The first day of TED is designed to get you up to speed, see friends, and get in the "TED Head". It's a pretty fast transition... complete with Rock Stars (both literal and figurative) and mind blowing ideas. My memories of the day are a bit of stream of consciousnesses... Standing in lobby of the Portola Plaza and watching Forrest Whitiker hanging out with Jeff Skoll and Lawrence Bender - and realize the number of Oscars between them - was cool. (photo: TED curator and Magnify.net investor Chris Anderson with Magnify CEO Steve Rosenbaum)

But the handful of faces you recognize from Hollywood is quickly overwhelmed by the time honored practice of namebadge reading... Nobel Laureate's Murray Gell-man, Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the amazing data storytelling of Hans Rosling. Rosling last year amazed the crowd with a way to visualize demographic data. It made the shifts in the planet visible - both inspirational and troubling. This year, he came back with even more visualization tools. You should see him online - watch the video - and check out tools.

The morning was 6 mini-sessions called TED University... and with an extraordinary collection of topics I found it was an embarrassment of riches. I learned how to be lucky. I learned how to fly a helicopter. I got a refresher course in Venture Capital from David Rose, and I learned about Web 2.0 and sat in on a talk about video blogging.

Sessions - Jeff Hann, a interface rock-star from last year - was back again. Wowing the crowd with "Minority Report" style multi-touch wall panel.

Evening - Magnify friends and partners are here in force. Lisa Gansky, Chris Anderson, Jack Meyers, Fred Graver, Kate Stohr...

Lisa Gansky visits with Chris Anderson