Tongue-In-Cheek TED Talk Dos & Don'ts

Susan notes: Thanks to TED for making TED Talks downloadable and embeddable, and for providing the biographical information that goes along with them.

In a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek analysis, Sebastian Wernicke turns the tools of statistical analysis on TEDTalks, to come up with a metric for creating "the optimum TEDTalk" based on user ratings. How do you rate it? "Jaw-dropping"? "Unconvincing"? Or just plain "Funny"?

After making a splash in the field of bioinformatics, Sebastian Wernicke moved on to the corporate sphere where he motivates and manages multidimensional projects.

Currently an Engagement Manager at Oliver Wyman, Sebastian Wernicke originally studied bioinformatics at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena. During his time in academia, he devised an algorithm for analyzing biological networks that now aids researchers in dealing with their innate complexity.

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.