Feedback from TEDxManchester's audience
Post categories: Event,Ìýtedx,Ìýtedxman,Ìýtedxmanchester,Ìýtedxnorth
| 11:32 UK time, Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Like most events we recieve a lot of feedback about what we have done and how to improve what we have done. Here's a cut of some of the more outspoken comments...
Was there a slant towards digital innovation/creativity? Maybe, Kim certainly thinks so.
Bar Phil Griffin's brilliant talk on urban spaces and architecture, virtually every live presentation at TEDxManchester had been in some way about technology and social media. While in part this is likely to be down to the fact this is the main interest area of most of the organisers and attendees (demonstrated by the fact that the event was primarily promoted through twitter), it does raise a question about whether the digital space has become the primary home for ideas and innovation.
From Kim over at
Later in the comments from Thinking Digital and Drew Hemment replied. First Herb
Completely agree that innovation (obviously) goes well beyond digital. In the conference we produce up in the NE - Thinking Digital - our closing section was actually called Thinking Post-Digital.We've also had speakers on perfume, the science of love & romance, Slow Food, poker, African microfinance, right/left brain thinking, anti-ageing research, overfishing, toymaking, demographics behind the Obama campaign & population statistics among all the usual digital tech/media/content talks.
The kind of curation that you'll see at a main TED takes tremendous resources. Chris Anderson claims they've whittled their "short list" for the Feb Long Beach conference down to 2000! How big was the long list?! Lord knows how many people TED have got as employees or volunteers doing all the research, background checks & approaches not to mention scheduling diaries, arranging flights, hotels, ground transfers, biogs, slides, etc.
Followed by Drew,
At FutureEverything too we dont focus just on digital, in fact we stopped using 'digital' when talking about what we do many years ago, and now just say we are a "festival of art, music & ideas."I had a conversation with Matthew Postgate from ´óÏó´«Ã½ on exactly the point you raise so well.
I think you can see this in two ways.
On the one hand, drawing on speakers from "anywhere" means that we can listen to, say, an astrophysicist amaze us with insights, many of which would be mundane to an audience of astrophysicists. This gives speakers the freedom to really let rip, and deliver something profound and inspiring, that draws on the full wealth of their specialist wisdom.
On the other hand, focusing on one specific area, say digital culture, means that you can have many different perspectives, and because the speakers are speaking to an audience of their peers, you tend to get more nuanced contributions. You are less likely to get "this is the one insight that motivates me" but more likely to genuinely break new ground, and raise the bar in understanding on a particular topic.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Audience at TEDxManchester"]
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During the opening sessions during the questions, there were some slightly political questions/rants. Being a open house, we took it on the chin. Backstage is never far from the sharp edge of the public's views. But what seemed a good idea at the time seemed to back fire with tweets saying how boring it was making these rants but some went a little further in there writing.
I'm pleased I was one among many who was very irritated when the floor was opened to questions and some people took the opportunity to not ask questions but instead rant about everything that's wrong with the ´óÏó´«Ã½. This was not why we were at TEDx and it was an appalling abuse of the limited chances to raise issues from the audience, depriving others who really did have questions of the possibility to ask them.
Louise Bolton on
One bit I found very disappointing at Manchester was some of the questions asked by the audience. The first question of the day, to Matthew Postgate of ´óÏó´«Ã½ R&D wasn't a question, but a political, anti-´óÏó´«Ã½ rant, which I thought was extremely rude and inappropriate.Firstly, the question was of no relevance to the speaker or the talk he'd just given. Perhaps if it had been the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Director General on the stage, it would have been a fair question, but it wasn't. The questioner had an opportunity to ask a question to the head of what has been one of the most innovative and groundbreaking research departments in media over the last 50 years, and instead chose to make a sub-Daily Mail rant. What a waste.
Secondly, it was completely against the spirit of Ted(X) - the introductory video we had heard just a few minutes before had said that TedX was about spreading ideas, specifically NOT about pushing any political, commercial or religious agenda. Fail.
Nick Crossland on , and there's even a third and forth point if you interested in reading more.
On the subject of speakers on the day there was a lot of talk about the indiviual speakers but two stuck out in Nick's mind.
Personally, I'd single out Phil Griffin's talk about architecture and Hugh Garry's talk about the summer festivals film as being my highlights of the day. Possibly co-incidentally, these were the two talks which didn't use Powerpoint slides beyond background imagery. Draw your own conclusions.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Phil Griffin action"]
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Phil Griffin, an architectural commentator, spoke passionately, with loads of warmth and humour, about the urgent need to re-think our attitude to urban buildings, new and old. He connected with the audience and provided a refreshing perspective on sustainability and care for communities when considering design and development.Paul Coulton from Lancaster University gave an ace talk on how mobile games can generate ideas that spread. He was incredibly funny, knew his stuff, and despite being on at the very end of the day, won the audience over immediately, and kept us engaged with a superb presentation. Some of Paul's stuff is here.
My favourite talk at TEDxManchester was from Hugh Garry, who's Twitter (@huey) bio describes him as someone who " does interesting digital things with Radio 1". Well Hugh does a lot more than that and his talk on the Shooting Summer project for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ was gripping.
Although all the talks got talked about, Dr Mariann Hardey recieved quite lot of critisism for just having the title social scientist. Louise wrote this...
presentation on social media etiquette, which focused largely on how to use platforms such as Facebook - given that probably almost everyone at TEDx is digitally savvy enough to have been using social media for some time (as evidenced by the heavy tweeting during the afternoon), it was surely a case of preaching to the long-converted.
Mariann has responded to the critisism she recieved on .
I am a social scientist and this means that, in common with others in my discipline, I seek to understand the social world that we all share. We do this through theoretically informed empirical research. So yes - for some people parts or all of my presentation at the recent TEDx might be dismissed as 'trivial', 'uninteresting' or 'boring'. Such critics have every right to hold and broadcast their opinions. However, in so doing they are closing their minds to the possibility of understanding or as Max Weber (another social scientist - but rather more venerable and long dead) put it 'verstehen' - by which (broadly) he meant to indicate that human interaction and society is so complex that it may be best understood through detailed description and interpretation. Even if this is 'just to' state the obvious.
In actual fact quite a few people commented how they liked Mariann's talk because it was bolted in reality and it helped them identify behavours which they see from others around them. Others said it had useful case studies which they could now turn around and use to convice others. Likewise C´óÏó´«Ã½'s Marc Goodchild's talk included a lot of useful material for thinking about working with children and young people. it was also noted (retweeted) that it would have been funny if Marc and Ben Light had got there presentations mixed up.
Ben Lights presentation centred around how people and social networks define their identity online, but from a totally different perspective. Louise sums up...
He used popular site Gaydar to illustrate his findings about online identities, stereotyping and fascinating market data, such as gay men being more likely to use all the obscure features on a mobile phone than straight people. It was clear that much of Light's research about personal branding applies to non-gays who date online, too, and there was much laughter at a question from the floor about whether the professor had pursued his findings on other niche online dating websites, such as those for people who practise BDSM.
All the other talks went down well, including , the future of journalism by Sarah Hartley and .
Strange enough, a couple people thought we'd actually had , and as speakers not videos from previous TED events. Ian the TED conferences to TEDxManchester. There certainly not even in the same ball park but we'll certainly take it as a compliment.
With all the hard talk about speakers, innovation, etc. Everyone had a good word to say about the whole event its self.
Nick called the event serious,
If you had to sum them up in one word, I'd say Sheffield was whimsical, while Manchester was serious. Sheffield had a talk about autonomous musical tapping boxes; Manchester had social media etiquette.
Kim wrote,
You can't argue with the concept, and this being Europe's largest TEDx event, it brought with it some good speakers and interesting discussions
and futher wrote,
I think it's really important to look for inspiration from outside the technology realm sometimes - from science, art, politics, etc. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has amazing access here so it will be great to see how ´óÏó´«Ã½ backstage might be able to facilitate this kind of thing in the future.Hoping to make it to BarCampManchester so hopefully see you there!
Louise finishes her post with,
Tedx Manchester probably raised far more questions than the panel could ever attempt to answer. There was a feeling the surface had barely been scratched on some discussions while it was great to have new topics (such as the gay research) thrown open for our perusal......Thanks are due to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ for hosting and to the huge team who worked hard to pull it all together (details of whom are on the TEDx Manchester website).
Ian finishes a comment on with,
To be fair to the TEDx Manchester organisers, that's a lot to live up to! They've already said they appreciate our honest feedback and will take it on board when considering future events.
Well I can tell you all, we were not kidding. We have read and are actively seeking feedback.
Thanks to everyone who has blogged and microblogged about the event, we hope to keep adding to the list as we go forward. So feel free to comment below and lets cross link where ever possible.
