TED Talks: Causes and pauses

Talking the talk A dark stage, a bright-eyed speaker, an intriguing proposition, and a rapt audience. Such is the anatomy of a typical TED Talk. TED Conferences LLC, the media organization that put the talk in TED, has a nearly 40-year history of stimulating minds with cutting-edge thought on “Technology, Entertainment, Design.” Or, depending on who you ask (or what you see), platforming pontificating PowerPoint presenters. Though it has received its fair share of both [praise]( and [censure](, TED’s impact is undeniable. It has expanded well beyond the official conference stage, becoming a global forum for highlighting ideas, and boosting careers (as well as some [memes](). The standard TED conference membership costs [$10,000 a pop](, but if you can’t afford the Totally Exorbitant Door-fee, you can get a more affordable ticket at an independent event, or join millions in watching talks for free online. So what is it about TED Talks that make people want to take to the stage, or lean in and listen? Have a seat, and get ready for, in the words of TED’s slogan, “ideas worth spreading.” 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Sponsored by [Quartz Weekly Obsession] TED Talks June 22, 2022 Talking the talk --------------------------------------------------------------- A dark stage, a bright-eyed speaker, an intriguing proposition, and a rapt audience. Such is the anatomy of a typical TED Talk. TED Conferences LLC, the media organization that put the talk in TED, has a nearly 40-year history of stimulating minds with cutting-edge thought on “Technology, Entertainment, Design.” Or, depending on who you ask (or what you see), platforming pontificating PowerPoint presenters. Though it has received its fair share of both [praise]( and [censure](, TED’s impact is undeniable. It has expanded well beyond the official conference stage, becoming a global forum for highlighting ideas, and boosting careers (as well as some [memes](). The standard TED conference membership costs [$10,000 a pop](, but if you can’t afford the Totally Exorbitant Door-fee, you can get a more affordable ticket at an independent event, or join millions in watching talks for free online. So what is it about TED Talks that make people want to take to the stage, or lean in and listen? Have a seat, and get ready for, in the words of TED’s slogan, “ideas worth spreading.” 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Giphy Origin story *Clears throat* --------------------------------------------------------------- TED started in 1984 as a one-off conference, co-founded by Harry Marks, a broadcast television designer, and Richard Saul Wurman, an architect and graphic designer. The inaugural conference, “TED1,” featured one of the [first looks]( at an Apple Macintosh computer, an e-book, and a CD, and had a list of speakers that included mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot and MIT media lab founder Nicholas Negroponte. Even so, TED1 financially flopped, and it wasn’t until six years later that the organization put another conference together. Following TED’s 1990 reboot, it became an annual event. In 2009, the conference, which originally [was held]( in Monterey, California, moved to Long Beach to accommodate more attendees. Since then, the TED stage has featured speakers across a wide variety of fields: from designers to architects, computer scientists to physicists, poets to politicians. TED has also launched [other initiatives](, including the TED Prize, TEDWomen, TED-Ed, TEDGlobal, TED Fellows, and TED Institute. Perhaps the most publicly prominent of these programs is [TEDx](, through which thousands of local speaking events are independently-organized around the globe each year. By the digits (at time of writing) [73 million:]( Views on the most popular TED Talk, about school curriculums [100,000+:]( Talks in the TEDx archive [40,404:]( TEDx events that have been held [4,000+:]( TED Talk videos available on its website [$3,000:]( Cost to attend a TEDWomen conference [1,224:]( Upcoming TEDx events [130+:]( Countries where TEDx events have been held [100+:]( Languages TED Talks have been presented in [18:]( Minutes at which a TED Talk is capped Sponsored by Modern Health Nominate your heroes with Modern Health Heroes --------------------------------------------------------------- [Modern Health]( is honoring HR professionals and mental health care providers going above and beyond to support people’s mental health and general well-being with its [first industry awards program](.[Learn more]( Giphy Shhh… The forbidden talks --------------------------------------------------------------- TED doesn’t promote every idea that’s been shared on its stages. According to TED guidelines, talks must be based on solid science, and cannot be politically inflammatory or have a commercial agenda. Some talks, as a result, have been axed from TED-branded platforms. But not without controversy. Nick Hanauer’s “Rich people don’t create jobs,” cannot be found on TED’s website or its YouTube channel. Given TED is [likened to]( “Davos for the digerati,” having hosted cozy tete-a-tetes with Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jack Dorsey (not to mention receiving over [$1 million]( in stock from [Google]( and [Amazon](-related foundations), perhaps TED found this was not one of the “ideas worth spreading.” Some other banished TED Talks venture into the territory of New Age pseudoscience and parapsychology. Two such talks occurred at TEDxWhitechapel, one from Graham Hancock titled “The War on Consciousness,” in which he promotes the use of the schedule 1 drug ayahuasca. The other is from Rupert Sheldrake, titled, “The Science of Delusion,” where he lays out and challenges what he calls “10 dogmas” in the scientific community. You won’t find either video on the TED YouTube channel or in the archive. Instead, TED has posted [Hancock]( and [Sheldrake’s]( talks to its blog, with accompanying context and explanation for their relegated placement. Meanwhile, some disputed theories have been spared the TED chopping block. A talk positing that humans evolved from [aquatic apes](, which has “[no scientific evidence](” (TED’s words), is still in the main archive. So is a [scrutinized talk]( on power poses (TED’s second most popular talk of all time) whose findings some studies have [failed to replicate](. Another about combating [desertification]( through grazing, which [has been challenged]( by other scientists, is also still in the TED canon. While they remain, all three also have qualifying and contextual addenda beneath the videos. TED has [created a page]( to “debunk myths” that it is elitist, biased, or promotes pseudoscience. Quotable “There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” —Susan Cain, “[The Power of Introverts](” from TED2012 Giphy Pop quiz Which of these is a real premise for a TED Talk? The solution to climate change is laughterWhen parallel lines intersectHow ventriloquism taught me self careThe restorative power of medical tattoos Correct. Correct! In this September 2021 talk at TEDxMalvern, a paramedical tattooist shares how tattoos can help people transform and heal. Incorrect. Nope, but TED, call us. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Sponsored by Modern Health Nominate your heroes with Modern Health Heroes --------------------------------------------------------------- [Modern Health]( is honoring HR professionals and mental health care providers going above and beyond to support people’s mental health and general well-being with its [first industry awards program](.[Learn more]( Brief history [350 BCE:]( Aristotle writes Rhetoric, a framework of persuasion that informs the art of public speaking. [1932:]( British captain William H. Richards creates George the Robot, which can give speeches in multiple languages. An AI robot would later [give a TED Talk]( in 2020. [1970:]( University of Alabama at Birmingham professor James C. McCroskey develops the Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety for people dealing with glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking. [1984:]( TED Conferences, LLC, is born. [2006:]( The first TED Talks go online, including what will become TED’s [most-viewed video](. [2012:]( TED Talks hits its one billionth view, and malariologist Bart Knols gives a TED Talk [in his underwear](. [2019:]( TED Foundation takes over control of TED from the Sapling Foundation, a nonprofit that had owned it since 1996. [2022:]( Former US vice president Al Gore gives a talk about climate change and the fossil fuel industry, a topic he [first spoke about]( at TED 16 years before. Fun fact! There are many TED Talk spoofs, including the zombified DED Talks; trippy High Talks; cast aside RejecTED Talks; and ponderous-on-purpose Onion Talks (check out “[Ducks go quack, Chickens say cluck](”). TED Watch this! Tips from TED --------------------------------------------------------------- TED’s curator Chris Anderson shares tips on how to give a great TED Talk and “build ideas inside the minds of your audience.” Giphy Take me down this 🐰 hole! Counter-conference culture --------------------------------------------------------------- TED is a hierarchical conference. Speakers are selected, presentations scripted, the audience pays to attend, and they follow a set agenda. In 2007, in response to the rigid nature of TED, a shadow gathering was formed—the [BIL Unconference](. It was decentralized, free, and open invitation, a more freewheeling satellite to the exclusionary TED stage. In an unconference, attendees figure out what they want to talk about, and set their own agenda on the spot, creating an atmosphere that is like a cross between a Quaker meeting, a college seminar discussion, and a participatory democratic forum. The sessions are informal, participant-driven, and often operate on the “law of two feet,” meaning if you’re not learning or contributing in a space, you can get up and move somewhere else. There are usually no presentations—the focal point is conversation. The creation of the unconference has been attributed to [Alexander von Humboldt](, a German naturalist and [infographic]( trailblazer, who held an open format conference in Berlin in 1828, inviting scientists from across Europe to exchange ideas. Modern iterations of the unconference [emerged]( alongside the Web 2.0 movement, with initiatives in the software engineering sector, like [BarCamp]( and [Foo Camp](, leading the way. The rise of the unconference marked a philosophical shift in the understanding of knowledge-making, moving from the individual to the collective. To those in the tech space in the early 2000s, they were appealing as a forum for generating “collective intelligence” (CI), a buzzword [originally coined]( by French philosopher Pierre Lévy in his 1994 book, Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace. While some of the millennium optimism about cyberspace and CI has faded, the unconference lives on. Today, the format has been replicated around the world and across fields, from business to media, academia to government. Giphy Poll Have you thought about giving a TED Talk? [Click here to vote]( I prefer sticking to my seat.I would take a stab at it.I have already given a TED Talk! 💬 let's talk! In last week’s poll about [Social Security numbers](, 41% of you agreed that singing the chorus of your favorite song would be a better way to identify yourself. But 31% of you are on board with face recognition apps. 🤔 [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20TED%20Talks%20&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 🎲 [Show me a random Obsession]( Today’s email was written by [Julia Malleck]( (has talked to a Ted), edited by [Morgan Haefner]( (is not a Ted but can talk), and produced by [Jordan Weinstock]( (bad at talking but occasionally feels like a Ted). [facebook]([twitter]([external-link]( The correct answer to the quiz is The restorative power of medical tattoos. Enjoying the Quartz Weekly Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! Want to advertise in the Quartz Weekly Obsession? Send us an email at ads@qz.com. Not enjoying it? No worries. [Click here]( to unsubscribe. Quartz | 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104