> "I don't mean to come off the wrong way, but did you even read the article?"
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.
It is also how they rose to fame in the first place - they didn't predate Vimeo or YouTube...
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.
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 agree to a point but don't think 1% is too accepting. In many ways I think the top 1% of TEDx talks exceed the quality of some traditional TED conference talks, because they typically are doing it solely because of the idea as oppose to conference speakers who have other commercial interests, often promoting themselves and/or their new book.
The value of TED over youtube.com, or an academic seminar at any university is their quality of talks and rigorous selection process - or "elitism" if you wish.
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.
While I don't have enough background to personally pass judgement on Allan Savory, Chris Clarke apparently does. It's not the full-on kookiness of vortex math, but apparently he feels that to an ecologist, his TED talk is "full of red flags":
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.