Jessica Mah, TED Conference, TEDster

Everybody has been talking about TED this week. My question is, why does everybody care so much?

To be honest, I haven’t put so much thought into this until recently. I always thought of TED as a great conference for brilliant people to exchange ideas and help each other, but I didn’t know that everybody in the valley has been talking about it. Just a few hours ago, I was reading an article on Business Week by Sarah Lacy titled, “Why I’m Fed Up with TED.” I’m sure this Sarah person is an incredibly kind and awesome person, but the many articles are telling me that people want to go to TED mainly for the status symbol. Sure, it’s a resume builder, but it’s as if everybody lost sight of what being part of TED is supposed to be about. Perhaps its my ignorance of this “status symbol” that got me into TED in the first place?

I wanted to go to college early not because it would make me look good. Matter of fact, it was a terrible decision for my social life and for my future as a “normal” college student. Going to college early means that I would have to transfer into another college as a junior, but most colleges have a much lower admission rate for transfer students. I went to college early for other reasons: to be in an open environment where students were actually motivated to learn. Kids here don’t care so much about looking good. They want to learn, regardless of the grades they receive. I feel as if TED is similar in this regard. They actively seek members who want to inspire each other with brilliant ideas. They’re TEDsters because they want to help each other and help the world more than they want to help themselves.

This does NOT mean that people who aren’t part of TED are dumb. It simply means that they have an extremely limited number of spots and they want to attract quality attendees who think less about status and more about the core reasons for being a TEDster.

Just think about. What are your true reasons for wanting to go to TED? One reader suggested, “would TED matter if you couldn’t wear nametags?”