
Letter to TEDx India Licensees - Jagat
http://pastebin.com/v9wHUWrh
======
nikcub
> Individuals intentionally blurring the difference between TED and TEDx.

> Speakers who abuse the TEDx platform by turning their speaking opportunity
> into a promotion for themselves or a book tour.

I see these two rules broken all the time. Just a few weeks ago I read a tweet
from one of the new-age social media experts which said "Go and watch my TED
talk about social media.." and I clicked on it thinking it would be a TED talk
..

It turned out to be a TEDx talk, he had linked to the 6th second of the video
so that the 'TEDx' bumper wouldn't be seen, and the entire talk was about his
upcoming book. This was at TEDx San Francisco.

The whole TEDx brand has been ruined for me. It wasn't the first time that a
TEDx video I had watched had been misrepresented or was just a sales pitch. I
actively avoid anything TEDx related, unless I have been tricked into clicking
it.

Edit: and if you are wondering why TED has such strict rules, which I am only
seeing today for the first time, now you know - they want to protect their
brand from incidents like this so viewers like me aren't turned off.

~~~
justhw
Is this the video in question <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onaapqbCXQ8>

~~~
nikcub
No, but that one is awfully similar. The video I was referring to was
presented on a more professional TED-looking stage, which is why the author
tried to pass it off as a TED talk.

------
b0sk
The guy who was fired (Kiruba Shankar) is an empty suit. Here is a cease and
desist letter from Wikimedia to him a couple of years back --
[http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Lett...](http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Letter_to_Kiruba_Shankar)

------
bajsejohannes
Breaking the rules or not, I have to say the TEDx brand is pretty weak to me.
TED talks are, or at least used to be, fantastic. I would think that is more
because of filtering of speakers than the format of the event. Nowadays I'm
much more sceptical to those talks, and would easily take a recommendation for
a non-branded talk over a TED(x) branded one.

~~~
rdl
I agree -- I think TEDx does a lot more damage to the TED brand than it adds.
I really hate how the video archives online often mix the two, with some of
the TEDx talks being (at best) self promotion, and often utterly whacko.

~~~
PakG1
Absolutely. When they first announced the TEDx plan, I was bewildered. For an
operation that held itself to such high (and at the time exclusive) standards,
I couldn't figure out why it would use such a strategy to expand. It seemed
like the inevitable result would only be brand dilution.

------
cjbprime
This is mistitled, as far as I can see? TEDx Chennai's license has been
canceled, not the whole of India's. The e-mail is a warning/threat to the rest
of the India licensees, that's all.

~~~
smoyer
That's how I read it too ... I think this is actually a pretty wise idea as
it's almost like the "warning shot across the bow" to the other communities
that are violating the policies. The whole letter sounds like they've shown a
lot of restraint! I love TED and TEDx!

------
imrehg
From talking to TEDx organizers here in Taiwan, it's a major pain to satisfy
some of the arbitrary rules. I'm sure that many of them has reason why it is
like that, even if they sometimes look very stupid or made by people who have
no idea about things that are local to here (for an arbitrary definition of
"here").

I'm personally confounded that people who have so many problems with the rules
they forced to follow are not starting their own event? Really, then no more
headaches of despots, build your own brand, make your own rules.

I for one really enjoy organizing Ignite instead of TEDx, so fewer rules (I
guess mostly self-regulation, and only the format of the talk cannot change).

(Disclaimer: never organized TEDx, but know a bunch of people who did or were
volunteers somewhere, Ignite Taipei is going on for its 7th event tomorrow)

~~~
dsymonds
How is it hard to satisfy the rules that are being complained about here? It
should be trivial to arrange for no sponsor logos, no sponsor speakers, and so
on.

~~~
citricsquid
I assume the rules being hard refers to the rules relation to event
management, not the rules in isolation. Events are expensive to manage,
disallowing sponsors to talk or have their logo well placed will be
detrimental to the value they gain from sponsoring an event, which will reduce
/ remove their interest in being a sponsor. Trivial to arrange, non-trivial
impact.

~~~
elmuchoprez
On-stage sponsorship would create a whole new problem and set of rules (and
probably costs). The value of on-stage sponsorship is not advertising to the
100 attendees, but rather that TED posts all conference videos to their main
site, which is potentially hundreds of thousands of viewers.

So now you've got all these TEDx events negotiating sponsorship deals (and
price points) for a product (positioning on the TED site) that they don't
control. So you'll see a flood of sponsorships competing for the events
willing to accept the lowest sponsorship bids, which I'm guessing TED wants to
avoid. But more importantly, this money is exclusively handled by the local
TEDx organizers, which provides a real profit incentive to simply run a lot of
events regardless of overall quality.

So TED could allow on-stage sponsorships, set predetermined sponsorship rates,
collect the bulk of that sponsorship money, etc... but now we're creating more
rules and bureaucracy. Besides, I don't think TED proper wants to be in the
business (read: hassle) of making money that way.

Besides, I'm fine with TED talks not looking like NASCAR events.

------
politician
"The most important part of hosting a TEDx event is motivation... giving back
to your community in an honest, sincere, selfless and non ego-driven way. TEDx
organizers care deeply about their community and the world around them in an
authentic way."

"We repeatedly discover in India TEDx events ... students hosting a TEDx
events as part of a campus festival."

So, TEDx deeply cares about the community and its events are about giving
back, selflessly. However, those damn students can't be allowed to imitate us
because, well, why exactly? Have they not warmed enough hands?

~~~
piyush_soni
Exactly! Given the high illiteracy rate in India (unfortunately), the only
major chunks of population who will be interested in these kind of events will
be students (mainly Engineering students). This rule sounds a little stupid to
not to allow them to host a TEDx event, which might otherwise act as a big
motivational factor for them to do something good for the country and the
world. Don't understand their 'giving back' policy so clearly.

~~~
kamaal
Not Exactly!

Students need to be told true stories. Not make believe ones. False
inspiration is useless. There have been numerous instances in India where
people some one like Ankit Fadia has mesmerized students with novelty windows
tricks.

And there are many cases, where some one from the alumni visits a engineering
college and brags about how he is a manager in just 4-5 years, and how all
programmers are under achieving losers. Such talks scare away students from
pursuing technically intensive careers and perpetuates same attitudes when
they get to their jobs. They continuously undermine/underpay technical jobs
and reward managerial jobs.

The net result is misdirected and manipulated students. Sometimes guys who are
really good, totally determine to never get into technical roles.

This has led to a huge shortage good engineers in India.

------
ax
I'm sick of seeing Nitin fucking Gupta at every conference I go to. I'm glad
TED is finally taking a stand and blacklisting him.

~~~
skyebook
Any information on who he is? Specific mention of one speaker piqued my
interest but a superficial Googling only gave me Nitin Gupta's in California

~~~
Devilboy
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V2xKpZE...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:V2xKpZElp4sJ:nitinguptaexposed.blogspot.com/+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au)

~~~
tomflack
That sounds like a different Nitin Gupta (but it's interesting to hear of this
guy operating in my home state!)

------
nell
Here is the TEDx Chennai organizer's side of the story.
[http://www.kiruba.com/2012/12/the-tedxchennai-
explanation.ht...](http://www.kiruba.com/2012/12/the-tedxchennai-
explanation.html)

~~~
b0sk
Here is one more data point against him
[http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Lett...](http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Letter_to_Kiruba_Shankar)

------
yarapavan
Here is the Tedx Chennai Ambassador's story on the same -

[http://www.kiruba.com/2012/12/the-tedxchennai-
explanation.ht...](http://www.kiruba.com/2012/12/the-tedxchennai-
explanation.html)

------
pdxgene
Re: sponsors on stage -- is this a relatively new rule? Wieden+Kennedy
sponsored TEDxPortland 2011, and John Jay, their Executive Creative Director,
was one of the featured speakers.

------
untog
Any reason why this is on PasteBin and not... any kind of reliable source at
all?

~~~
plinkplonk
"Any reason why this is on PasteBin and not... any kind of reliable source at
all?"

I don't know why it on Pastebin, but here is a (softball) interview in a
mainstream newspaper with the fired "Ambassador"

[http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/tedx-...](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/tedx-
chennai-licence-scrapped-for-flouting-norms-kiruba-shankar-curator-of-
tedxchennai/articleshow/17571398.cms)

The cancellation of the TEDx Chennai(== Madras) license, the firing of Kiruba,
and the general tightening screws for all India TEDx events seems real enough.
There have been rumors circulating locally about financial and other
shenanigans for a while now (fwiw).

------
peterjancelis
I attended TEDxBrussels recently, a pretty massive event with Steve Wozniak as
first speaker. The number of attendees was well over 1000, so I guess the 100
person limit can be increased after more vetting?

~~~
Maxious
If you attend a global event with a $6,000
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference)#Controversies_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_\(conference\)#Controversies_and_criticism)
???) ticket, you may have more than 100 attendees
<http://www.ted.com/pages/tedx_faq#A13>

~~~
sylvinus
TEDx organizers can ask for discounted tickets if they can't manage the
financials. There is also the much cheaper TEDActive conference that does lift
the limit.

------
lhnz
TEDx has almost completely ruined TED for me.

I don't trust that they care about quality any more, and there is far too much
dumb self-promotion. It's a low quality source of knowledge and there are
better curators around.

This is a shame, when it first started I could tell they were connecting me
with innovative thinkers, and not those blindly trying to earn a quick buck.

------
fromchennai
TED did the right thing.

To clarify, the cancellation was not because TEDx Chennai had more than 100
attendees but because of the misappropriation of funds by Kiruba and his
cohorts.

Kiruba Shankar is a conniving character and this is not the first incident
where he cheated public. See
[http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Lett...](http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Cease_and_Desist_Letter_to_Kiruba_Shankar)
and if you would like learn the series of events that resulted in
cancellation, follow the story on The Economic Times at
<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinions/17571398.cms>

------
tedxsmu
So, I'm a TEDx organizer in Dallas, and one of my former speakers posted this
thread on my FB page. For what it's worth, I thought I would share a few
thoughts. TEDx is about organizing an event in your local community. Not all
the TEDx talks are on TED.com; only ones selected by the TED team. In
addition, the TEDx team watches every talk, all 21,000 and counting, and the
best talks are curated for ted.com There are some amazing TEDx events and
inspiring talks from TEDx events, like Brene Brown's talk from TEDxHouston
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0>). Obviously growth has its
challenges, and it seems like the conversation below is representative of
that. But there are a huge number of people in this TEDx community who are
genuinely trying to bring value to their local communities through these
events. It's really too bad that a few bad apples are jeopardizing the whole.

------
tehwalrus
This (and the previous HN on a similar topic from recently) is a great shame.

I remember how excited I was when I saw this talk by a twitter acquaintance
(with a fine art PhD) on a TEDx stage in York, UK:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl0_AJN0oAM>

and it made me aspire to do something cool and interesting enough to get
invited to give one of these talks one day.

I'm sad to see that TEDx's reputation seems to be falling from grace.

------
lerouxb
Well at least more people ignorant people like me now know that Chennai exists
;) I didn't even know that Madras got officially renamed. In 1996 already!

------
namank
I forwarded this link to tedx@ted.com, this is great feedback for them.

------
davidpayne11
If you are from Chennai, you'll know what the situation is like in there. At
any point, in any such conference, people are constantly trying to brand
themselves under the guise of 'contribution to the community'. They are always
looking to market themselves at any cost, even though they _know_ it is
unethical.

I have visited a dozen such conferences and I can tell this without
hesitation, even on a public stage. There is a huge difference in the mindset
of the organizers over here (SF) and in Chennai.

Kiruba Shankar is also a clever marketer. I still remember the days when he
used to flaunt about his TED talks on Facebook. In all honesty, people like
him are the ones who degrade the value of TED.

Here's a still that crops of the 'X' in the TED X event. This was uploaded by
Kiruba Shankar himself:

<https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=194646852844>

(or)

[https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-
prn1/16461...](https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-
prn1/16461_194646852844_4363144_n.jpg)

Anyone active within the Chennai community will tell you how this man is just
a marketer and has no credentials or no 'achievements' good enough to give a
speech at TED. And he is just one example.

It is important because, without having significant achievements up your
sleeve, you are assuming

1) The audience are dumb enough. 2) You can talk what you want and get away
with it.

Here is another example of a 'self-proclaimed' entrepreneur who runs just an
SEO business (Ashwin Ramesh)

This guy was DRUNK when he gave this talk. I'm not joking, it's the truth. HE
got drunk again with the organizer that night, anyone close to him and his
organizer will confirm this:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq768Cyeiew>

All in all, though this is bad news, I think it's a very good move for the TED
community on the whole.

~~~
kamaal
>>Here is another example of a 'self-proclaimed' entrepreneur who runs just an
SEO business (Ashwin Ramesh)

In all likeliness I am sure he would have been considered than because he is:

    
    
        a. Rich.
        b. Powerful, to have some say and influence things.
    

Either a) or b) will elevate you to demi god status among middle class
Indians, even if all you have done is sell peanuts well. Its not their fault,
Imagine having grown cash strapped middle class families living hand to mouth
every month with average lives, and compromising with nearly everything in
life in hope of having a better future later.

When guys like these come around, they generally become idols to chase. Now if
you tell they made it easily, they are going to have more followers.

And no body likes to mess with the rich. Because they have a lot of strong
connections and then when you are need of help or in trouble they can create
huge problems for you.

~~~
sid6376
More than rich or powerful, these are people who have become twitter famous
and now milking it to good effect.

I saw this a lot in Hyderabad as well.

~~~
kamaal
I always feel guys like these have an innate knack to pick up ways to be
early-entry-boys into any about-to-become-famous areas.

I would not be surprised if Bitcoin goes big in India. 90% of the early entry
crowd be scamsters.

------
aviraldg
I don't think some of the rules "scale" that well in India... like the
100-attendee limit.

~~~
sfaruque
I was going to make the same comment. The 100 attendee limit is very hard to
do in a country where 1,000s would be willing to attend. Maybe, and this is
really just back-of-napkin-math, if the limit was 0.00001 of the total
population?

~~~
ceejayoz
> The 100 attendee limit is very hard to do in a country where 1,000s would be
> willing to attend.

"Sorry, we've sold out."

Want to allow thousands to attend? Go for it. Just don't call it TEDx. If you
want to call it TEDx, you follow the TEDx rules.

------
silentmars
My first, gut reaction was this was a very pretentious-sounding letter from
some singularly pretentious people. It's probably got a lot to do with the
fact that I hate TED.

I can't articulate exactly what it is about TED that bothers me so much. I
know it has to do with the attitude. South Park got pretty close to the mark
in their episode about hybrid cars and San Francisco - a bunch of self-
righteous people sniffing their own farts.

With that as my context, this letter read like a pompous bureaucrat windbag
going on about how great he is and how important all his rules and policies
are. I want to say, get over yourself. TED isn't that good.

