"When I pick up a book, if it's a novel, I know that I have so many more pages to read. I know where I am in the story. When I watch a movie that I know is two hours, I know that no matter what happens in the first five minutes, it's not the end of the movie. It's going to take two hours to go through the plot. I have a sense of where I am. This is not a trivial issue. It gives me a base. It's a centering thing."
Wurman created the TED conference in 1984, bringing together many of America’s clearest thinkers in the fields of technology, entertainment and design. He also created the eg conference in 2006 and continues to co-chair the annual TEDMED meetings, which he began in 1995. He chaired the IDCA Conference in 1972, the First Federal Design assembly in 1973, and the annual AIA Conference in 1976.
Now in his 76th year, Wurman continues to quell his restless intellect with a slough of new projects. In September, 2012, his WWW.WWW conference will be an active gathering of the world's greatest minds discussing the complexity of emerging patterns on our planet. 19.20.21, in partnership with ESRI and @radical.media, endeavors to standardize a methodology for understanding comparative data on 19 cities that will have 20 million or more inhabitants in the 21st century.
He is also an architect, a cartographer, the creator of the Access Travel Guide Series, and the author and designer of more than sixty books, including Information Architects, Follow the Yellow Brick Road, and Information Anxiety.
