TED’s been keeping it short and sweet for 30 years

TED is 30. I was surprised to learn the 18-minutes-or-less talks series, now an essential ‘I’ve made it’ resumé achievement for technologist thinkers, has reached this milestone.

Like everyone else I’ve mentioned this to, I thought TED – which stands for technology, entertainment and design – was perhaps half that age.

But TED began back in 1984, when architect and designer Richard Saul Wurman gathered 300 people together in the Californian town of Monterey for a set of brief talks spanning those subjects.

TED motored along for years as a low key event with a high ticket price. The attraction was the choice of speakers, and the ideas – typically eclectic and outside the mainstream.

Touchscreen prophecy
Many have come to pass. Founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, Nicholas Negroponte, spoke at the first-ever TED, predicting the touchscreen computing interfaces that are now ubiquitous on tablets and smartphones.

In 1984, when the mouse had only just been introduced to the public after Apple’s launch of the Macintosh, the idea of a touchscreen must have seemed wishful and unlikely.

Now, it's more the case of the touchscreen – as well as TED talks – being hard to avoid, primarily thanks to YouTube. Although the organisation went from low key to Event with a capital E in 2001, after Briton Chris Anderson bought it and started its profile enhancement, it wasn't until an archive of filmed talks went online in 2006 that TED went stellar.

I’d guess most people think TED is about a decade old, because of that move. Prior to that, you’d have to have been a close follower of discussions by the technorati to have clocked its existence.

From 2006, in large part thanks to social media sharing links to talks, TED was everywhere. The archive is astonishing: over 1,600 TED talks freely available. People view them 1.9 million times a day.

TED has expanded into two annual conferences, as well as smaller, locally organised talk events in over 150 countries (including Ireland) called TEDx. Some TEDx talks are judged excellent enough to make it into the main TED archive – you can see Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology lecturer Simon Berrow’s wonderful 2010 presentation on Ireland’s basking sharks there, for example: iti.ms/OxKREM.

TED has its critics, who feel it risks turning complex ideas into unchallenged, attractively presented soundbites, where the whole process can seem to be more about making geeks into unlikely stars than about substantive issues.

Those are definitely risks, and with some talks, uncomfortably true. But the condensed and accessible infographic has its place, and often steers people to further exploration of a topic. And any good speaker or teacher knows that if the essentials of a concise subject cannot be offered, and an audience intrigued, within 20 minutes, then you’ve lost them anyway.

I think the archive is a treasure, and I’ve whiled away many hours poking around in its riches. So, clearly, have many others – some of the more popular talks have been viewed over 25 million times.

This week, Negroponte was back at the 30th anniversary TED event in Vancouver, where he spoke about the need to connect up the last billion people to the internet. He proposes this could be done inexpensively, via satellite.

Some might question whether this is really an urgent need for poorer populations in the developing world. But internet connections, via mobiles and inexpensive laptops, have already begun to expand what communities can do for themselves, empowering change, boosting income and education, and improving services.

The UN recognises this. Its Broadband Commission for Digital Development will be in Dublin this weekend, where a range of speakers and groups will discuss getting affordable broadband to more people, wherever they may live, from whatever background or country.

It’s an important goal, and deserves global support. And a TED talk.