Barry Schwartz speaks at TED on Our Loss of Wisdom. His message is so engaging that it is easy to overlook some of the reasons that he is able to hold our attention so well.

• He is totally engaging, even though he never leaves the podium and uses only a few simple slides.
• He makes marvelous use of metaphor and story.
• Though he speaks on a profound issue, he is easy to understand, and makes us well aware of the gap between what is, and what should be.
• He speaks about something that every viewer has experienced to some degree.
• Though he speaks from a script, he seldom looks at it, and makes excellent use of eye contact, gesture, and vocal variety.
• He is persuasive and makes both authoritative and playful reference to things ranging from Aristotle to Jazz.
• While alerting us to a serious crisis at hand, he is also reassuring that we can do something about it.
• Though his style is more oratorical, he alerts us to our loss of wisdom, and our loss of the ability to improvise, to think on our feet.