Understanding why TED is so special
Posted by austin under Conference, Social Web
A lot of conversations in the blog-us-phere are occurring about the TED conference. Sometimes with appreciation & envy, often times with curiosity about what occurs behind the great videos people have seen online, and at times with a little disdain at the idea of an elitist self-congratulatory meet-up for rich people & celebrities (not a view I hold - but it comes up).
Often people miss the concept of what is so special about TED. TED is an incredible concentration of ideas & conversations. Think about the best blog posts you’ll see in a year all appearing in an intense three day blog storm. Chris Anderson (TED’s curator) just referred to it as the ultimate meme fest. By bringing together a diverse set of intelligent, talented & interesting people who are all doing ground breaking things in their lives there is a spark of conversation and sharing of ideas that spreads well beyond the halls of Monterey’s conference center, Aspen or Africa where TED has expanded its reach.
Beyond the speakers, so many attendees have incredible life stories and have accomplished great things in their own lives. They all contribute much more to making TED an incredible experience then some of the famous celebrity names that you might hear about. It’s fun to meet some celebrities, but the true celebrities aren’t the people on the movie screen, but rather the people who are re-inventing our basic assumptions of how our culture, science and planet operate and will evolve.
By putting the TED talks online - this conversation isn’t limited to the attendees but has been shared with the world. I don’t know of another conference I attend that is so generous and free with their content. This year TED is putting up some sessions the same day they have occurred, and tonight is broadcasting the TED prize live which I would encourage everyone to watch. Click here for the live feed, Thursday, February 28, starting at 5:15pm US/Pacific time.
At TED 2006 Storyteller, writer and slam poet Rives (who has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam) did a great round up of the conversation of TED that really captured the TED theme, of Ideas Worth Spreading. It’s about us setting these conversations free and spreading them. So according to Rives it’s all about setting off Molotov Mockingbird Cocktails 
Posts (RSS)
February 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Great post Austin, enjoying the vicarious TED experience, keep the coverage and the tweets coming
February 28th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
One day, I’m going to completely spoil myself by going to TED!
February 28th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Next article, “Why TED is so Expensive.” ?
But seriously, good stuff, I’d love to see TED someday. (At least they put most of it online eventually)
February 29th, 2008 at 11:25 am
you might have seen my twit on this? i was curious to see this:
http://www.bubblegeneration.com/2008/02/bankrupted.cfm
I’d never seen any particular objection to TED (which, for my money, provides the best video content on the web)…so I was interested to read that. Earlier in the day, someone in my twitterfeed wrote:
” According to wikipedia: “TED describes itself as a “group of remarkable people that gather to exchange ideas of incalculable value”" … Hoping to GOD they are being sarcastic. Can anyone describe themselves like that, and mean it? I mean, do they still need toilets?”
which was the second objection I’d read in about 10 minutes. And all of it reminded me a little of this hilarious post:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/62-knowing-whats-best-for-poor-people/
Which is a standard sort of approach to things, echoed in the approach TED takes, which is: “we are smart and we will find the answers for the rest.” That’s fine, and it’s they way the universe works, but there is a little bit of sanctimony that comes with it. TED is the elite of the elite … and yes trying to change the world for the better is *probably* a good thing (though if you’ve spent any time around, say, the international development community you know that much of what it provides is exotic jobs for rich people, rather than any great improvements for others). And I’ve been having a very fundamental “god is dead” revelation lately (that I can’t explain well here) that much of the recent movement of free/open etc is really just about efficiency…and with the good, much bad will inevitably come. such is the universe.
But anyway, TED gives me great stuff to watch, so I’m not knocking it… just some of the moral purity that it assumes.