Dean Carnegie Gives a TED Talk

It was such an honor to be asked to speak at the TEDx Foggybottom Conference this year. They wanted me to talk on magic history and they wanted me to present some magic. The only issue was the 8 minute time frame in which to do it all!

If you've never listened to or watched a TED Talk, you really should go over to Youtube and check
out a few of them. They are excellent and on many different topics. In the past, other magicians have talked or performed at various TED events across the globe, so I'm in good company.

My talk was about 5 minutes with the rest of the time taken up with the magic routine I selected. Because I was speaking on history, I chose to present it in my Victorian garb and that also meant the magic routine had a bit of that style with it as well.

The organizers at the TEDx Foggybottom event were fantastic during every step of the process. They helped me take my speech from an ok talk to a TED Talk. I was very happy with the final result.....HOWEVER, I really wish I had gone ahead and delivered the final paragraph of the talk that I had just edited out to make the whole thing fit the timeframe. I noticed that many of the speakers went over their allotted time. In fact, some went VERY far past the time constraints. I would have probably gone over by 2 minutes at the most. Would it have made things any better? In my mind, I think it would have made the talk a tad stronger. But alas, I was happy with what I delivered.

If you'd like to see the speech for yourself, you can view it below!