted to have a thousand TEDTalks summarized into just six words --
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Quería llegar a resumir las 1000 TEDTalks en seis palabras
06:28
which would be a 99.9997 percent reduction in content.
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una reducción de contenido del 99,9997%.
06:32
And I would only pay $99.50 --
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Y sólo pagaría 99,50 dólares
06:35
so stay even below a hundred dollars for it.
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estaría así por debajo de los 100 dólares.
06:38
So I had 50 overall summaries done.
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Ya tenía 50 resúmenes generales.
06:40
This time I paid 25 cents
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Esta vez pagué 25 centavos
06:42
because I thought the task was a bit harder.
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porque pensé que la tarea era más difícil.
06:45
And unfortunately when I first received the answers --
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Lamentablemente, cuando recibí las respuestas
06:47
and here you'll see six of the answers --
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-aquí verán seis de ellas-
06:49
I was a bit disappointed.
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quedé un poco decepcionado.
06:51
Because I think you'll agree, they all summarize some aspect of TED,
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Porque creo que estarán de acuerdo, todas resumen aspectos de TED,
06:54
but to me they felt a bit bland,
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pero son un poco sosas
06:56
or they just had a certain aspect of TED in them.
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o captan sólo un aspecto de TED.
06:59
So I was almost ready to give up
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Estaba a punto de darme por vencido
07:02
when one night I played around with these sentences
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hasta que una noche, jugando con estas oraciones,
07:04
and found out that there's actually a beautiful solution in here.
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hallé que contienen una solución hermosa.
07:08
So here it is,
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Y es ésta,
07:11
a crowd-sourced, six-word summary of a thousand TEDTalks
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un resumen colectivo de seis palabras para 1000 TEDTalks
07:15
at the value of $99.50:
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por US$ 99,50:
07:18
"Why the worry? I'd rather wonder."
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"¿Por qué preocuparme si puedo maravillarme?"
07:20
Thank you very much.
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Muchas gracias.
07:22
(Applause)
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(Aplausos)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sebastian Wernicke - Data scientistAfter making a splash in the field of bioinformatics, Sebastian Wernicke moved on to the corporate sphere, where he motivates and manages multidimensional projects.
Why you should listen
Dr. Sebastian Wernicke is the Chief Data Scientist of ONE LOGIC, a data science boutique that supports organizations across industries to make sense of their vast data collections to improve operations and gain strategic advantages. Wernicke originally studied bioinformatics and previously led the strategy and growth of Seven Bridges Genomics, a Cambridge-based startup that builds platforms for genetic analysis.
Before his career in statistics began, Wernicke worked stints as both a paramedic and successful short animated filmmaker. He's also the author of the TEDPad app, an irreverent tool for creating an infinite number of "amazing and really bad" and mostly completely meaningless talks. He's the author of the statistically authoritative and yet completely ridiculous "How to Give the Perfect TEDTalk."
Sebastian Wernicke | Speaker | TED.com