I know I’m supposed to swoon a little at the idea of being an Official TEDx Speaker, that doing this will rain down confetti and job offers and fame on me. But in the end it boils down to this: TEDx is just another organisation asking me to work for free.
-This rings true with me. I'm sure that the organizers of TED would agree that content creators are vital and important to our society and without them, TED doesn't exist. Even if the pay was something small, it would send the right signal imo. I think that too often the platform thinks of themselves as more important than the content and this is WRONG. I personally think that TED has been reckless with their brand. They're everywhere I turn.
This statement resonated with me: Science communicators in general are always expected to do work for free. It's annoying and heartbreaking and I hope more and more science communicators refuse. Just because you enjoy doing something doesn't mean that other people can make money off of you for just exposure in return. Exposure doesn't buy groceries.I can’t pay my rent with exposure and goodwill.
Sounds weird to say, but I found myself glad that this showed that it's not something that happens only to people involved with the arts. Hopefully more people will be willing to acknowledge that this isn't right. I really think that this is a bigger deal than people are making it out to be. In a capitalist society, where earning power is a prime motivator in determining professional pursuits, this kind of thing says, "what you're doing is good, but not valuable".
Something I've been wondering for a while and this seems like a pretty good place to start -- I've never watched a TED talk. I've probably read an article or two about them, when they were new, but I don't remember the content. What are they? Why are they popular? Is it more than a buzzword? They're like ... a short documentary? An expert gets in front of a camera and talks, like those weird-history videos we used to get in high school when the teacher was too hungover to make it? I have never understood the appeal or unique market share of this idea. How did they hook the internet demographic so completely? Why will people sit and watch a TED talk on something when a solid longform arstechnica or wired article already exists? Any thoughts welcome.
Remember those %%%%%%%%%%%%%☆TheMoreYouKnow things that NBC used to run? These? Imagine if those ran 12-30 minutes, and were intended for curious autodidacts instead of bored couch potatoes. That's a TED talk. 'k. So TED ("Technology, Entertainment, Design") has been running conferences since '84. They've been running conferences yearly since 1990. They are invite only, they cost a shit-ton to attend, and they are sort of Bilderberg Lite®. The idea is to gather a bunch of luminaries in Monterey for the weekend and rub them together so their different colors of luminary-ness will rub off on each other. The TED "talk" is literally "Hi, I'm Ben, I'm from France, I make pretty pictures from math" for pompous intelligentsia. The idea being, once Bob explains what a Mandelbrot set is, people will come up and talk to him after drinks to learn what importance chaos theory has in, say, weather prediction. Meanwhile, Bob will be inspired to apply Stewie's ideas about sustainability to his closed mathematical sets. The "whole world" benefits from this cultural cross-pollination, everyone takes a tax deduction, and the little people are kept out where they ought be. Obviously, you can't assemble egghead parties like this for fifteen years and have proles not saying "I wish I could be a fly on the wall." So they released the recordings. Yeah, you're not rubbing shoulders with the guys at the cocktail parties, but you can watch what they have to say and feel smart. You're not learning as much as you think you are, though. The point of the "talks" is as a jumping-off point, and when you're an end-user on the internet, they're the alpha-omega. Yeah, maybe they inspire you to do some web searching. But really, you're watching TV. You'd get a lot more edification from an issue of Science News… except those take a lot more than 12 minutes to digest. So what you're left with is "youtube for nerds." They're bite-sized, survey-grade overviews of one particular individual's area of study, presented in the best light they can come up with to get people to talk to them at cocktail parties. Granted - lots of these people have lots of cool things to say but every.single.one of them has a better venue to present their ideas to you. Read their book. Use their software. etc. But again, that takes more than 12 minutes. The "TEDx" thing basically came from TED licensing the idea of getting a bunch of people in a room together to talk one-by-one in front of cameras. Yeah, you don't get paid. Thing was, if they really wanted you to speak at the TED conference, they'd comp or deeply discount your admission to the conference. TEDx? That's whatever bullshit you can get people to show up for. And that's why dude's all up-in-arms over not being paid by TEDx - it's a dumb thing down on the corner. TED? That's an egghead retreat somewhere people want to vacation. I mean, who doesn't want to be celebrated as a genius among geniuses especially when they make you stay here?I've never watched a TED talk. I've probably read an article or two about them, when they were new, but I don't remember the content. What are they?
Why are they popular?
Okay. This is what I assumed, although I didn't know the history. Thanks once again for an interesting post. The problem I run up against with TED talks, podcasts, documentaries et al. is that I can think and read much more quickly than any of these people can speak. I can't really even sit through all but the most interesting lectures anymore because I'd rather read a transcript to save my time for better things. So I have a problem with the format. But I still mean to watch the one thenewgreen linked below just so I can have an opinion.
Watch the RSA one. It emphasizes your point - mainly that "people standing on a stage" are not necessarily the most interesting or efficient way to promote knowledge.
Yeah, I will watch both. I've got some viewing to do tonight it looks like. The reason I ask all this is that my only decent professor was asked to give a TED talk somewhere next year and he asked me over breakfast last week what the hell the point of them was. Doing some lazy hubski-research.
It's really like short seminars. They're often structured with some kind of easy takeaway that people can apply quickly. I'd actually like to know more about how it became such a "thing" myself. As for why this instead of an article, well, I think people get turned off by long text on the internet. Plus, during the talks, there is often a visual or other component that the speaker explains or uses to interact with the audience. I don't think that this will help you get an idea of what the typical one is like, but Reggie Watts did a TED talk that was pretty cool.
So the easy criticism to level, which I will go ahead and air so someone can refute it, is that gearing info toward someone who can't handle long amounts of text or needs a snappy visual and an "easy takeaway" automatically makes the content less focused and knowledge-heavy than a different approach. As in, we let kids learn on iPads now because they can't learn any other way = TED talks. Am I way off base? Still never seen one so I'm still just asking. I'll watch one sometime this week and check my hypothesis.
Check out this one if you do watch as it's one of the most watched. Sir Ken is incredibly entertaining but I'd be interested to know your thoughts of the talk.
Will do. Wikipedia says he's an "educationalist" which is like an extraordinarily bad sign, but I've got to start somewhere. Also obviously schools kill creativity that's not what they're for. But I promise to watch it now instead of continuing to talk.
Without being a regular consumer of TED talks, I would say that is close to my experience thus far. For some of the topics, video makes a lot of sense. For example, talks that deal with physical things like body posture and the non-theoretical aspects of music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hwLMBdnbXk Eddie Huang says they don't treat you very well as a speaker once you get there too. I really like the talks, it's disappointing to hear things like that about TED.
Another fun thing to note: That since Ted X is independently ran, there's no quality checks most of the time. Which means they can really just grab anyone off the street to do a talk. And among skeptics at least (maybe more people as well), TedX is getting a bad name (as opposed to the regular Ted which has wonderful talks). I don't think that giving a free ted talk would be bad. But I can see where you are coming from. If you don't need the recognition or w/e, then it's easy to say "yea, I want to be paid." But for someone just entering the industry, having the opportunity to give a ted talk would probably be a nice resume piece. Nonetheless, I agree. TED talks have been becoming shit year after year and it's probably because the speakers don't get paid. I wasn't aware of this, but now it all makes sense.
I preface this by saying I completely agree. But wouldn't it be hard to get into TED to begin with if you aren't already a prominent person in your particular industry? If that were the case, I'd still want those dollas, yo."But for someone just entering the industry, having the opportunity to give a ted talk would probably be a nice resume piece.
Haha, yea, probably. But it's not always the case. There've been some students or w/e going up and showing their projects that were innovative (sixth sense comes to mind). I don't think TED is all that selective as long as you can demonstrate you know what you are doing.
Frank Swain is a well-established science writer - one of the better ones out there. His blog is hosted by National Geographic and he has written for every major publication I could ever dream of writing for. That being said I still know that even the "successful" freelance science writers are still madly underpaid, so I can understand his frustration. You work your ass off in a competitive as hell landscape - and you get attention and respect - but you still can't pay your rent. It's not fair/fun. Also, TEDx came to him - so he must be doing something right. And I don't think he is being an asshole for expecting to get paid - science writers are constantly made to feel like dicks for expecting to work for money. Why should we be expected to work for free. Fuck that. Also, the "Twitter contributor" thing is a joke.
Ah well excuse me then. I'll go ahead and delete my ignorant comment.