Chris Carlsson on the build-in anti-criticality of the TED format

Chris Carlsson went to TEDx Amazon and made some insightful remarks about the design of the format, which doesn’t allow for any challenges to the speakers:

“I should pause because it’s important to understand how we all became quite chummy and actually gained real affection for each other. We were hanging out with each other very intensely for three or four days. We were living a very privileged experience. We’d been flown across the planet to be here, we’d been met at the airport like corporate executives or rock stars and whisked to a fine modern hotel, where drinks and food were provided. Then we were taken by boat to the surreal luxury of the Amazon Jungle Palace Hotel, and each given a private room and treated like stars. We met each other in this euphoria of attention and wealth and very few speakers (myself included) can resist the temptation to feel like you’re one of the cool ones, that somehow you have earned this experience, and that your presentation along with the others is actually quite important. Why would they have spent so much money to have us there if it weren’t? An air of self-flattery inevitably clouded our judgment, and the wildly enthusiastic reception—including many standing ovations by the audience—confirmed this. While there were more than a dozen brilliant speakers, most of the presentations were not so remarkable that they deserved the adulation they received, in my (not so humble) opinion.

This atmosphere of self-importance is reinforced by our shared material experience in the lap of luxury, and it combines with a format that squelches public critical engagement. The TED format, with speakers grouped in blocs, each going for a set amount of time, leaves no room for audience Q&A or immediate feedback, and certainly no rebuttals or disagreements from the floor. You are expected to find the speakers you want to go further with during the break times, or as a speaker, you are expected to find your critics over coffee and cakes, or during one of the hurried meals when we all sit together in a huge dining hall. OK, that does happen a bit. But what is lost is any risk for the speakers or the event that actual conflict will erupt. It’s designed out of the experience. Private disagreements among “gentlemen” (whatever their actual gender) can be easily ignored or more likely, never encountered. I think there should be at least 2-3 questions of each speaker while the whole 300+ audience is assembled so a sharp listener can challenge assertions and assumptions that are, or should be, political issues for everyone. (To make time for that, there should be fewer total speakers, too.)

Case in point: one of the lectures somewhat lost in the blur of Saturday afternoon was by Brazilian geneticist Paulo Arruda. I’m sure he’s a good guy. But he was uncritical and utterly lacking in nuance as he gave a speech declaring that genetic science had already solved so many problems and that with further research (he’s one of the three protagonists of the Brazilian Genome Project which has been good for agribusiness in Brazil) there’s nothing that genetic science can’t solve! That’s just patently ridiculous! But there was no way to engage these wild assertions as part of the event. It would have to be in private later.”

1 Comment Chris Carlsson on the build-in anti-criticality of the TED format

  1. AvatarRichard Adler

    Professor of journalism Jeff Jarvis gave a witty presentation at TEDxNYed a few months ago that also makes this point in regard to the TED format and to journalism in general.

    The transcript of Jarvis’ presentation is here, and it can also be seen on YouTube.

    One quote:

    “I tell media that they must become collaborative, because the public knows much, because people want to create, not just consume, because collaboration is a way to expand news, because it is a way to save expenses. I argue that news is a process, not a product. Indeed, I say that communities can now share information freely – the marginal cost of their news is zero. We in journalism should ask where we can add value. But note that that in this new ecosystem, the news doesn’t start with us. It starts with the community. “

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