I feel like TEDx was the beginning of the downfall. Those have always been kind of new-age fluff and pop psychology, but the branding on them is so similar it’s easy to mistake one for the other. Dilute your brand and it gets harder to recruit real cutting edge innovators and communicators, and the next thing you know, “Thank you for coming to my TED talk” is a meme.
I feel like TEDx was the beginning of the downfall. Those have always been kind of new-age fluff and pop psychology, but the branding on them is so similar it’s easy to mistake one for the other. Dilute your brand and it gets harder to recruit real cutting edge innovators and communicators, and the next thing you know, “Thank you for coming to my TED talk” is a meme.
I was going to blame TEDx too, but wasn’t sure how long that’s been around. “diluting the brand” is exactly what happened one way or another.