When TED Lost Control of Its Crowd
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TED's usefulness to people is the trust in the brand and the trust in their curation quality - if this is lost TED's main mission has failed.
In my opinion, TED has already lost this trust. There was a time where a TED link was a must-click and a must-watch. I cannot remember the last time I bothered clicking on a TED link - it must be at least a year now. It is perhaps not too late to regain this trust - but they need to cut loose the forces that are preventing this.
TEDx is a dilution of the TED brand and the organization would IMO be better off without it, and the brand is TED.
I do believe that high-quality curation, especially when it comes to deep knowledge, is a valuable thing - but would-be curators should have to earn the trust their audiences places with them, not ride off TED's coattails.
"Indeed, open as TED is, pieces of its ecosystem are highly managed. For example, while 25,000 TEDx talks have been produced so far, as of the time of this writing only 228, or approximately 1%—the best of the best—had made it to TED.com for broad-based distribution and endorsement. People who complain that TED is not curating its content are ignoring how selective it is when posting TEDx content."
Quality is not important for TED, it is everything. And like potatolicious, I no longer bother with TED talks because their brand has been poisoned for me. It's a perception problem.
IMO, there is no way to say the above and have it come off the right way. It falls into the same bucket as "with all due respect..."
> "Most of it was about past transgressions and what they've done to tighten the brand."
Yes, and my contention is that it will never be enough. This is not a unique problem - large, spread out organizations are almost universally unable to consistently maintain a high quality bar. The difference is that for TED the quality is the product.
There is IMO no way for TED to reign in its TEDx partners to an extent that will restore the trust in the brand. To do so would basically involve TED taking over the curation of the content, in which case we're talking about an expansion of TED, not a franchising of TED (which, despite being non-profit, is what's occurring right now).
> "I also somewhat reject your characterization of their mission, because their mission first and foremost is about the spread of ideas."
No, it's about the spread of some ideas - as they say themselves, ideas worth spreading.
If our goal was to spread ideas without curation, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Tumblr, etc are all doing a far better job. TED's mission, both explicit and implicit, is to highlight particularly poignant people and ideas.
It is also how they rose to fame in the first place - they didn't predate Vimeo or YouTube, and they certainly haven't predated the format of the academic talk. What they did do was have razor-sharp curation and the ability to assemble a lot of great content in one place.
> "TEDx has irrefutably made TED more popular and mainstream and thus more effective as a vehicle to spread ideas."
TEDx has increased the profile of TED, it has also decreased its reputation dramatically. As I've pointed out above already, quality is core to the raison d'etre of TED.
> "People who complain that TED is not curating its content are ignoring how selective it is when posting TEDx content."
And yet kooks still make it. Nobody is saying that TED is sitting back and doing nothing - is that that they are either not doing enough, or that the structure of TEDx makes their task all but impossible.
Can you please link me to someone you consider a kook on TED.com? The main couple kooks people talk about years later after TED has made changes like vortex math never make TED.com and for good reason.
If you honestly believe less than 1% of TEDx video have any merit, I think that is fairly elitist of you.
I feel like TED is supposed to be elitist, in terms of the quality of its content.
I can believe that the top 1% of TEDx talks are better than the average TED talk. Maybe 10% are worth looking at once you have seen most of TED talks, the best online courses, the best Google TechTalks, etc on your area of interest.
But why are the rest of the 90% even there?
Having a few great talks doesn't matter, if there is no way to find them out of the mass of inanity on TEDx or elsewhere online.
http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/commentary/east-ca/l...
I don't feel that one counterexample automatically disproves your main point, but it is a TED.com talk.
The first TED talk was in 1984. That predates Vimeo, YouTube, and most of the components of the technology stack that are a pre-requisite for Vimeo and YouTube to make sense.
What now? Well, browsing a random TEDx video is about as informative as watching a random youtube video. Except that you can't listen to Pink Floyd on TEDx, too bad.
Sorry if the tone is a little annoyed, no harm intended..
That's not the case any more. While the material covered is occasionally great, the pain of listening to a bad speakers makes it not worth my time.
Add to that the fact that _nothing_ is a must watch when it covers hundreds of hours, and the days of "It's a TED talk, it'll be worth watching" are gone.
I think this is primarily the issue. It's in part due to just the shear over saturation of the talks these days. It's tough for everything to be "great."
Second, the brand has been diluted to the point that it's tough to know whether or not a talk is worth investing the time. There are videos on how to tie your shoe.. I mean, come on.
There's also a video on how to dry your hands with one paper towel (it doesn't work). Sure, I mean, I guess it's kind of interesting (If it catches you in the right mood, perhaps), but, I mean, "shake your hands a bit before you grab the towel" sounds a little more like something the would pop up in /r/lifeprotips.
TEDx has done nothing but cheapen it. There are non-public ways for TED to identify promising new speakers for TED; no need to have something like TEDx.
I don't mind a conference like TEDx existing; it should just have zero connection to TED. TED is a premium, curated brand; TEDx is anything but.
It's not clear to me why an enterprise like TED would feel growth offered any upside at all (and yes, I read the article). Smallness and exclusivity are virtues, and thanks to that great website the world certainly is not lacking for ways to access their ideas.
If they really only care about motivating and inspiring people then why not offer small grants for others to start their own independent, unaffiliated TED-like events. These events might even thrive without the scarlet letter X -- denoting second-class citizenship in the World of Ideas.
5 or 6 years ago almost every TED talk was a gem for anyone with a single engineer, science or technology fiber in his/her body.
Becoming more famous is what did them in. Needing to push out more talks on shorter and shorter intervals. Shifting more and more from spreading ideas (i.e. technology), to telling stories and making people feel better or worse. And more importantly promoting whatever product/service they are connected to.
It has become an event where people think they need to be, regardless of interest in actual topics. Something which is reflected in the generic nonsense which is their comments section.
Also, if you are a self proclaimed "thought leader" you are a douche bag.
I even do not bother to watch and read TED-like sources nowadays (unless they are seriously threatening my field).
Not many of the current TED talks live up to that, let alone TEDx. It's possible I've become more cynical, but if I watch pre-shitification TED talks I generally feel that way, and if I watch current TED talks, I rarely feel that way (although there are exceptions still).
(possible exceptions for the musical/entertainment sessions at TED, which mainly seem to be there for the in-person attendees, not video, and for talks which are sequels of earlier talks -- in which case it might be that you have to watch them in order for it to be reasonable, like the Bill Gates talks)
Wow. I'm ashamed to have put 'curated TEDx participant' on my resume. Removed.
Depending on what kind of organization you're applying to, that can still be useful.
Too many posers looking for that epic photo of them on-stage with the head mic attached.
No amount of attention-whoring is overkill for this subject, especially when considering that Lessig could easily make 10x the amount of money he is making now by going to some white shoe law firm.
Put another way, it used to be that when I saw people saying, "Hey, look at this!" with nothing worthwhile to look at, I assumed they were narcissistic assholes. Why else would they be trying to get me to spend my time on attention that is obviously not worth it? Now I wonder if they're just normal people trying to master a necessary skill. First learn to make people pay attention, and if you're good at that, then do something worthwhile. Otherwise it doesn't matter what you do.
I don't think that's true or ever will be true, but I think there are people who believe it, people who suck at marketing themselves but put all their energy into it instead of something they're good at because they've been taught to believe that marketing savvy is a prerequisite for contributing to society.
"What we have is the great unifying field theory, with it you can create and exhaust free energy, end all diseases, produce unlimited food, travel anywhere in the universe, build the ultimate supercomputer, artificial intelligence, and obsolete all existing technology."
All in the first minute. I don't think it was really necessary to take the presentation-style into account...
His presentation is utter nonsense, but whether he reads verbatim has nothing to do with it. Someone presenting valid results could just be a poor public speaker and/or nervous.
Said professor has made serious contributions to modern algebra and is probably about as close to "the forefront of modern mathematics" as anyone. Not everyone who's good at math is good at lecturing.
Wouldn't you love to see those two in a gloves-off debate?
So, whenever a forum grows beyond a certain limit, junk starts to creep in.
Not a surprise at all. I've seen this happening over and over and over again - newsgroups, mailing lists, forums, social media, etc.
Once the fat middle of the bell curve sneaks in, quality takes a necessary dive.
Those gated communities are driving me crazy.
It's not gated if you add share=1.
Case in point is TEDx Vancouver, which is organised by those with social media connections. In order to just attend, you have to justify why you should and the organisers themselves how much worth you are to be within the crowd. Of course, this par for the course but it is a bit obtuse for me to see myself having to be judged by people who are good at pulling the heart strings of others and are capable of having a significant amount of Twitter followers. Do I need to have a high follower to followed ratio in order to be good enough?
It gets worse here of course because now TED (as in "the TED") has moved itself from Southern California to here in Vancouver. Everyone started to beat the drums and say that the city has become relevant once again since the Olympics, but of course everyone then fails to realise it's a $7,500 event that you have to buy into. Then again the cost for some tickets during the games did come close to that amount in some cases.
Some amazing stuff comes out of TED, but with the mayor and social media all getting excited about it, it's becomes apparent that this event is just a way for those who can go to wave their phalluses around as a sign of their "status" in the world.
TED can be a good thing but the way it is approached by those who are not speaking is just downright deplorable.
What's wrong with it? I thought it was a great TED talk, she makes great points about new and emerging forms of artist-fan relationships and its advantages.
In a nutshell - it's much easier to rely on donations once somebody else (in Amanda's case, her label) has done the hard work of making you famous. If you're an artist with at best local fame, as most artists are, charge for your music.
But then fast-forward a couple of years and find yourself in a situation where everyone is releasing free music, and you don't get any kind of visibility boost for releasing it for free. What you do have is a bunch of people who feel more entitled in acquiring your product for free.
Anyone can hold a TEDx event as long as they're convincing curators. They license the TED brand. They can choose anyone as a presenter; the quality is inherently lower because of this. It's not the fault of TED per se, or its main organizers.
That said, let us not forget that this year's TED featured dolphins talking to elephants via Google Hangout. It's all about taking risks!
a) I was intrigued from the beginning regarding TED's decision to allow this kind of events. I was kindof expecting it will blow in their face, sooner or later.
b) I did find Powell's talk thoroughly entertaining.
Now, what about the infamous Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight? It overflown with neuroscience misconceptions and outdated, non-scientific metaphysics. Seeing it on TED was a genuine and huge intellectual disappointment.
This is all.
I'm surprised to see the HN community so vociferously opposed to TEDx. We are all basically reading a news website that operates with a similar principle (wide funnel, with a method to route the best content to the top for wider distribution).
TED proper is very expensive, and has consistently high quality. The question here is if TEDx is hurting TED or not.
Great. Now how about all the other people who see it?
If you know links to papers or theories of other people that are worth looking into, let me know. I can't tell if the theories of Mr. Powell have any merit or foundation. But I'll find out myself after seeing the longish video.
Benoît B. Mandelbrot, Ken Ono and Srinivasa Ramanujan's theories put new perspectives into our understanding of Maths that goes way beyond what most people understand. Even those advanced in Maths have difficulties grasping it.
This is my opinion, but I think the research of these and other important people reveals a Fractal nature in Maths and Physics. What's missing is the link to Chemisry and Biology. There are relations to fractals and all nature sciences we don't know about.
Yes, I've actually read the books and papers from these people. Yes there were a lot of parts I had trouble understanding, but ideas are easy to grasp, their Mathematical proof is not.
Sarah Silverman held just the TED talk for you!