My perfect weekend: Bruno Giussani, European director of TED Another habit is reading the Sunday newspapers of whichever city I happen to be in. I am still attracted to printed papers despite all the laptops and tablets you get now. I was a journalist before I worked for TED, and I spent the first 15 years of my career reporting for newspapers everywhere from Switzerland to Italy to the US. When I started out, newspapers were still produced by hot metal type, which gives you a sense of my age but also explains why, for me, they will always mean more as pieces of paper with words printed on them. My weekday news scanning is very much functional and efficient, trying not to miss anything, whereas on the weekends I do more leisurely, serene reading. I had a couple of career shifts between journalism and joining TED, but essentially what I do now is still very much an editorial job. I still go out, find great stories and distribute them to others, but the difference is that rather than interviewing the source and writing up their ideas, I put them on stage to deliver a talk and bring their thoughts to the world themselves. We want the TED talks to be a celebration of human ingenuity in every field, so I spend a lot of my time doing research on obscure trade publications, or going to visit university labs and asking what is new in many different areas. We don't do specialised "vertical" programmes, as they call it in the industry, where we devote a whole conference day to one particular sector, but instead we try and put together a diverse agenda that looks at a wide variety of inventiveness. So you'll have famous speakers alongside totally unknown people, and young, emerging characters who talk about everything from global issues to very specific niche ideas. A large part of my job is helping the speakers shape the best possible talk they can give. Even something as small as structure can have a big impact. How many times do we go to conferences and hear someone start their talk by saying "Thank you for inviting me, it is great to be here," instead of jumping straight into the key topic? A good talk comes down to serious preparation, but we are always surprised at which talks end up being the most successful. Hans Rosling, for example, is a Swedish demographer who gave a talk about complex global statistics. This is data that is, on the face of it, very dry, but he presented it using clever moving graphics that he evaluated with the energy of a football commentator, and people just went "wow!" That video has now been seen by millions. Another talk that really stood out for me was one by the neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, who decided that of the 20 different ways she could potentially explain how the brain works, it was best to bring a real human brain from her lab to show the audience. Then there was the time Bill Gates released a jar of mosquitoes into the audience at his talk on malaria, to demonstrate that there was no reason only poor people got the disease. Of course the mosquitoes weren't infected, but tricks like that really make the audience understand an issue in a different way. Though all the talks are free to watch online, the attendees at our two annual conferences pay to hear them. The audience ranges from the founders of Google to activists from India, but the characteristic they all have in common is curiosity. You don't come to TED if you are looking for what is new in your specific field, you come to learn and explore ideas from all areas of life that can be cross-pollinated with your own. Tickets for the week-long conference cost $7,500 (£4,900), so we have to make it worth their while. Time and attention are the scarcest resources. We do get criticised for ticket price and yes, it is steep. But the revenue allows us to get the best speakers and to keep our other new initiatives going. We have a fantastically exciting new project called TEDx, which allows local groups to organise independent events modelled on the TED format. About 6,000 of those have taken place in the past three years and they've been held in very unexpected places, for example in Kybera, Nairobi, the biggest slum in Africa; Everest base camp; and pretty much every capital city in North Africa and the Arab world. The talks actually became a particularly good discussion ground in the aftermath of the Arab Spring when people were considering the future of their region, and it's fantastic that we played a role in that. I have to admit that I am so involved with my work that time off and time on for me mix up completely. If, by time off, you mean do I just lie on the beach and relax and read a novel? It happens, sometimes, but it doesn't last long. Herbal tea. Who inspires you? I met the Pope a few weeks ago and came away with a huge amount to think about. What are you listening to? I am selecting performers for TEDGlobal, our Edinburgh summer conference, so I'm listening to everything from young rock performers to classical pianists. It sounds like the perfect moment to stop the diet. Favourite place? I was born in the mountains, so I guess a chalet in the Swiss Alps. Running in forests My autographed copy of Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts The complete West Wing DVD box set Reading, writing and thinking in a café My ultra-light laptop This year's conference, TED2013, takes place next week in Long Beach, California. TEDGlobal2013 will take place in Edinburgh from 10 -14 June