Rodney Mullen is the bomb, no other skater has done as much
for street skating as Mullen and his vast bag of original tricks. Notoriously
shy and also kind of goofy it is with excitement that we share this TED talk
with the skate innovator at USC campus. Rodney discuss’ inventing some of the
most fundamental tricks used today as well as (as the title suggests) how
context shapes content. Rodney also likens skateboarding to hacking and open
source computing communities where individual’s take something and through a
deeper understanding of it make improvements and give it a new context.
“What do skateboarding and innovation have in common? More
than you might think. A successful entrepreneur and innovator, Rodney Mullen is
widely considered the most influential street skater in history, inventing most
of the tricks used today. By the time he was 23, Mullen had already set new
milestones for skateboarding winning 35 out of 36 freestyle competitions. He
studied engineering at the University of Florida before co-founding World
Industries, the largest skate company of the 90's, which was acquired for more
than $20m. He continues to skate, innovate, and design some 30 years after he
won his first world championship at the age of 11. Mullen spends his spare time
thinking about open source communities, hacking the urban terrain, and
transforming the mundane into something new. He'll be featured in the upcoming
documentary, "The Bones Brigade: An Autobiography."
