I spent last week in Oxford at my first TEDGlobal conference.  I was unexpectedly struck by the parallels between this prestigious gathering of global intelligentsia and an event ostensibly as far away at the other side of the spectrum as possible – Burning Man. 

Burning Man is near impossible to explain to the uninitiated, let alone succinctly.  It’s like dropping yourself on another planet with an entirely different species of human being.  You’re on a dusty dried lakebed that loo...