My Enquiry with TED India

TED.com has become a revolution. It was however hardly known (outside the USA)before it had discovered the Internet and it was not amongst the first to discover the Internet either. So while TED has been seen as the place to be for "ideas worth spreading" there has always been more to it. There is more method than madness inside. There is a pattern and things are predictable if you give it a thought.

TED has been raising expectations with its delivery and the way they have been marketing itself in the past few years. It claims to be the best and the most innovative stuff comes here. TED decided to launch TED outside the USA as recession hit and it was evident that money is now somewhere away from the US.

I managed to attend the TED India launch talk at IIMA about a month ago and i was pleasantly surprised to know that TED is playing it safe and conservative and copying the formula from US to make TED India a success. Laxmi was there and as she answered queries she accepted that TED is very conservative and have had few things not working out in the US and they were all out to replicate the US model in India.

It is here that all the cross cultural theorists need to sit up and take notice.. they have a challenge.. TED comes to India to do a Conference or "share" Ideas worth spreading and says it will replicate the way thins happen in India. I wonder if

1. India is structured like US ...
2. India has the same type of infrastructure as the US..
3. Do conversations happen in the same way in India as in the US
4. Do we share ideas in the same way in India as in the US
5. Is TED India really for Indians or does it want to bring the outside world to India cause there ain't much money elsewhere.
6. Is TED really about innovation if it cant innovate given the well known and not so well known differences across US and India.. not just the continents are different even the contents are different here.
7. Given the new ways we look at the world can TED succeed in India by using the same formula it has been using for 25 years in the US ?

As i had not the benefit of the answers and cause i increasingly feel TED is not about innovation as much as it is about oratory .. i decided to drop the cause of applying for the TED fellowships.

But now i am interested in knowing how TED bridges the divide that cross culturalists so much talk about.. or given its experience do we question if a divide exists at all considering the way India is changing very fast... very fast...