Letter to TEDx India Licensees | Hacker News Reader

Letter to TEDx India Licensees

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131 pointsJagat68 comments

> Individuals intentionally blurring the difference between TED and TEDx.

> Speakers who abuse the TEDx platform by turning their speaking opportunity into a promotion for themselves or a book tour.

I see these two rules broken all the time. Just a few weeks ago I read a tweet from one of the new-age social media experts which said "Go and watch my TED talk about social media.." and I clicked on it thinking it would be a TED talk ..

It turned out to be a TEDx talk, he had linked to the 6th second of the video so that the 'TEDx' bumper wouldn't be seen, and the entire talk was about his upcoming book. This was at TEDx San Francisco.

The whole TEDx brand has been ruined for me. It wasn't the first time that a TEDx video I had watched had been misrepresented or was just a sales pitch. I actively avoid anything TEDx related, unless I have been tricked into clicking it.

Edit: and if you are wondering why TED has such strict rules, which I am only seeing today for the first time, now you know - they want to protect their brand from incidents like this so viewers like me aren't turned off.

thats sad because TED was meant to be this high signal to noise ratio talks about interesting topics.

Is this the video in question http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onaapqbCXQ8

No, but that one is awfully similar. The video I was referring to was presented on a more professional TED-looking stage, which is why the author tried to pass it off as a TED talk.

At least a sales pitch tries to sell you something real (usually), which is still better than the crockpot pseudoscience bollocks I've seen in other TEDx. These do much more damage to the TED brand in my opinion.

The guy who was fired (Kiruba Shankar) is an empty suit. Here is a cease and desist letter from Wikimedia to him a couple of years back -- http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Lett...

Breaking the rules or not, I have to say the TEDx brand is pretty weak to me. TED talks are, or at least used to be, fantastic. I would think that is more because of filtering of speakers than the format of the event. Nowadays I'm much more sceptical to those talks, and would easily take a recommendation for a non-branded talk over a TED(x) branded one.

I agree -- I think TEDx does a lot more damage to the TED brand than it adds. I really hate how the video archives online often mix the two, with some of the TEDx talks being (at best) self promotion, and often utterly whacko.

AMEN.

Absolutely. When they first announced the TEDx plan, I was bewildered. For an operation that held itself to such high (and at the time exclusive) standards, I couldn't figure out why it would use such a strategy to expand. It seemed like the inevitable result would only be brand dilution.

Well the curation needs to be done with some more deliberation.

As I see it, TEDx talks are not at the same level as TED talks. TEDx is for a community, TED is for the world.

This is mistitled, as far as I can see? TEDx Chennai's license has been canceled, not the whole of India's. The e-mail is a warning/threat to the rest of the India licensees, that's all.

That's how I read it too ... I think this is actually a pretty wise idea as it's almost like the "warning shot across the bow" to the other communities that are violating the policies. The whole letter sounds like they've shown a lot of restraint! I love TED and TEDx!

Title edited. Thanks.

From talking to TEDx organizers here in Taiwan, it's a major pain to satisfy some of the arbitrary rules. I'm sure that many of them has reason why it is like that, even if they sometimes look very stupid or made by people who have no idea about things that are local to here (for an arbitrary definition of "here").

I'm personally confounded that people who have so many problems with the rules they forced to follow are not starting their own event? Really, then no more headaches of despots, build your own brand, make your own rules.

I for one really enjoy organizing Ignite instead of TEDx, so fewer rules (I guess mostly self-regulation, and only the format of the talk cannot change).

(Disclaimer: never organized TEDx, but know a bunch of people who did or were volunteers somewhere, Ignite Taipei is going on for its 7th event tomorrow)

How is it hard to satisfy the rules that are being complained about here? It should be trivial to arrange for no sponsor logos, no sponsor speakers, and so on.

I assume the rules being hard refers to the rules relation to event management, not the rules in isolation. Events are expensive to manage, disallowing sponsors to talk or have their logo well placed will be detrimental to the value they gain from sponsoring an event, which will reduce / remove their interest in being a sponsor. Trivial to arrange, non-trivial impact.

On-stage sponsorship would create a whole new problem and set of rules (and probably costs). The value of on-stage sponsorship is not advertising to the 100 attendees, but rather that TED posts all conference videos to their main site, which is potentially hundreds of thousands of viewers.

So now you've got all these TEDx events negotiating sponsorship deals (and price points) for a product (positioning on the TED site) that they don't control. So you'll see a flood of sponsorships competing for the events willing to accept the lowest sponsorship bids, which I'm guessing TED wants to avoid. But more importantly, this money is exclusively handled by the local TEDx organizers, which provides a real profit incentive to simply run a lot of events regardless of overall quality.

So TED could allow on-stage sponsorships, set predetermined sponsorship rates, collect the bulk of that sponsorship money, etc... but now we're creating more rules and bureaucracy. Besides, I don't think TED proper wants to be in the business (read: hassle) of making money that way.

Besides, I'm fine with TED talks not looking like NASCAR events.

I think one of the key points is that the event's way of functioning (or DNA as the source puts it) gives rise to a certain set of key principles that "make" a specific event part of the family of events.

If a rule isn't applicable because of the community to which it is being applied, this might be because that community wasn't considered, but it's equally possible that the event isn't right for that community to begin with without modifying the intent in such a way as to be a different thing.

I do agree, however, that if something's not right you should try to fix it, possibly by creating your own thing... Horses for Courses.

Which of the rules specifically are a major pain?

"The most important part of hosting a TEDx event is motivation... giving back to your community in an honest, sincere, selfless and non ego-driven way. TEDx organizers care deeply about their community and the world around them in an authentic way."

"We repeatedly discover in India TEDx events ... students hosting a TEDx events as part of a campus festival."

So, TEDx deeply cares about the community and its events are about giving back, selflessly. However, those damn students can't be allowed to imitate us because, well, why exactly? Have they not warmed enough hands?

While they would have done well to add another line or two of explanation, I think when you get down to it, you will find a decent argument against allowing this. Immediately, I can think about how the mere nature of festivals would make it difficult to comply with prior rules or make it easier to compromise them. For example, any festival has sponsorship guidelines; I think it is fair to say that most festivals cannot be trusted to observe a different set of guidelines just for the TEDx event.

Now, may be you have a problem with other rules(such as sponsors not speaking) but I think TED can make a compelling case for the role of individual rules in establishing them as a trusted, quality brand.

I don't have a problem with the other rules which seem like reasonably standard brand protection. However, the subtle anti-community message that the prohibition against student-lead participation conveys is contrary to the overt pro-community messages communicated by the rest of the letter.

Although it might be as you say that these student events aren't run by students so much as for students by festival operators. In which case, I'd tend to agree with you.

Student fests here are a big thing, and their branding easily can out shadow the TedX event itself.

TedX would then be just a side show, and addition to the original event.

Its an issue of co-branding, and not being part of the ethos of TedX, i.e. giving back to the community. It would be just another college event.

However, those damn students can't be allowed to imitate us

They are certainly allowed to imitate them... just as long as they don't try to use the TEDx brand to promote it.

How is this any different from making your own click-wheel mp3 player and calling it IPod?

> How is this any different from making your own click-wheel mp3 player and calling it IPod?

Yeah. If you want to do that, at least go to China.

Exactly! Given the high illiteracy rate in India (unfortunately), the only major chunks of population who will be interested in these kind of events will be students (mainly Engineering students). This rule sounds a little stupid to not to allow them to host a TEDx event, which might otherwise act as a big motivational factor for them to do something good for the country and the world. Don't understand their 'giving back' policy so clearly.

If you read the wording, it says don't make TedX part of a festival.

Which is understandable, college fairs are big things here, and are definitely not about giving back to the community, but more about showing what you can do. Its the good kind of self promotion and pageant.

TedX would only be a side show and its goals and principles would be completely lost/overwritten by the Fair. (Take any of you IIT fests/IIM fests or even your Xaviers college and so on)

Not Exactly!

Students need to be told true stories. Not make believe ones. False inspiration is useless. There have been numerous instances in India where people some one like Ankit Fadia has mesmerized students with novelty windows tricks.

And there are many cases, where some one from the alumni visits a engineering college and brags about how he is a manager in just 4-5 years, and how all programmers are under achieving losers. Such talks scare away students from pursuing technically intensive careers and perpetuates same attitudes when they get to their jobs. They continuously undermine/underpay technical jobs and reward managerial jobs.

The net result is misdirected and manipulated students. Sometimes guys who are really good, totally determine to never get into technical roles.

This has led to a huge shortage good engineers in India.

I don't think they have anything against students hosting TEDx, just against students hosting TEDx without respecting the rules.

I believe what they're restricting is it's use WITHIN another event.

as part of a campus festival

They might be fine with students hosting the events, but TEDx shouldn't be a subheading as part of some bigger school event.

I'm sick of seeing Nitin fucking Gupta at every conference I go to. I'm glad TED is finally taking a stand and blacklisting him.

Any information on who he is? Specific mention of one speaker piqued my interest but a superficial Googling only gave me Nitin Gupta's in California

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V2xKpZE...

That sounds like a different Nitin Gupta (but it's interesting to hear of this guy operating in my home state!)

Here you go (second one from the top of the page):

http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/1546

Here is the TEDx Chennai organizer's side of the story. http://www.kiruba.com/2012/12/the-tedxchennai-explanation.ht...

Yah from what he said - it was a well received conference, fiscally responsible (ie trying to get extra funding from publicity when tickets were unsold).

Only error - like many people said - it should not have been a TEDx. In fact, it would probably have done just fine as a conference series of their own (just from reading his comments, so I could be mistaken) .

Here is one more data point against him http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Lett...

Here is the Tedx Chennai Ambassador's story on the same -

http://www.kiruba.com/2012/12/the-tedxchennai-explanation.ht...

Re: sponsors on stage -- is this a relatively new rule? Wieden+Kennedy sponsored TEDxPortland 2011, and John Jay, their Executive Creative Director, was one of the featured speakers.

Any reason why this is on PasteBin and not... any kind of reliable source at all?

Yeah, seems kind of suspicious, especially given that it was posted from a guest account.

"Any reason why this is on PasteBin and not... any kind of reliable source at all?"

I don't know why it on Pastebin, but here is a (softball) interview in a mainstream newspaper with the fired "Ambassador"

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/tedx-...

The cancellation of the TEDx Chennai(== Madras) license, the firing of Kiruba, and the general tightening screws for all India TEDx events seems real enough. There have been rumors circulating locally about financial and other shenanigans for a while now (fwiw).

I attended TEDxBrussels recently, a pretty massive event with Steve Wozniak as first speaker. The number of attendees was well over 1000, so I guess the 100 person limit can be increased after more vetting?

The letter mentions: Violation of the 100 person rule - events having over 100 people when the Primary Licensee has not attended TED. This rule is non-negotiable.

So I guess if the primary licensee (organizer?) has attended TED, the limit isn't there.

If you attend a global event with a $6,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference)#Controversies_... ???) ticket, you may have more than 100 attendees http://www.ted.com/pages/tedx_faq#A13

TEDx organizers can ask for discounted tickets if they can't manage the financials. There is also the much cheaper TEDActive conference that does lift the limit.

TEDx has almost completely ruined TED for me.

I don't trust that they care about quality any more, and there is far too much dumb self-promotion. It's a low quality source of knowledge and there are better curators around.

This is a shame, when it first started I could tell they were connecting me with innovative thinkers, and not those blindly trying to earn a quick buck.

TED did the right thing.

To clarify, the cancellation was not because TEDx Chennai had more than 100 attendees but because of the misappropriation of funds by Kiruba and his cohorts.

Kiruba Shankar is a conniving character and this is not the first incident where he cheated public. See http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Lett... and if you would like learn the series of events that resulted in cancellation, follow the story on The Economic Times at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinions/17571398.cms

So, I'm a TEDx organizer in Dallas, and one of my former speakers posted this thread on my FB page. For what it's worth, I thought I would share a few thoughts. TEDx is about organizing an event in your local community. Not all the TEDx talks are on TED.com; only ones selected by the TED team. In addition, the TEDx team watches every talk, all 21,000 and counting, and the best talks are curated for ted.com There are some amazing TEDx events and inspiring talks from TEDx events, like Brene Brown's talk from TEDxHouston (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0). Obviously growth has its challenges, and it seems like the conversation below is representative of that. But there are a huge number of people in this TEDx community who are genuinely trying to bring value to their local communities through these events. It's really too bad that a few bad apples are jeopardizing the whole.

This (and the previous HN on a similar topic from recently) is a great shame.

I remember how excited I was when I saw this talk by a twitter acquaintance (with a fine art PhD) on a TEDx stage in York, UK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl0_AJN0oAM

and it made me aspire to do something cool and interesting enough to get invited to give one of these talks one day.

I'm sad to see that TEDx's reputation seems to be falling from grace.

Well at least more people ignorant people like me now know that Chennai exists ;) I didn't even know that Madras got officially renamed. In 1996 already!

I forwarded this link to tedx@ted.com, this is great feedback for them.

If you are from Chennai, you'll know what the situation is like in there. At any point, in any such conference, people are constantly trying to brand themselves under the guise of 'contribution to the community'. They are always looking to market themselves at any cost, even though they know it is unethical.

I have visited a dozen such conferences and I can tell this without hesitation, even on a public stage. There is a huge difference in the mindset of the organizers over here (SF) and in Chennai.

Kiruba Shankar is also a clever marketer. I still remember the days when he used to flaunt about his TED talks on Facebook. In all honesty, people like him are the ones who degrade the value of TED.

Here's a still that crops of the 'X' in the TED X event. This was uploaded by Kiruba Shankar himself:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=194646852844

(or)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/16461...

Anyone active within the Chennai community will tell you how this man is just a marketer and has no credentials or no 'achievements' good enough to give a speech at TED. And he is just one example.

It is important because, without having significant achievements up your sleeve, you are assuming

1) The audience are dumb enough. 2) You can talk what you want and get away with it.

Here is another example of a 'self-proclaimed' entrepreneur who runs just an SEO business (Ashwin Ramesh)

This guy was DRUNK when he gave this talk. I'm not joking, it's the truth. HE got drunk again with the organizer that night, anyone close to him and his organizer will confirm this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq768Cyeiew

All in all, though this is bad news, I think it's a very good move for the TED community on the whole.

>>Here is another example of a 'self-proclaimed' entrepreneur who runs just an SEO business (Ashwin Ramesh)

In all likeliness I am sure he would have been considered than because he is:

    a. Rich.
    b. Powerful, to have some say and influence things.

Either a) or b) will elevate you to demi god status among middle class Indians, even if all you have done is sell peanuts well. Its not their fault, Imagine having grown cash strapped middle class families living hand to mouth every month with average lives, and compromising with nearly everything in life in hope of having a better future later.

When guys like these come around, they generally become idols to chase. Now if you tell they made it easily, they are going to have more followers.

And no body likes to mess with the rich. Because they have a lot of strong connections and then when you are need of help or in trouble they can create huge problems for you.

More than rich or powerful, these are people who have become twitter famous and now milking it to good effect.

I saw this a lot in Hyderabad as well.

I always feel guys like these have an innate knack to pick up ways to be early-entry-boys into any about-to-become-famous areas.

I would not be surprised if Bitcoin goes big in India. 90% of the early entry crowd be scamsters.

Honestly, the term entrepreneur and start-up is used very liberally in India. In the last 3-4 years there has been a deluge of 'entrepreneurs' who are basically social media consultants or SEO firms and 'startups' which are nothing but consulting firms who are basically a group of freelancers working together.

A vague generalization. Can you conclusively say that all the YCombinator (or any other similar incubator) startups are groundbreaking innovations?

Given the transformation that technology is undergoing, there are too many low hanging fruits to be ignored. And if you try to define "startup", then you are already on a slippery slope.

Do note that I never said a startup has to be a groundbreaking innovation, nor that people shouldn't take advantage of low hanging fruits. Just that an SEO consultant not call himself an entrepreneur or a group of freelancers call themselves a startup.

I don't think some of the rules "scale" that well in India... like the 100-attendee limit.

Are you referring to the population of India? Doesn't that just mean there will be more TEDx events in India? The reason for the 100 attendee limit is obviously to start a conversation between the attendees and to save it from becoming a large and impersonal convention.

So how do you explain removing the limit[1] if your organiser has attended TED (needing a $6,000 ticket[2])?

1. http://www.ted.com/pages/tedx_faq#A13

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference)#Controversies_...

I was going to make the same comment. The 100 attendee limit is very hard to do in a country where 1,000s would be willing to attend. Maybe, and this is really just back-of-napkin-math, if the limit was 0.00001 of the total population?

> The 100 attendee limit is very hard to do in a country where 1,000s would be willing to attend.

"Sorry, we've sold out."

Want to allow thousands to attend? Go for it. Just don't call it TEDx. If you want to call it TEDx, you follow the TEDx rules.

TEDx is supposed to be small, intimate events to help facilitate the exchange of ideas. It is NOT supposed to be some mass-sponsored event where businesses send their employees to pad their industrial "clout" or CVs that they 'attended TEDx New York'.

To call yourself a TEDx event, and thus garner the international attention to your speakers through TED online talks and other avenues, the local event has to adhere to certain criteria. Some of the events in India are violating far more than the 100 person 'rule', like pushing highly discredited science. 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence' -- said evidence did not accompany the talks in question.

My first, gut reaction was this was a very pretentious-sounding letter from some singularly pretentious people. It's probably got a lot to do with the fact that I hate TED.

I can't articulate exactly what it is about TED that bothers me so much. I know it has to do with the attitude. South Park got pretty close to the mark in their episode about hybrid cars and San Francisco - a bunch of self-righteous people sniffing their own farts.

With that as my context, this letter read like a pompous bureaucrat windbag going on about how great he is and how important all his rules and policies are. I want to say, get over yourself. TED isn't that good.

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