Open Brand Cases: TEDx

March 24, 2012
"How To Deliver A TED Talk" is a complete guide for creating presentations that inspire others through your story. Based on intensive study of the most popular TEDTalks, this step-by-step playbook shows you how to select your topic, craft your narrative, master your delivery, and refine your design.

The TEDx team says a Chennai event violated its norms and disregarded the very ‘DNA’ of the organization.

In particular, the team complained about an event in Chennai, which, it said, had held a press conference with sponsors, allowed the venue sponsor to speak on stage and shared speakers with another conference. As a result, the Chennai licence would be cancelled, the team said, and the primary organizer of the event, Kiruba Shankar, had resigned his position as TEDx ambassador in India.
Shankar, who confirmed that he stepped down three weeks ago, was one of four TEDx ambassadors in India. He said that the TEDx Chennai event has been “put on hold” until a suitable replacement licensee could be found. “There was no intention of violating the rules of TEDx in Chennai,” he said. “But you must understand that organizing the events is a big task. There were some 50 volunteers involved for over six months.”
According to Shankar, a hotelier came forward to offer his space for the event. “The sponsorship was immaterial,” he maintained. “There was no money involved, as it was in kind. The person offered to give us space and had a great story to tell, which we thought would be great for our audience to hear. So he spoke at the event as well.” Shankar added that his team had turned down the monetary sponsorship.
That reasoning might not hold much water with TEDx, however, which was adamant in its letter that the very “DNA” of the organization had been disregarded.

Aug/25/2012 TEDx China Universities community @Hangzhou

This logo creator is based on the original work by Yongho Shin, and maintained by Brian Alexander. Source is available on GitHub at https://github.com/ironprogrammer/tedx-logo-creator. If you encounter any issues, please let us know on the issues page.

Enter the name of your TEDx event then hit enter on your keyboard.

The European: You said that TED is like story telling. But every culture has a different kind of story telling and making things interesting. How do you make sure to be understandable in each cultural context?
Stein: Some cultures adapt more easily to the idea of an 18 minute talk on stage than others. Ultimately, that is the TED format. It is really interesting to watch how people around the world watch the TED talks online and then attempt to emulate them in their own culture. In some parts of the world it is definitely much more difficult but it is evolving. We have our first TEDx talk from Korea going up on TED.com this week. We are constantly reinventing TED and the next step will be looking in a deeper way at cultures across the globe and how the best talks for these individual communities can be represented and highlighted in a way that local communities can access them. Our attempt is to reach different communities and cultures in a more authentic way and expand on both the local and global conversation. This evolution is being very much driven by the TEDx community.

Thanks for participating in this survey. I am conducting research on how ideas spread, and to do so have chosen one big idea, the TEDx program - which has spread around the globe being comprised of more than 3,000 events since March 2009. Using the TEDx platform as my vehicle, I am looking at a number of theories regarding how ideas actually spread and examining these within cultures around the world. As you receive this, I will be visiting my 18th and 19th countries having attended more than 40 TEDx events around the world, so far.

We are developing tools for organizers without access to technology to create TEDx experiences in diverse locations around the world.

The purpose of the TEDx in a Box concept is to give TEDx organizers the tools necessary to host TEDx events in under-resourced areas and informal settlements around the world. TEDx has been experimenting with this idea and has previously distributed ten boxes at locations around the world. TEDx engaged IDEO.org to redesign the TEDx in a Box in a human-centered way, incorporating feedback from TEDx experiences with the initial boxes. The TEDx in a Box must be operational in areas with limited access to electricity and infrastructure, and be able to cross language barriers.

TEDx Teams Up With IDEO to Relaunch "TEDx in a Box" Initiative TEDx has teamed up with IDEO.org to launch the second phase of the TEDx in a Box initiative, first launched in December of last year.

The TEDx program is not yet three years old, but we are already celebrating a major milestone: our 10,000th TEDxTalk. These talks come from over 2,600 independently organized events held in 115 different countries and 39 different languages. They have been viewed over 18 million times, with many more events happening each day.

Starting today, you’ll see a new talk every single day on the homepage of TED.com! Each Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be posting a great talk from one of the thousands of independent TEDx events around the world.

We launch with a powerful story from reporter Paul Lewis: Crowdsourcing the news. He uncovered evidence of a police coverup surrounding a killing — using bystanders’ cameraphones and Twitter.

Great shot of the TEDxUlaanbaatar organizing team. "With our first TEDxUlaanbaatar event, we hope to debut Mongolia to the TED community through a new lens, focusing on Mongolia’s rich past and promising future. In a blend of both Mongolians and expatriates, our team of organizers, contributors, and speakers are all working towards Mongolia’s LEGACY: Honoring Tradition, Designing the Future."

What was your TEDxDeadSea brand strategy? What was your inspiration?

This question is answered by our Branding Partner, NDProductions

In order to deliver a message, to spread a word or to seek a goal, there is always a need for a medium; this is our main idea behind our concept for the TEDxDeadSea branding.

TEDx is all about exploring and exposing new ideas, new innovation, creative minds, entrepreneurs, etc… therefore we have symbolized the medium of spreading those words in red pipelines.

The reason behind choosing the red pipeline motif for TEDxDeadSea branding is that pipelines are flexible, and can be custom made depending on what content it is delivering, and it can be extended to reach wherever location it is intended to reach, which we believe is the core concept of the TEDx event. The color and the feel of the pipelines is inspired by the general feel of the TEDx logo.

The general look and feel of the branding is simple, elegant and classy; the overall theme and colors (red, black and white) is inspired by the TEDx identity.

Originally presented March 2nd, 2011 at TED Long Beach: The Rediscovery of Wonder, this video tracks how the TEDx program has grown into a worldwide movement. Featuring video clips and photos from a few of the 1,579 TEDx events that have occured since the program's inception in March 2009. Also featuring short interviews with the organizers of TEDxSeoul, TEDxAmsterdam, TEDxYouth@Tokyo, TEDxChange and TEDxAmazonia.

One area of risk is the possible loss of rights through trademark abandonment. Traditional trademark doctrine says that if the trademark owner doesn't “control” the quality of the goods and services with which a mark is used, then the trademark may be “abandoned” – that is, the trademark owner loses all rights to enforce its trademark against others, irregardless of how strong the trademark actually is. Another is “genericism,” when the trademark becomes the name everyone uses to describe the thing and it loses its significance as a brand identifier altogether – Chris's aspirin, escalator and zipper examples.

When it comes to choosing the right brand strategy for our current 2010 world, we need to weigh two opposing forces tugging mightily at each other.

On one side, we now live in a world where openness and sharing have, in many corners, become the standard operating procedure. Because of this, some organizations are beginning to cede control of key elements of their brand to their audiences. Sometimes they do it on purpose as part of a smart community engagement strategy or experiment. Sometimes the audience simply hijacks the brand whether the organization likes it or not. The flat world of the Internet makes the latter situation more common than ever before.

On the other side, we have a legal system still heavily steeped in a long tradition of brand protectionism. The law is woefully behind when it comes to understanding the changing state of our connected world. Organizations that do not protect their brands in this legal environment may be taking great risks with some of their most valuable intellectual property.

Which brings us back to TED. So did the folks at TED make a good brand strategy decision by giving some of the TED brand ownership to their community?

The TED conference, an elite brand for idea exchange, has opened to the public under the name TEDx. TEDx was a major risk because TED’s organizers had to relinquish control. On the other hand, TEDx is an example of a new model of business plans that harness fans of the brand to help it evolve.

Mr. Anderson agreed, though he said the looming questions were “How do you avoid damaging the TED brand? Can you package TED in a box?”

Today, TED executives are looking to the next phase of growth: leveraging TEDx as an educational tool.

“We know teachers are using the talks in classrooms,” said Lara Stein, TED’s licensing director. “What could we do to move that along?”

After all, as Mr. Anderson pointed out, the rise of online video means a teacher doesn’t have to be someone sitting in front of a classroom talking to 30 people. Especially if something like TEDx can make learning and social change “sexy,” as Ms. Kim of Ashoka put it.

“It’s an experience,” she said. “It’s not a lecture. It’s transformational. That’s why people like me are hooked.”

This video -- presented by TEDx Licensing Director Lara Stein at TEDGlobal 2010 -- highlights the TEDx events held globally in the year since the inception of the TEDx program.
Features images from TEDxOilSpill, TEDxShekhavati, TEDxParis, TEDxVolcano, TEDxKibera, TEDxNYED and more. This video was first presented at TEDGlobal in Oxford, U.K. on July 14th, 2010.

It's pretty simple: TEDxAmsterdam is about 'ideas worth spreading,' and our TEDxAmsterdam Challenge is about 'ideas worth doing!' We challenge you to do something good in your local community, your city, the Netherlands, or the world. Take your pick.

Volunteers Aden, Roopa, and Logistics Lead Buffy St-Amand

Volunteer Aden Hirtle

TEDxCalgary_event1_05

Volunteer Roopa Khanna

Here are the ten steps I went through in rehearsing for my talks.

1. Print your current slide deck as 9-up handouts
2. Solicit feedback
3. Rehearse with a great (honest) communicator
4. Close the loop
5. Practice with clock counting up
6. Practice with clock counting down
7. Noteworthy
8. Don’t be camera shy
9. Do one more FULL timed rehearsal right before you walk on stage
10. Have two natural ending points

Welcome to TEDx! This is a basic overview of the TEDx identity system.