Marie Potel-Saville brings predatory design to the TEDxAtlanta stage

On Saturday, Marie Potel-Saville, CEO and co-founder of FairPatterns, gave her first TED talk at TEDxAtlanta, held this year under the theme Ideas into Action. Her subject was predatory design. It is not an easy topic to bring to a general audience, and she was delighted with how warmly the room received it.

Four months of work for ten minutes on stage

Getting there took about four months. The script went through around twenty versions, with dozens of working sessions and hundreds of rehearsals along the way. To hold the whole talk in her head, Marie built a memory palace, a technique where each part of a speech is tied to a place you can walk through in your mind. After all that preparation, she says the ten minutes on stage seemed to pass in a flash.

The message

The talk was built around an idea that sits at the heart of FairPatterns' work. Predatory design quietly undermines our ability to make free choices, and Marie sees that as a market issue. Products can now influence the nervous systems of billions of people, so in her view we should not wait for harm to happen before asking for safety tests.

What she proposed is a crash test for digital products. Before an app or platform reaches your phone, it would be checked to make sure it is free of predatory design, much like a car is tested before it is allowed on the road.

Two days with 24 speakers

Beyond the talk itself, the event left a lasting impression. Under the careful curation of Jacqui C., 24 speakers and innovators of all ages and backgrounds spent two days together, and the connections felt genuine.

Marie was impressed by every one of them, including Keeyen Martin, Michael Chanin, Evana E., Kanushi Dua, Akos Vida, Ethan Benater, Nidhi Madam and Matias Cevallos.

Some talks spoke directly to her professional world, such as those by Vijay Balasubramaniyan, Sig Mosley, Karen Robinson Cope and Wendi Williams. Others touched her on a personal level, in particular the talks from Meena Krenek, Margaret Weniger and Rafi Kohan. A few left her amazed: Chris Jeckel spinning Paula Bui while blindfolded, and Temple Lester, who refused to be "just a princess" and fought to pursue her passion for science.

Marie is grateful to Jacqui C. for putting the programme together with such skill, to Ana Tardio for taking such good care of her throughout, and to the team of volunteers who made the event possible.

A calmer side of Atlanta

One thing she hadn't expected was the wildlife. Deer and squirrels wandered around the campus, which made for a welcome breather after a hectic stretch in New York.

When can you watch the talk?

TEDx talks take several months to be edited before they go online, so the recording won't be available for a while. We'll share it here as soon as it is published.