Here, for you, are the videos we showed.

Christopher McDougall’s talk appealed as several of the TEDxCanberra team are runners. None particularly talented, but certainly enthusiastic. His take on how and why we run, and both the scientific and cultural aspects are worth paying close attention to.

Emily Pilloton’s talk about revitalising rural towns through design thinking hit us where it counts. Drive through any small town in rural Australia and the situation is little different to that Emily shows in Bertie County, North Carolina. Revitalising our rural communities and providing them with the necessary infrastructure to thrive, ought to be a priority we all share.

More than a few TEDxCanberra team members are data geeks as well as being deeply interested in issues of sustainability. Rapid, cheap and clean transmission of data, especially if Harald Haas’ work can be developed into multiple data streams in multiple directions, has enormous energy, sustainability and communications implications.

Brian Cox is a personal hero of TEDxCanberra’s Creative Catalyst, Stephen Collins. Not to mention his wife, Alli, considers Professor Cox to have about the sexiest voice ever. His call for us to strive for ongoing curiosity about all aspects of our universe has an appeal we can’t deny.

We’re lucky that our town is so diverse and beautiful, and that there are some talented photographers around that choose to document it in a way that allows us to reuse their work.

They’re all available on Flickr and they’re licensed with a Creative Commons license.

So, what does it really take to put together a talk for the real deal? In the short film below, you can see what a TED newbie and a TED veteran each go through to deliver their talks at TED 2010 as Sir Ken Robinson and Raghava KK prepare.

The original version of this video can be seen at TED.com, where you can also see the talks referred to.

However at TEDGlobal during the norther Summer, Chris spoke at length about the equalising, world-changing power of web video. It’s an interesting insight, especially coming from an organisation whose profile has been fundamentally changed by the emergence of video on the web and the transformative power it has.

However, amongst all that preparation, the most important thing is what our presenters deliver on the day. We’re working with each of them to ensure they bring their A-game. Some of them have told us they’re feeling the pressure.

To get a feel for what it takes, check out this great video taking you behind the scenes of the preparation and delivery of a TEDTalk.

Enjoy.