TED (conference)
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a series of influential conferences that began in 1984, originally conceived by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks. Despite a rough start and financial difficulties during its first event, TED evolved into a renowned annual conference held in California, attracting a diverse array of speakers, including leaders from various fields such as business, music, and philosophy. The event is designed to foster meaningful conversations and ideas, emphasizing brief yet impactful presentations, typically capped at eighteen minutes.
Under the leadership of Chris Anderson, who took over in the early 2000s, TED expanded its reach globally through TEDGlobal conferences and introduced TED Talks, which are freely available online and have gained immense popularity. These talks cover a wide range of topics, from social issues to innovative technologies, and have been viewed millions of times, contributing to TED's global community. Additionally, TED has inspired local events through TEDx, allowing communities to host their own gatherings that encourage discussion and engagement around ideas presented in TED Talks. While the conferences have a reputation for exclusivity, the online availability of talks reflects a commitment to sharing knowledge and fostering conversation across diverse audiences.
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TED (conference)
TED conferences are events that focus on the relationship among technology, entertainment, and design. The first TED conference was conceived in 1984 by Richard Saul Wurman, who worked with Harry Marks to create the event. The 1984 conference was a financial failure, and another did not take place until six years later. It has since become an annual event held in California. Speakers have included authors, business leaders, musicians, philanthropists, philosophers, religious leaders, and luminaries in many other fields.
The growing influence of TED garnered the attention of Chris Anderson. He and Wurman reached an agreement, and the conference became a non-profit under the Sapling Foundation; the foundation was later renamed the TED Foundation in 2019. The TED Foundation has since added TEDGlobal conferences, which take place around the world; the TED Prize; and TED Talks, audio and video podcasts posted online for free. These videos were collectively viewed more than one million times within six weeks of the first postings.
Background
Exclusive ideas conferences became popular during the 1970s, but their roots lie in the salons of the French Enlightenment. During the early eighteenth century, women and men gathered to discuss intellectual issues. For the most part, women controlled the conversations by making the guest list for salon gatherings and selecting the agenda of discussion topics. Salon organizers invited both the nobility and commoners to their gatherings, which helped to break down barriers of society and intellect in France. Both science and the arts were gaining influence and attention. Printed materials such as journals were increasingly available; the Enlightenment encouraged free thought, and many citizens eagerly sought knowledge.
Ideas conferences are in many ways similar to the enlightened conversations of salons. While some conferences, such as the early TEDs, were invitation-only events, even those with accessible enrollment have an air of exclusivity about them. Those who are on the inside have access to important people, including celebrities and entrepreneurs. Some that arose since the late twentieth century include PopTech, the Clinton Global Initiative, and Google's Solve for X Moonshot Factory.
TED came about when Wurman, who was an architect, an author, and a graphic designer in the early 1980s, noted the convergence of the fields of technology, entertainment, and design. He was aware of conferences that were taking place in various fields and decided to subtract what he found uninteresting or unimportant—formality and dress codes, for example—and create a conference that fit his vision of what would be interesting and dynamic. He worked with television executive Marks to develop these ideas.
He invited three hundred people—professors, students, and thinkers—to his first TED conference at the Monterey Conference Center in February of 1984. The speakers included Mickey Schulhof of Sony, who talked about compact disc digital audio; Nicholas Negroponte of MIT Media Lab, who discussed digital books; executives from Lucasfilm, who discussed 3D graphics; and mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, who explained the workings of applications of fractal geometry in mapping coastlines. Wurman's vision of the conference was to bring in people who shared his understanding that to make an impact, a talk must be informative and understandable. He cited five critical components, which he called the five Cs: curiosity, convergence, connection, communication, and community. The organizers also insisted that the talks be brief.
Overview
TED talks looked and felt different from other conferences. The speakers had inspirational messages, which Wurman insisted be short. Wurman eliminated obstacles such as podiums that stood between the speaker and the audience.
The first TED conference took place before people had access to social media. It was a financial failure because only about three hundred people attended, and Wurman let half of them in for free to fill seats. Still, the conference made an impact. Discussion about the event and ideas presented there went on for some time. Wurman had planned this as a one-time event, but TED was the idea that grew in the retelling. It was informative as well as inspirational. One of the first talks, by Negroponte, included several predictions for the future; over time, most of them—including touch screens—became reality. This added to the impression that things were happening, and people who were at the TED conference were well-informed. The presence of celebrities, including musicians and actors, increased the appeal of attending.
The popularity of TED conferences, and others that developed at the same time, was attributed in part to a sense of inclusion. Attendance at early TED conferences was by invitation only. The cachet of being invited created a sense of community among guests. Speakers were reaching an audience that was largely curious and current, making it easier for them to get out their messages and, in many cases, to sell books or promote their work.
Under Anderson, TED conferences expanded from technology, entertainment, and design. He stipulated that talks be a maximum of eighteen minutes—which proved to be the amount of time people can focus on a topic. Speakers shone light on ocean pollution, child soldiers, and other social issues. Anderson also moved the venue from Monterey to a more spacious location in Long Beach.
As social media became an increasing element of people's lives, it became common for people attending these events to Tweet or post on cellphones using the same technology Negroponte predicted in 1984. TED attendees began referring to themselves as TEDsters. TED Talks, posted online, and the addition of simulcasts opened the door to what was happening in what was to many an otherwise unattainable venue.
The TED organization adopted a radical idea in 2006. It considered the ideas that were being shared at conferences and decided to put them online for everyone to view for free. This was a risk because a ticket to the conference was expensive and the conference was perceived as being an elite event. But to maximize the impact of the ideas discussed, the audience needed to be larger. The archive of recorded discussions and TED-approved talks from other events was posted on the website and became some of the most popular videos available online. Rather than reduce the perceived value of seats at TED Talks, the popularity of the videos allowed the organizers to raise the price by 50 percent (to $6,000). The next year's conference sold out a year in advance and had a wait list of about one thousand people. By 2014, the conferences were booking more than sixty speakers a year, with up to eight cameras recording the talks for posterity. By 2016, the TED Talks videos had been viewed more than five hundred million times.
The social salon came full circle when TED introduced TEDx communities. TEDx encourages people to organize their own TED-style gatherings to generate community and conversation. Licensed organizers of TEDx events are encouraged to organize salon meetings. Attendees may watch and discuss TED Talks, host their own speakers, and engage in discussions about the talks. As with gatherings of the Enlightenment, TEDx salons encourage participation.
As with the salons of the eighteenth century, TED conferences have developed a hierarchy. Anderson instituted tiered pricing, which allowed those willing to pay a premium to reserve front-row seats and enjoy VIP benefits.
In 2020, that year's TED Talk was initially postponed before being canceled due to the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Pandemics had previously been discussed at the 2015 TED Talk, when entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Gates had warned that the world was not prepared for the next pandemic. At the same time, TED.com published between five and seven new talks a week, giving the site a library of over 3,500 TED talks by October 2020.
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