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TED (conference)

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TED Conferences, LLC
Type of businessLLC
Type of site
Academic conference
Available inEnglish, multilingual subtitle, transcript
Headquarters
New York City, New York and Vancouver, British Columbia
,
United States and Canada
Area servedWorldwide
OwnerSapling Foundation[1]
Founder(s)Richard Saul Wurman[2]
URLwww.ted.com
RegistrationOptional
Launched1984
Current statusActive

TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading."

TED was founded in 1984 as a one-off event.[2] The annual conference began in 1990, in Monterey, California.[4] TED's early emphasis was technology and design, consistent with its origins in the Silicon Valley.

The TED main conference is held annually in Long Beach, and its companion TEDActive is held in Palm Springs. Both conferences will move from Long Beach and Palm Springs to Vancouver and Whistler, respectively, in 2014.[5] TED events are also held throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Asia, offering live streaming of the talks. They address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling.[6] The speakers are given a maximum of 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most innovative and engaging ways they can. Past presenters include Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcolm Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and many Nobel Prize winners.[7] TED's current curator is the British former computer journalist and magazine publisher Chris Anderson.

Since June 2006,[2] the talks have been offered for free viewing online, under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license, through TED.com.[8] As of November 2011, over 1,050 talks are available free online.[9] By January 2009 they had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011, the viewing figure stood at more than 500 million,[10] and on Tuesday November 13, 2012, TED Talks had been watched one billion times worldwide, reflecting a still growing global audience.[11]

Background

Bill Clinton addresses TED, 2007

TED's mission statement begins:

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.[12]

The TED staff of about 90 people is headquartered in New York City and Vancouver.

History

TED was conceived by architect and graphic designer Richard Saul Wurman, who observed a convergence of the fields of technology, entertainment and design. The first conference, organized by Wurman and Harry Marks in 1984, featured demos of the Sony compact disc, and one of the first demonstrations of the Apple Macintosh computer.[2][13] Presentations were given by famous mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and influential members of the digerati community, like Nicholas Negroponte and Stewart Brand. The event was financially unsuccessful, however, and it took six years before the second conference was organized.[14] From 1990 onward, a growing community of "TEDsters" has been gathering annually at the invitation-only event in Monterey, California, until 2009, when it was relocated to Long Beach, California due to a substantial increase in attendees.[15]

Initially, the speakers came from the fields of expertise behind the acronym TED, but during the nineties, the roster of presenters broadened to include scientists, philosophers, musicians, religious leaders, philanthropists and many others.[14]

Chris Anderson (The Sapling Foundation)

Curator Chris Anderson in 2007

In 2000, Wurman, looking for a successor at age 65, met with new-media entrepreneur and TED enthusiast Chris Anderson to discuss TED's future. In November 2001, Anderson's non-profit The Sapling Foundation (motto: "fostering the spread of great ideas.")[1] became the owner of TED. In February 2002, Anderson gave a TEDTalk in which he explained his vision of the conference and his future role of curator.[16] Wurman left after the 2002 conference.

In 2006, attendance cost was $4,400 and was by invitation only.[17] The membership model was shifted in January 2007 to an annual membership fee of $6,000, which includes attendance of the conference, club mailings, networking tools, and conference DVDs.

TEDGlobal

In 2005, under Anderson's supervision, a more internationally oriented sister conference was added, under the name TEDGlobal. It was held, in chronological order: in Oxford, UK (2005), in Arusha, Tanzania (2007, titled "TEDAfrica), and again in Oxford (2009 and 2010). Additionally there was TED India, in Mysore (2009). In 2011 and 2012 TEDGlobal took place in Edinburgh, Scotland.[18]

TED's European director (and curator of TEDGlobal) is Swiss-born Bruno Giussani.[19]

TED 2011, The Rediscovery of Wonder, was held in Long Beach, California, from February 28 to March 4, 2011.[20][21] The TED conference has a companion conference, TEDGlobal, held in the UK each summer. The 2009 TEDGlobal, The Substance of Things Not Seen, was held in Oxford, UK, July 21–24, 2009. 2010's TEDGlobal (again in Oxford) was themed And Now The Good News; in 2011 the conference moved to a new home in Edinburgh and was held from July 12–15 with the theme The Stuff Of Life. The 2012 TEDGlobal conference Radical Openness was held in Edinburgh from June 25–29.[22]

TED Prize

The TED Prize was introduced in 2005. Until 2010, it annually granted three individuals $100,000 and a "wish to change the world".[23] Each winner unveils their wish at the main annual conference. Since 2010, in a changed selection process, a single winner is chosen to ensure that TED can maximize its efforts in achieving the winner's wish. In 2012, the Prize was not awarded to an individual, but to a concept connected to the current global phenomenon of increasing urbanization. For 2013, the prize amount has been increased to $1 million.[24] TED Prize winners in previous years:

2005 [25] 2006 [26] 2007 [27] 2008 [28] 2009 [29] 2010 [30] 2011 [31] 2012 [32] 2013 [33]
Bono Larry Brilliant Bill Clinton Neil Turok Sylvia Earle Jamie Oliver JR City 2.0 Sugata Mitra
Edward Burtynsky Jehane Noujaim Edward O. Wilson Dave Eggers Jill Tarter
Robert Fischell Cameron Sinclair James Nachtwey Karen Armstrong José Antonio Abreu

TED Conference commissioned New York artist Tom Shannon to create a prize sculpture to be given to all TED Prize winners. The sculpture consists of an eight inch diameter aluminum sphere magnetically levitated above a walnut disc.

TED.com

Bill Gates opens a jar filled with fireflies at TED2010

In 2005, Chris Anderson hired June Cohen as Director of TED Media. In June 2006, after Cohen's idea of a TV show based on TED lectures was rejected by several networks, a selection of talks that had received the highest audience ratings was posted on the websites of TED, YouTube, and iTunes, under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license.[34][35] Initially, only a handful of talks were posted, to test if there was an audience for them. In January of next year, the number of TED Talks on the site had grown to 44, and they had been viewed more than three million times. On the basis of that success, the organization pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into its video production operations and into the development of a Web site to showcase about 100 of the talks.[34]

In April 2007, the new TED.com was launched, developed by design firm Method. In subsequent years, the Web site has won many prizes, among which seven Webby Awards, iTunes' Best Podcast of the Year (2006-2010), the Communication Arts Interactive Award for "Information Design" in 2007, the OMMA award for "video sharing" in 2008, the Web Visionary Award for "technical achievement" in 2008, The One Show Interactive Bronze Award in 2008, the AIGA Annual Design Competition (2009) and a Peabody Award in 2012.[36][37][38] Since late 2009, there have been free apps for iOS (iPhone, iPad), Android, webOS and Windows Phone 7.[39]

In July 2012, a total of 1300 TED talks had been posted. Every week 5-7 new talks are being published. In January 2009 the then amount of video's had been viewed 50 million times. In June 2011 the amount of views totaled 500 million,[40] and on 13 November 2012, TED reached its billionth video view.[11] Chris Anderson in an interview in March 2012:

"...it used to be 800 people getting together once a year; now it’s about a million people a day watching TEDTalks online. When we first put up a few of the talks as an experiment, we got such impassioned responses that we decided to flip the organization on its head and think of ourselves not so much as a conference but as “ideas worth spreading,” building a big website around it. The conference is still the engine, but the website is the amplifier that takes the ideas to the world.[41]"

In March 2012, Netflix announced a deal to stream an initial series of 16 two-hour shows, consisting of TEDTalks covering similar subjects, from multiple speakers. The content will be available to subscribers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, the U.K. and Ireland.[42] Hosted by Jami Floyd, TED Talks NYC debuted on NYC Life on March 21, 2012.[43]

Open Translation Program

TED Open Translation Project started in May 2009, and aims to "[reach] out to the 4.5 billion people on the planet who don't speak English," according to TED Curator Chris Anderson.[44] The OTP utilises crowd-based video captioning and subtitling platforms to translate the text of TED videos (with its technology partner dotSUB until May 2012, and recently with open source translation tool Amara). At the time of the launch, 300 translations had been done by 200 volunteer transcribers in 40 languages.[20] In March 2013, more than 39722 translations had been completed by (an all-time total of) 9262 volunteer translators in 97 languages.[45]

The project contributed to a significant increase in international visitors to TED's website, with traffic from outside the US growing 350%, 600% percent growth in Asia, and more than 1000% in South America.[46]

TEDx

In 2009 TED started granting licenses to third parties to organize independent TED-like events internationally.[47] These TEDx events are prohibited from making profit, although sometimes a individual attendance/admission fee ($100 max.[48]) can be charged to cover running costs. The licences are free, but franchisees are vetted by TED and events are subject to conditions. Speakers are not paid and they must agree to give TED the right to edit and distribute their presentation under a Creative Commons licence. As at the end of 2012, more than 16,000 talks have been given at more than 5,000 TEDx events in 1,200 cities in 133 countries.[49][50] In June 2012, five TEDx events on average were being organized every day, in one of 133 countries.[51]

TED Fellows

TEDGlobal 2012 at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre

TED Fellows were introduced in 2007, during the first TEDAfrica conference in Arusha, Tanzania, where 100 young people were selected from across the continent. Two years later, during TEDIndia, 99 Fellows were recruited, mainly from South Asia. In 2009, the Fellows program was initiated in its present form. For every TED or TEDGlobal conference, 20 Fellows are selected out of more than 1200 applicants; a total of 40 new Fellows a year. Out of the 40 Fellows selected in the previous year, 15 people are chosen each year to participate in the two-year Senior Fellows program (in which they will attend four more conferences). Hence, every year, there are 40 new Fellows plus 30 Senior Fellows from the two previous years.

Acceptance as a Fellow is not based on academic credentials, but mainly on past and current actions, and plans for the future.[52] Besides attending a conference free of charge, each Fellow takes part in a special program with mentoring by experts in the field of spreading ideas, and he or she can give a short talk on the "TED Fellows" or "TED University" stage, the day before the conference starts. Some of these talks are subsequently published on TED.com. Senior Fellows have additional benefits and responsibilities (like hosting a TEDx event for 50+ people).[53]

Other programs

  • TEDWomen - a series of conferences focused on women-oriented themes, including gender issues and reproductive health.[54]
  • TEDMED - an annual conference focusing on health and medicine. TEDMED is an independent event operating under license from the nonprofit TED conference.[55]

Controversies and criticism

Sarah Silverman

TED drew some controversy in 2010 when comedian Sarah Silverman was invited to speak at the conference, and in response to her speech about adopting a "retarded" child, TED organizer Chris Anderson posted to his Twitter account, "I know I shouldn’t say this about one of my own speakers, but I thought Sarah Silverman was god-awful ..."[56] Anderson later deleted his tweet, but Silverman responded via her Twitter account "Kudos to [Chris Anderson] for making TED an unsafe haven for all! You're a barnacle of mediocrity on Bill Gates' asshole."[57] Anderson apologized for his tweet on his Posterous account, but also wrote "Call me stuffy, but I still think humor about terminally ill 'retarded' kids is an acquired taste ... And not a taste I personally want to acquire."[58]

Nassim Taleb

Nassim Taleb accused TED of intellectual dishonesty and lack of substance in the latest edition of The Black Swan (2010). He calls TED a "monstrosity that turns scientists and thinkers into low-level entertainers, like circus performers." Taleb spoke at TED2008. He claimed that the curators did not initially post his talk "warning about the financial crisis" on their website on purely cosmetic grounds.[59]

Sarah Lacy

Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek and TechCrunch has criticized TED with claims of elitism. Lacy cites TED's $6,000 ticket price, poor treatment of less important attendees, and such events as a friend being "de-invited to TED after quitting an ostensibly prestigious San Francisco job." As evidence of her claims,[60] independent blogger Robert Scoble described her stance as motivated by jealousy.[61] Lacy did credit TED for moving the event to a larger venue in Long Beach and posting videos of its talks online for free.[60]

Nick Hanauer

TED attracted controversy when it chose not to link venture capitalist Nick Hanauer's speech at TED University on their website. The speech analysed the top rate of tax versus unemployment and economic equality.[62][63][64] In a private email to Hanauer, Chris Anderson commented on his decision, noting: "Nick, I personally share your disgust at the growth in inequality in the US, and would love to have found a way to give people a clearer mindset on the issue, without stoking a tedious partisan rehash of all the arguments we hear every day in the mainstream media. Alas, my judgement is that publishing your talk would not meet that goal."[65] Anderson later pointed out that TED only posts one talk every day, selected from many.[66] Forbes Staff writer Bruce Upbin described Hanauer's talk as "shoddy and dumb".[67]

Eddie Huang

TED drew some controversy in February 2013 when Eddie Huang was released from the TED Fellowship for not respecting its basic rule of full participation in the conference. Eddie was the first person ever to be asked to leave the TED Fellowship, which is a competitive application-based program. "Out of respect to the other fellows onsite and to the person who could have had his slot, we felt had no choice but to release him from the program. We wish him nothing but the best," TED said in a statement [68][69] The February 27, 2013 edition of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast featured Eddie Huang as a guest; he commented on his Fellowship revocation and complained about the business practices of TED, calling the organization "a cult".

Rupert Sheldrake

At TEDxWhitechapel on January 13, 2013, Rupert Sheldrake gave a talk in which he suggests that the modern scientific worldview has become associated with ten dogmas, and makes the case that none of them hold up to scrutiny. According to him, these dogmas — including, for example, that nature is mechanical and purposeless, that the laws and constants of nature are fixed, and that psychic phenomena like telepathy are impossible — are holding back the pursuit of knowledge.

TED’s scientific advisors have questioned whether his list is a fair description of scientific assumptions, and suggested several of the dogmas are actually active areas of science inquiry (including whether physical ‘constants’ are really unchanging), and believe there is little evidence for some of Sheldrake’s more radical claims, such as his theory of morphic resonance, and his suggestion that there had been significant differences in the measurement of the speed of light. They recommended that the talk should not be distributed, resulting in the removal of the videos from the TEDx youtube channel.[70]

In response, Rupert Sheldrake has stated that these actions indicate “TED administrators have publically aligned themselves with the old paradigm of materialism, which has dominated science since the late nineteenth century,”[70] and publically called on TED’s Chris Anderson “to invite a scientist from TED’s Scientific Board or TED’s Brain Trust to have a real debate with me about my talk, or if none will agree to take part, to do so himself.”[71]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "About TED: Who we are: Who owns TED". TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. TED Conferences, LLC. Retrieved 25 October 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d Hefferman, Virginia (January 23, 2009). "Confessions of a TED addict". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-07-12.
  3. ^ Alexa, Accessed: July 19, 2011
  4. ^ What's the big idea?, The Guardian, July 24, 2005. Accessed: 7-23-2011
  5. ^ "The next chapter: TED headed to Vancouver in 2014, TEDActive hitting the slopes of Whistler". TED Blog. 4 February 2013. Retrieved 5 February 2013.
  6. ^ "Here's Why TED and TEDx are Appealing" Forbes June 19, 2012
  7. ^ "Speakers". TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. TED Conferences, LLC. Retrieved 6 February 2009. (primary source)
  8. ^ TEDTalks usage policy ted.com
  9. ^ Talks
  10. ^ Mashable, TED profile
  11. ^ a b TED reaches its billionth video view!, TED Blog, 13 November 2012. Accessed 2012-11-21.
  12. ^ "Profile". TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. TED Conferences, LLC. Retrieved February 13, 2010. (primary source)
  13. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole Ted – the ultimate forum for blue-sky thinking 04 Juli 2010, The Guardian, Retrieved 20-09-2012
  14. ^ a b "About TED: History". Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  15. ^ Kim, Victoria (January 16, 2008). "Long Beach to host influential TED conference". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 13, 2010.
  16. ^ Chris Andersons TEDTalk 2002
  17. ^ "Getting Invited (attendees)". TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. TED Conferences, LLC. Retrieved February 7, 2009.
  18. ^ Past TEDs TED.com
  19. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole TEDGlobal 2012: 'The more you give away the more you get back', The Guardian, 24 June 2012. Retrieved 2012-12-06.
  20. ^ a b TED Conferences (September 13, 2009). "Open-Translation Project Brings Subtitles in 40+ Languages to TED.com". PR Newswire (Press release). Retrieved February 13, 2010.
  21. ^ "Billionaires, astronauts and Middle East activists", The Guardian, 1 March 2011. Retrieved 2011-7-19.
  22. ^ "TEDGlobal 2012: Radical Openness". Retrieved 16 August 2012.
  23. ^ Bruno Giussani. "Day 2: Dave Eggers and Tutoring, Neil Turok and the next African Einstein, Karen Armstrong and the Charter for Compassion", Huffington Post, February 28, 2008
  24. ^ TED Prize TED.com
  25. ^ "TED Prize 2005". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2008-11-30. (primary source)
  26. ^ "TED Prize 2006". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2008-11-30. (primary source)
  27. ^ "TED Prize 2007". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2008-11-30. (primary source)
  28. ^ "TED Prize 2008". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2008-11-30. (primary source)
  29. ^ "TED Prize 2009". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2008-11-30. (primary source)
  30. ^ "TED Prize 2010". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2009-12-21. (primary source)
  31. ^ "TED Prize 2011". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2010-10-20. (primary source)
  32. ^ "TED Prize 2012". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2012-03-01. (primary source)
  33. ^ "TED Prize 2013". TEDPrize.org. Retrieved 2013-03-01. (primary source)
  34. ^ a b "Giving Away Information, but Increasing Revenue" The New York Times" 16 April 2007
  35. ^ YouTube channel
  36. ^ Bibliotech Program 2011 speakers Stanford.edu
  37. ^ Method - Awards Method.com
  38. ^ McManus, Emily. "TED.com wins a 2012 Peabody Award", TED Blog, 04 April 2012
  39. ^ "TED Review". MacWorld. 2009-12-22. Retrieved 2009-12-23.
  40. ^ With 500 Million Views, TED Talks Provide Hope for Intelligent Internet Video Mashable.com, 27 June 2011
  41. ^ Coe, Julie "TED’s Chris Anderson". Departures.com March 2012.
  42. ^ Savitz, Eric. Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/03/15/netflix-to-stream-ted-talks/. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  43. ^ "TED TALKS IN NYC –FEATURING WORLD-RENOWNED TALKS FROM TED.COM – PREMIERES ON NYC LIFE". .nyc.gov. March 15, 2012. Retrieved January 17, 2012.
  44. ^ Open Translation Project
  45. ^ "Translations" TED.com, retrieved 1 April 2013
  46. ^ "At 1-Year Anniversary, TED's Open Translation Project Celebrates More Than 7,000 Completed Translations From 4,000 Volunteers in 75 Languages". TED.com. Retrieved November 25, 2011.
  47. ^ "A Conference Makes Learning Free (and Sexy)" New York Times September 24, 2010
  48. ^ TEDx General Rules TED.com, retrieved 22 March 2013
  49. ^ TEDx at TED.com
  50. ^ Forbes 19 June 2012 "Here's Why TED and TEDx are So Incredibly Appealing"
  51. ^ Heller, Nathan Listen and Learn 09 juli 2012 The New Yorker, retrieved 02-09-2012
  52. ^ Application tips TED.com retrieved 2 december 2012
  53. ^ Rowan, David "Wired meets 2011's TED Fellows" July 18, 2011 Wired
  54. ^ Howard, Caroline. "Own Your Own Success, Says Sheryl Sandberg". Forbes. Retrieved December 8, 2010.
  55. ^ Trost, Matthew (19 Jan 2010). "TEDMED: A New Partnership". TEDMED blog.
  56. ^ Techcrunch.com blog
  57. ^ Techcrunch blog
  58. ^ Chris Anderson Blog
  59. ^ Taleb, Nassim (2010). The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a New Section: 'On Robustness and Fragility'. Random House Trade. p. 336. ISBN 0-8129-7381-X.
  60. ^ a b Techcrunch.com
  61. ^ Scobleizer
  62. ^ The Atlantic
  63. ^ International Business Times
  64. ^ National Journal
  65. ^ Tankersley, Jim. "Too Hot for TED: Income Equality". National Journal. Retrieved 16 May 2012.
  66. ^ Chris Anderson personal blog
  67. ^ Bruce Upbin. The Real Reason That TED Talk Was 'Censored'? It's Shoddy And Dumb, Forbes, 5/17/2012
  68. ^ JRE: Eddie Huang TED Conference Exposed
  69. ^ [1]
  70. ^ a b http://blog.ted.com/2013/03/14/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/
  71. ^ http://www.ted.com/conversations/17189/the_debate_about_rupert_sheldr.html?c=629643/
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