Ideas. Worth.

Spreading: Complicating the role of TED (Technology Entertainment Design) as a policy actor in the context of higher education and higher education branding strategies and practices Jonathan B. Fisher (Jonathan Fisher <jonathanbsher@gmail.com> December 2, 2011 Introducing ideas worth spreading ! Technology Entertainment Design (TED), created in 1984 by the design

entrepreneur, Richard Saul Wurman, began as a private gathering of friends well connected in the burgeoning business community of Silicon Valley, California. From those rst annual conferences TED grew in value and prestige as a company and also as an exclusive, big-ticket event for business elites during the Internet Boom of the 1990s (Walters, 2010). In 2001 TED was acquired by the Sapling Foundation, an American 501(c)3 non-prot organization, headed by the magazine executive, Chris Anderson, who became the curator of the TED talks as they exist in their present form (TED.com, accessed December 2, 2011). Although the annual agship TED Conference in Long Beach, California still drew an elite audience of 1,500 at $6,000 per ticket in 2010; 26 years after its start, TED and its signature 18-minute TED Talk lectures are accessed by millions of viewers worldwide through social media like Facebook, iTunes and YouTube (Walters). TED initiatives such as the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles of TED talks in more than 80 languages, and TEDx, independently licensed TED-like events, have made the coveted TED experience available to a much broader global audience (TED.com). However, far from devaluing its

brand, TEDs expansion, made possible, largely by the global spread of Internet technology, has led to TED gaining signicant clout as a major broker in the global information economy, and consequently a powerful education policy actor. As one business journalist characterized the organization, I would go so far as to argue that [TED is] creating a new Harvardthe rst new top-prestige education brand in more than 100 years (Kamenetz, 2010). ! TED as a corporation is nothing if not aware of the value of its own brand.

The licensing information found on the TEDx portion of the TED website is extensive (see Appendix A)1, and includes details on every aspect of the TED experience from the color and font of the TED logo to the availability of public transportation to and from events, to the requirement that 25% of lectures given during an independently licensed TED event be videos from previous TED events (Ted.com). Thus TED maintains a strict structural control over its image as a means of maintaining the value of that image as a brand. Indeed, this is consistent with the 10 Principles of Brand Strength published by Interbrand, a brand value consultancy, which publishes annual studies of the worlds top brands along such analytic lines as brand clarity, relevance, protection and consumer understanding (Interbrand.com, accessed December 2, 2011). But

In honor of what I regard as the charming hyper-specicity in TEDs requirements for uniformity of typeface across the entirety of its licensed media including its logos, website and videos I have rendered this essay entirely in the font Helvetica. To quote the TED organizer resources page, The typeface (Helvetica) is an integral part of our visual identity and should not be changed or substituted. Helvetica comes pre-installed on most computers, but if you do not have access to it, use Arial. I realize that this is somewhat of a deviation from the APA style guidelines for typeface, which call for a serif font, and for that I apologize. For more on the fascinating history of Helvetica see Gary Hustwits 2007 documentary, Helvetica, which was released on the 50th anniversary of the creation of the font.

what distinguishes TED as a business and as a brand is that it is explicitly targeting ideas as a commodity. ! Whereas a company like Coca-Cola or even Google (two of 2011s most

valuable brands as evaluated by Interbrand.com) are involved in marketing or branding of a specic product or servicelike a soft drink or an Internet search toolTED only brands information, knowledge and ideas or experiences of those ideas. There are no material goods or services for specic uses bearing the TED brand. What TED captured and began adding value to in 2001 was made explicit in the slogan, which the organization adopted that same year: ideas worth spreading. These are three deceptively simple words, which TED has been wildly successful at leveraging in order to carve out a niche for itself in the global cultural marketplacethat network, long dominated by institutions like universities which have dominated the creation, legitimization, and distribution of knowledge world-wide. ! TED is, in a sense, a new Harvard. Whereas the founding of secularist

universities like Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago, aligned as they were, with positivist philosophical ideals, marked a step away from then monolithic institutions such as Harvard University with their strong religious and other cultural ties, and the advancement of industrial capitalism in North America near the turn of the 20th century (Westbrook, 1991), I argue that the emergence of TED further de-centers universities as sites of knowledge production (ideas), legitimization (worth) and especially distribution (spreading). Furthermore, in TEDs explicit re-framing an explicitness, which I see as part of a radical shift in

global educational policyof the enterprise of education as a conversation, which must invariably include the voices of corporations, TED as an educational policy actor is implicated in the further embedding of Neo-Liberal discourses within those of the global education system. Institutions like universities, which once held powerful monopolies in the global knowledge economy are beginning to turn to TED as an idea broker in attempts to garner broader appeal for their own education brands, and nding themselves face to face with corporations like Shell, Dow Chemical, General Motors, and Pzer, each with its own more or less prominent seat at TEDs negotiating table. Branding the University of British Columbia ! Brands are a relatively new idea in the context of higher education. In this

paper, Ill chiey rely upon Harriss denition of a brand as a name or symbol used to distinguish and differentiate between competitors (Aaker, cited in Harris, 2009). Harriss essay focuses on university brands in the context of televised collegiate sports contests like the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) in American college football, and indeed, branding of collegiate sports teams is likely the domain in which branding has the longest history at the university. It is possible to argue, as Kamenetz (cited above) does, that institutions such as Harvard have been distinguishing themselves through branding for hundreds of years, (Latinate mottoes such as Harvards VeritasTruthare interesting artifacts of this ancient practice with its origins in Greece and Rome); however, I want to emphasize the intentionality built into the above denition of the university brand. A brand is not so much a static image as a whole series of practices around that

image, the specically directed use of the imageor the symbol itself plus the explicit value and valuation of it as a symbol. Thus, brands are not instances of symbolic capitalthe implicit value of certain words ideas and actions; on the contrary, they are capitalmaterial valuemade explicitly symbolic. As such, brands have always existed within markets. And so, universities adoption of brands and their requisite branding practices, are a sign of the marketization of the higher education system already in progress. ! For the purposes of this essay I focus on the specic branding practices,

and brand management procedures and policies of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (UBC), since UBC not only has an established brand and branding policies, but also has an established partnership with TED. In addition, members of the UBC community as part of the TEDxTerryTalks series have independently licensed the TED brand and hosted TED events on campus apart from UBCs direct partnership with TED (terry.ubc.ca, accessed December 2, 2011). UBCs partnership with TED appears to be typical of university-TED partnerships, based on the little information publicly available through the TED and UBC websites; however the details of TEDs partnership with the university the price in dollars, for example, to UBC of its partnership with TED, or the specic benets UBC reaps or hopes to reap through its partnership with TED as part of its larger brand management strategy were not publicly available. What is clear is that the UBC brand logo (see Appendix B) appears on the TED partnership page and that a series of geo-targeted advertisements reach online viewers of TED Talk videos in Canada. UBCs tagline, a place of mind is a

major part of UBCs brand management strategy. On the universitys public affairs Frequently Asked Questions page, the tagline is referred to explicitly as a type of currency, and it is noted that the phrase itself is copyrighted. But the brand logo and tagline are not the only elements of the UBC brand strategy, they are not even the only visual elements. ! UBC has had a specic Visual Identity Policy in place since May of 2003

(publicaffairs.ubc.ca, accessed December 2, 2011). Digital photography and video are widely available, both directly through UBCs public affairs department on UBC web space, and scattered throughout the Internet, hosted by social media sites like YouTube or even as part of targeted ad campaigns. UBCs brand presence also extends into more traditional print and non-print media and advertising venues such as posters, billboards and television commercial spots. UBCs partnership with TED, which began in 2009, several years after UBC had begun developing its brand strategy, is only one part of a much larger, highly controlled, minutely strategized marketing scheme, across a range of media. It is likely that other high-prole universities around the world integrate TED partnerships into brand management strategies in a similar fashion to that of UBC. So, in a certain sense, the Universitys involvement with TED is businessas-usual. But, as I will show, the unique way in which TED frames its relationship with its partners, including universities like UBC as well as corporations, is very much a new development in the realm of university branding practices. Framing the higher education conversation

In its role as an educational policy actor, TED has taken an interesting

course in explicitly giving corporate interests a seat at the table (partnerships.ted.com, accessed December 2, 2011). As the TED Partnerships page states, TED is knowledge-sharing platform [sic]a place where collaboration is the glue that binds people together. We want TED Partnerships to be a place for corporations, TED speakers and the TED community from the worlds of science, design, technology, business, education and arts to collaborate This is an invitationan opportunity for corporations to become a part of TEDs global culture of innovation (ibid.). TEDs view of its own position as an information broker could not be more clearly stated than it is here. Supporting media on the TED partnerships website depict vivid case studies of TEDs interactions with a variety of corporations, from philanthropic non-prots and universities like UBC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to auto manufacturing, pharmaceutical, and fossil fuel production companies like Toyota, Pzer and Shell, as well as companies like Goldman Sachs with direct links to the ongoing global nancial crisis. ! In his insightful essay, The Art of Arguments, linguist and activist George

Lakoff emphasizes the importance of structures he calls frames to the construction of any argument (Lakoff, 2006). Here, as a means of analyzing TEDs role as an education policy actor, I will unpack some of the framing techniques used in TEDs rhetorical construction of itself as an actor in the education policy landscape, namely the moral premise, narrative structure, surface and deep frames embedded in the TED policy argument.

According to Lakoff, there lies at the root of every successful argument

some moral premise (ibid.). The moral premise underlying the entire TED enterprise is that certain ideas deserve, in the language of TED Partnerships case studies, to be amplied for the benet of a mass audience, engaged more broadly and activated in domains beyond their theoretical origins (partnerships.ted.com). To state this in terms of the TED tagline, ideas worth spreading: certain theories, objectives, insights or curricula become intrinsically more valuable when they are communicated on a large scale. Layered on top of this moral viewpoint, TED offers its audience and so-called partners a metaphorical seat at the table where, presumably, the value of the ideas of the day may be negotiated on equal terms and a suitable plan of action (i.e. the solution to the problem of how best to spread these important and necessarily synergistic ideas beyond the context of TED) may be discussed. This image of the face-to-face negotiating table is an extremely important one to the ethos of TED and dictates a great deal of the culture of the organization. The image is also important in that it provides an implicit narrative structure for the TED argument to be mapped on to. Such narrative structure is one of Lakoffs keys to crafting successful arguments, and it is echoed extremely effectively in TEDs organization of its agship conferences exclusive, luxurious, gala events populated by celebrity representatives of TEDs constellation of partners from the worlds of science, design, technology, business, education and arts (partnerships.ted.com). This is a story TED loves to tell, and it is a story that gets told every time a TED conference is held anywhere around the world.

In much the same way that the Helvetica typeface is instrumental in giving visual cohesion to the design of the massive TED.com website, the narrative of TED as a central node in a global human network built upon a currency of ideas, where real people come together for face-to-face meetings is the glue that holds the TED argument together. ! Unfortunately this narrative is much more myth than reality. Much has

been made of what is perceived as a culture of elitism underlying TED. The TED website even poses the question, Is TED elitist? and cannot help but answer at least partially in the afrmative. In fact, TED was the brainchild of business elites and has always been anchored in the elite, cutting-edge technology, entertainment and design community that exists in Silicon Valley, California. The experiences of average viewers of TED Talk videos, is dramatically different from the elite core of TED conference participants, and yet, the conference is the latent narrative, which drives the argument at the core of the TED enterprise. ! The notion of argument frames, according to Lakoff, extends beyond the

language and imagery TED uses to describe itself as an organization. For Lakoff, frames actually exist as categories within our thought processesthe mental structures by which we understand and interact with the world (Lakoff, 2006). So, when TED organizers invoke the narrative of TED as an intimate meeting of the minds where wonder sparks greatness, as is the case in their promotional video (partners.ted.com/about-ted) this speaks to a part of our minds beyond surface rationality. The language of the central TED narrative described above, which Lakoff would term a surface frame or a commonplace frame,

which resonates immediately regardless of its truth value, is actually connected to two even deeper frames, which I identify as the inter-connectedness of all people, frame and the curiosity/possibility, frame. In many ways, the former is a subset of what Robert Reich calls the narrative of the benevolent society (Reich, cited in Lakoff, 2006). The latter frame Wordsworth or Coleridge might have called the sublime. ! The TED argument is certainly skillfully framed. And as evidenced by the

popularity of the TED talk videos, the narrative of a philanthropic organization bringing the worlds greatest minds together under the auspices of innovation for the benet of the global community is a story, which stands alone as a great story. However, the story of TED is actually much more complicated than that surface narrative or mythology would have it. It remains to be seen whether or not every individual gathered around the metaphorical TED table stands to benet equally or even has an equal voice in the supposed conversation. TEDs continued organizational hand-wringing over its perceived elitism, is I believe evidence of a fatal aw in the argument TED is making about its role in the domain of education policy as an idea broker in a marketplace dominated by powerful business elites. Whether this role remains viable for TED in the future will depend upon its ability to appeal simultaneously to its audience among the few and its audience among the many. With this in mind, and given current branding practices at universities, it seems likely that TED will be a force for the ination of the value of higher education brands and an engine of the further marketization of universities.

Jockeying for world-class status ! Two important questions facing universities like UBC with regard to

emergent idea brokers such as TED, particularly as these universities move to bolster the value of their brands are, Is taking our seat at the negotiating table opposite corporations like Dow Chemical and General Electric ultimately harming or hurting us? and indeed What is our status and stake in this conversation about ideas? In an article on trends in the branding of institutions of higher education, historian Sheldon Rothblatt points to the emergence of global celebrity universities possessed of zippy business strategies driven in large part by ranking systems such as the Shanghai Jiao Tong University index of prestige (Rothblatt, 2008). Rothblatt conceives of the role of the university in the present day as somewhat congruent to the role universities occupied historically in medieval Europe, comprising contested political territory. Indeed, modern universities, which occupy this top tier of global institutions, wield extraordinary power, as they did during the Middle Ages in Europe. The power of certain of these universitiesa Harvard or a Cambridge, sayis on par with that of many modern states and that distinctively modern policy actor, the corporation. As Rothblatt has it, the celebrity universityroaming global markets in search of talent, students, and resourcesis too valuable for states to ignore (Rothblatt, 2008). UBC, with its sophisticated brand identity and global marketing strategies, is undoubtedly emerging as such a global power. In 2011, UBC was 37th in the Shanghai Jiao Tong global prestige rankings, second in Canada, behind the University of Toronto (Academic Ranking of World Universities, 2011). So, it is

perhaps tting that UBC take its place at the TED table alongside the worlds most powerful corporations. As Rothblatt notes, brilliantly, the logic of the worldclass university, is the logic of the global economy. So, at least from the point of view of UBCs endowment of talent, material wealth and global prestige, it has only to gain from entering the TED conversation.

TED Talks ! The nal piece of the TED picture that Id like address is its most

recognizable: the talks themselves. I have purposefully saved this discussion for last because I have found that the power, amplitude and resonance of these pithy 18-minute lectures, which are the centerpiece of TEDs public face as an education organization, and key to the rehearsal of the narrative structure with which TED frames its education policy argument, comprise something of a distraction from the deeper implications of TEDs role in higher education. In other words, for the viewer who encounters a TED Talk outside of the elite context of a licensed TED conference (read: for most TED Talk viewers) it is too easy to drink in these seamlessly produced, elegant statements of the sublime in the domains of art, science the humanities and simply stop there, without considering the context within which these talks are delivered, distributed and celebrated. With that in mind, Id like to briey parse a single, representative TED Talk, one that I believe provides a superb sample of the depth and sophistication of content and entertainment value which TED is seeking to brand itself and market to elite institutions around the world as ideas worth sharing.

The TED Talk I want to focus on here is Jill Bolte Taylors Talk (available

online at ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html) originally delivered in at a TED conference in 2008 in Monterrey, California. Motivated to become a neuroscientist from an early age by her relationship with her brother who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Taylor narrates her career path, which eventually brought her to a Harvard medical science laboratory as a researcher. So, right away, if subtly and in an easy, charming, conversational manner Taylor establishes her expertise. This is a very common practice among TEDsters, as such lectures are often called. In Taylors case, her expertise is actually very much relevant to the story which she continues to tell, but I highlight it as a means of getting at a certain contradiction in the format of these lectures: the conceit of the TED Talk, as with the whole TED argument described in detail above, is that one of individuals connecting on equal terms in face-to-face conversations about important ideas. Taylors easy conversational tone at the beginning of her talk proceeds from this same conceit, and yet her afliation with Harvard University, the most prestigious university in the world belies the same sort of elitism, which is so problematic in TEDs framing of itself as an idea broker. I want to be clear. I am not arguing that Taylors presentation comes across as elitistquite the opposite. On the contrary, I argue that her positioning herself as a researcher at a world-class university points to the elitism latent in the TED organization as a whole. ! As Taylor continues, describing her research and advocacy for people like

her brother who live with mental illness, the audience is drawn further into her

speech. Eventually, Taylor begins describing her own awful experience during her time researching brain structure and function with strokeher stroke of insight, as her talk is titled. She awoke one morning with an intense pain behind her eye, and describes in vivid detail the waves of dissociation from her self she was experiencing rst hand as the right half of her brain slowly shut down, leaving her with a sense of the diffusion of her disappearing self into the tiniest molecules owing through and comprising her body. At one point, a stagehand brings out a perfectly preserved human brain, complete with spinal cord, and Taylor continues describing her condition while handling this rather grotesque prop. Later she begins a sort of dance, pantomiming and gesticulating the pain and joy and fear she was experiencing throughout her ordeal as a victim of stroke. Taylor is often on the verge of tears. Her lecture is extremely powerful, pointing variously to the sublime to be found in the little understood corners of human experience, while simultaneously indicating a certain desire for progress in medical science. Her language is simultaneously that of a Buddhist mystic and brilliant neuroscientistshe refers to Nirvana, and what she calls, the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres. ! Taylors lecture is the quintessential idea worth sharing. She combines

the soteriological value of transcendental religious experience with that of sophisticated scientic expertise in her brilliant narrative. The video of her lecture has been viewed more than 7million times on the TED website alone. It is the second most popular TED Talk to date, surpassed only by a lecture on how schools kill creativity and followed closely by deceased Apple CEO, Steve Jobs

commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford entitled, How to Live Before You Die. But, I argue that to focus exclusively on the content of such lectures is to ignore the core of TEDs mission as a policy actor. Surely speakers such as Taylor and Jobs are well aware of the structure of and rhetoric surrounding TED as an education policy organization or emergent idea brokerage rm. They must weigh their appearance and putative complicity in the TEDs policy initiatives, among them the further marketization of higher education against the benets of spreading their particular ideas, and when the ideas are so elegantly stated and moving, it is certainly difcult to argue against them. Thus, it is of critical importance to keep an eye on how the content of TED talks may obscure truths about the organizations they are representative of and branded by, even while they enlighten entertain and awe us. Concluding ideas worth spreading ! The TED brand is ideas worth spreading. Those can be ideas about

education or medicine or astronomy or anything. TED ideas are embodied in the series of lectures or TED Talks, which are curated by TED. In their curation these ideas become attached to certain values, are given worth by the community of viewers, both elites present at annual TED conferences in California, or simply as streaming video from the TED website or other social media sources online. Additionally, the worth of a TED idea is given added value when it is brought to the global information marketplace by TED, which conceives of itself as a broker, communicator, disseminator, or spreader of worthy ideas. The added value of these ideas, which TED is spreading comes not only from the

original value of the ideas themselves to inspire and capture an audiences attention, but also from the sheer fact of the ideas spreading. Global policy actors, like corporations, universities, governments and even elite individual TEDsters gather around TEDs negotiating tablethe rhetorical device, which TED uses to frame its entire enterprise as a policy actor. Universities like UBC benet directly from these negotiations, especially when they are seen as prestigious global actors themselves occupying the same elite stratum as TEDsters, corporations such as Shell, Dow Chemical, and Goldman Sachs. But UBCs involvement with TED is not without some heavier consequences. As universities like UBC continue to become further entangled in negotiations at the TED table and in other global cultural marketplaces, the values of the ideas they are trading will become inated, and the university itself will be subject to even deeper embedding of neo-liberal discourses. How will UBCs global image and branding practices evolve over time? Indeed how much control or inuence on the market of ideas can the university actually exert in this regard? And what consequences await a university whose interests come more overtly in conict with those of the corporations with whom they are negotiating ostensibly on equal terms? A clear answer to these questions may not become available until such a time as universities like UBC have disentangled themselves from the likes of TED, and ideas worth sharing is returned to its rightful place, not as a brand name or slogan for a brokerage rm, but as the ethical force which motivates higher educational policy.

Works Cited Academic Ranking of World Universities (2011). Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. <http://www.shanghairanking.com> (Accessed December 2, 2011). Harris, M.S. (2009). Institutional brand personality and advertisements during televised games. New Directions in Higher Education, Issue 148, Winter 2009. Interbrand. (2011). Best global brands of 2011: 10 principles of brand strength. <http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/best-global-brandsmethodology/Brand-Strength.aspx> Accessed December 2, 2011. Kamenetz, A. (2010). How TED became the new Harvard only bigger. Fast Company. September 2010; 148. Lakoff, G. (2006). Thinking Points Chapter 8: The art of arguments. Thinking points: Communicating our American values and vision. Rockridge Institute. <http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/resrouce-center/thinking-points> Rothblatt, S. (2008). Global branding and the celebrity university. Liberal Education, Fall 2008. TED.com. (2011). Ted Conferences, LLC. <http://www.ted.com> (Accessed December 2, 2011). TED Parnterships. (2011). Ted Conferences, LLC. <http:// www.partnerships.ted.com> (Accessed December 2, 2011). TEDxTerryTalks. (2011). <http://www. terry.ubc.ca> (Accessed December 2, 2011). University of British Columbia Public Affairs. (2011). <http:// www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca> (Accessed December 2, 2011). Walters, H. (2010). TEDs not dead, but its aging. Business Week, March 1, 2010, Issue 4168. Westbrook, R.B. (1991). John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornel University Press.

Appendix A: The TEDx logo template, black background. Note that the text colors and font reproduced here are very specic, and that further guidelines exist for the reproduction of the logo in different (non-electronic media). For more information on the licensing of the TED brand, see <ted.com/pages/ creating_your_tedx_logo>.

Appendix B: UBCs three basic brand signatures in UBCBlack, UBCGrey and UBCBlue. All of the below, along with other UBC branding resources and templates are freely available to the UBC community at <publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ ubcbrand/basic>