2014/4/12 「ＴＥＤ成功背後的終極祕密」

ＴＥＤ成功背後的終極祕密

摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報                        2014/4/11

2014-03-19天下雜誌 543期 作者：經濟學人

圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/

思想本身，就有龐大的市場。一場演講，又如何將ＴＥＤ推上「全球創意界巨人」的地位？箇中祕訣，就藏在十八分鐘裡。

一九八四年的首度ＴＥＤ大會，迴響平平，甚至因此停辦了六年。但今日的ＴＥＤ卻已是全球創意界的巨人。

ＴＥＤ組織在雲端的「電子倉庫」，儲存了超過一千七百筆演講影音，供人免費查看，至今超過二十億瀏覽人次。

它更產生了許多後續效應：○九年，全球一百五十個國家、超過九千個精采演講，被民眾自發地放上網路，稱為TEDx。它並先後成立了ＴＥＤ大獎、線上電子書系、以及獎學金計劃。

如今的ＴＥＤ，是全球新明星的誕生地。受邀在ＴＥＤ大會演講，可以讓過去不知名的學者，一夕成為全球大師；也能讓一個辛苦的記者，瞬間成為知名作家。

這樣的成功，無可避免地產生了反彈。批評者將TED比喻為學術界的平價連鎖咖啡店，甚至是「文明的災難」。

這些批評固然有其道理，但批評者也必須欽佩ＴＥＤ的成就。

它發掘了數以百計、過去未曾被注意的傑出人物。如最多人觀賞、並被兩千五百萬人次下載的ＴＥＤ影片，來自毫不起眼的英國教育家羅賓森。它將重大思潮簡化為好入口的片段，但也同時揭示思想本身就有龐大的市場。

TED可說是破壞式創新的典範，背後的靈魂人物是安德森。二○○一年，記者出身的他買下TED，並透過他最為擅長，說故事的能力和對科技變革的了解，將這個小眾發布會，打造成如今的多媒體風潮。

TED更巧妙地綜合付費和免費的產品策略：為期五天的ＴＥＤ大會門票，至少六千美元起跳。但它發表在網路上的所有影片，卻完全免費，並允許網路上的熱情支持者們舉辦TEDx等活動。

為了維持「產品」品質，ＴＥＤ要講者遵守「ＴＥＤ戒律」，「演講時間約十八分鐘，夠長到夠讓觀眾覺得正經，卻又夠短到能保持注意力，」安德森說。講者上台前經過精心篩選與培訓，只有成功的演講，才會被放到網路上。

它更採用《美國偶像》策略：半數的講者，是由全球自由報名、透過無數次試鏡淘汰賽後產生的。

ＴＥＤ成功背後的終極祕密，恐怕在其顛覆性創新之外，更是它將舊時代的宗教，重新包裝為數位時代新興盛會的能力。（張翔一譯）

©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014

2014/3/30 「TED致勝秘辛：舊酒裝新瓶」

TED致勝秘辛：舊酒裝新瓶

摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報                        2014/3/28

2014-03-18 Web only 作者：經濟學人

圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/

1984年的第一次TED大會實在太失敗，讓組織者在接下來6年裡都沒有再次舉辦大會。今日，TED已經是理念產業的巨人。TED在TED.com建立了擁有超過1,700場演講的電子倉庫，這些影片全都可以免費觀看，總觀賞次數接近20億次。

成功無可避免地引來反彈；批評者認為TED是知性生活中的星巴克。科技專家莫洛索夫（Evgeny Morozov）表示，TED已經變成某種荒唐又帶點邪惡氣味的事物；社會學家布拉頓（Benjamin Bratton）更進一步，認為TED實際上是符合中產階級口味的大型資訊娛樂教會。

這些批評當然有其合理之處，但TED的成就亦不可忽視。它發掘了數百個不為人知的才智之士；TED將重大理念縮減為易於入口的小點，但也證明重大理念確實擁有巨大的市場。

TED是破壞性創新的絕佳例證。BBC推掉了早期的TED演講，理由是內容太過知性，但TED重寫了規則。現在，企業雇用TED舉行內部演講，出版商也搶著簽下TED講者。

這場破壞性創新的核心人物即為安德森（Chris Anderson）。安德森從記者轉型為企業家，靠出版電腦和商業雜誌致富；他在2001年買下TED後，打算結合擅於說故事的新聞產業，以及充滿破壞性變革的高科技產業，將此另類大會轉化為多媒體現象。

TED持續改善現有產品並擴增產品類別；它大舉投資於攝影團隊和劇場技術，實驗了更短的「三分鐘TED」，甚至還在挑選演說者時引入「美國偶像」的元素。TED已然成為數位世界的理念大會龍頭，更為各種問題提出科技解決方案：其演說通常會讓人覺得，筆電和網路連線就能解決世界上的所有問題。

但TED仍舊有些傳統之處。從講者的救贖承諾到不吝掌聲的會眾，都讓TED大會帶了點復古氣味。有時，TED講者就像是現代版的卡內基（Dale Carnege）；大量TED演講都在告訴你，只要努力工作並追隨自己的熱情，你就能擁有一切、就能擁有美好的職涯和完滿的生活。TED成功的終極秘密並非致力於破壞性革新，而是在數位時代重新包裝舊時信仰的能力。（黃維德譯）

©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014

經濟學人英文原文

The Economist

Schumpeter

Ideas reinvenTED

 By The Economist

 From The Economist

 Published: March 18, 2014

Mar 15th 2014 | From the print edition

TED has revolutionised the ideas industry, in part by putting old wine in new bottles.

THE first TED conference in 1984 was such a damp squib that the organisers did not hold a second one for six years. Today TED (which for the uninitiated stands for Technology, Education, Design) is the Goliath of the ideas industry. The heart of the enterprise is TED's twice-yearly conference at which big ideas are presented in short, punchy talks. On March 17th-21st around 1,200 TEDsters will gather in Vancouver to listen to the likes of Bill Gates and Nicholas Negroponte celebrating TED's 30th birthday and thinking great thoughts. The conference has also spawned an array of businesses, albeit not-for-profit ones.

The organisation has built an electronic warehouse of more than 1,700 previous talks, at TED.com. These are free to view and, so far, they have been watched nearly 2 billion times. It has generated a mass movement: volunteers have put on more than 9,000 TED-like events called TEDx in 150 or so countries since 2009. It has established a TED prize (worth $1m), a TED fellowship programme and a line of TED e-books. And it has become a central part of the world's star-making machinery: an invitation to speak at TED can turn an obscure academic into a superstar guru and a struggling journalist into a celebrated writer.

Such success has inevitably produced a backlash. Critics dismiss TED as the Starbucks of intellectual life (though YO! Sushi may be a better comparison). Evgeny Morozov, a technology pundit, says it has become "something ludicrous, and a little sinister". Benjamin Bratton, a sociologist, goes further and suggests that TED is a recipe for "civilisational disaster". In his view TED really stands for "middlebrow, megachurch infotainment". The Onion, a satirical website, has produced a series of "Onion talks" including "A future where all robots have penises".

There is certainly some truth in these criticisms: any organisation that invites Sting to its 30th birthday party is in danger of jumping the shark. But criticism must be tempered by admiration for what TED has achieved. It does indeed have a weakness for celebrities. But it has also discovered hundreds of lights hidden under bushels: the most viewed TED video, with 25m downloads, features Ken Robinson, a once-obscure British educationalist. It is true that TED shrinks big ideas into bite-like chunks. But it has also demonstrated that there is a huge market for big ideas.

TED is the perfect example of the power of disruptive innovation. The ideas business was already overcrowded when it began to flex its muscles. The BBC rejected an early TED talk on the ground that it was too intellectual. But TED has rewritten the rules. Conference regulars compare the corporate pabulum that they are served at Davos with the intellectual sustenance they receive at TED. Businesses now hire it to run their in-house conferences. Publishers compete to sign up its speakers. TED has done more to advance the art of lecturing in a decade than Oxford University has done in a thousand years.

The man at the heart of this disruption is Chris Anderson, a journalist turned entrepreneur who calls himself TED's curator. (He is unrelated to the namesake who used to edit Wired and before that wrote for The Economist.) Mr Anderson made his money publishing computer and business magazines. He bought TED in 2001 and set about turning a cult conference into a multimedia phenomenon, by bringing together the two worlds that he knew best: the journalistic one of storytelling and the high-tech world of disruptive change. And he provided TED with both a powerful business model and a pipeline of polished output.

TED uses a shrewd combination of paid-for and free products, the purpose of the latter being to generate buzz. Tickets to its five-day conferences cost at least $6,000. It sells an ever-growing array of TED-branded products. But it has also been generous with its intellectual capital—not only giving away videos on the internet but also granting licences to enthusiasts to stage TEDx events. To ensure quality it sends all speakers a stone tablet engraved with the "TED Commandments", starting with: "Thou shalt not simply trot out thy usual schtick". Talks must last for just 18 minutes—"Long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people's attention", as Mr Anderson puts it. Potential speakers are carefully auditioned and extensively trained—and subtly reminded that only successful talks will be put online.

TED is constantly striving to improve its products and expand its pipeline. It has invested heavily in camera crews and stagecraft. It has experimented with shorter formats such as "TED in three minutes". It has even introduced an "American Idol" element: about half of the speakers at each conference are chosen by competitive auditions that take place all over the world and are theoretically open to anyone.

Modern-day missionaries

TED has become the leading ideas festival of the digital world. It draws much of its audience as well as many of its star speakers from the technocracy. It champions tech solutions to problems: its talks tend to give the impression that there is no ill in the world that cannot be solved with a laptop and an internet connection.

But there is also something old-fashioned about it. TED meetings have a revivalist feel, from the preacher's promises of salvation to the happy-clappy congregation. It is revealing that Mr Anderson is the son of missionaries, and, in rather Victorian fashion, grew up in India before going to Oxford. TEDsters can also sound like modern versions of Dale Carnegie, the author of "The Art of Public Speaking" (1915) and "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (1936). A striking number of TED talks preach that you can have it all, a great career and a fulfilled life, if only you work hard and follow your passion. The ultimate secret of TED's success is not its commitment to disruptive innovation but its ability to repackage old-time religion for the digital age.

©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014

2014/3/30 「電視頻道之死 提早到來？」

電視頻道之死　提早到來？

摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報                        2014/3/28

2014-03-20 Web only 作者：經濟學人

圖片來源：天下雜誌

BBC總經理霍爾（Tony Hall）決定停播瞄準年輕觀眾的BBC3，他的老闆們並不喜歡這個決定，但他表示自己得將眼光望向未來。他認為BBC不但得節省大量支出，還得預測電視觀眾的未來習慣。

霍爾相信，各界預測的電視大變革，亦即電視頻道之死，可能會比許多專家的預測更早到來。他推測，下一步變革即將來臨，促使觀眾加速移往線上；這對BBC來說是個大問題，因為BBC的收入大多來自電視授權費。

在目前國會的任期之中，BBC的預算並未提高，任務卻增加許多。BBC每年得節省1億英鎊，但霍爾處理得相當不錯；就連BBC3的員工都承認，全球最大的公共電視台終於交入能人之手。

霍爾上任之時，BBC深陷於醜聞風暴。上任後，他不斷強調BBC再也不會忘記其存在目的即為服務觀眾，更減低了紅利和薪資，有助取得公司內部對支出裁減的支持。霍爾是公共服務精神和責任的強力捍衛者，他相信BBC必須提供高品質節目，而且這些節目還得足夠受觀眾喜愛。

不過，霍爾依舊有可能無法達成目標，亦即改善BBC，但又不要大幅改變BBC。首先，他得繼續裁減支出；有人預測BBC4或是部分當地電台可能也得關閉，那不致帶來災難性影響，卻也都會傷害觸及每位民眾這樣的希望，進而減少民眾對電視授權金的支持。

正如霍爾所言，更大的威脅在於線上觀賞，以及民眾不再透過電視頻道觀賞節目。BBC的線上iPlayer觀賞者，要是不看時況電視，就不必支付電視權利金。以iPlayer收取權利金的技術門檻極高，因為如此，霍爾才在近期的演說中，以觀眾移往線上的速度緩慢，強調電視權利金仍有大好未來。他的兩種說法不可能同時成立。

如果霍爾真的在思考電視觀賞革命，BBC還得作出其他改變。自從HBO推出《黑道家族》，電視公司就知道高品質戲劇在抓住觀眾和建立品牌上的重要性。而在線上世界這種競爭激烈無比的地方，那也更加重要，Netflix和Amazon大筆投資節目正是因為如此。霍爾承諾再投資3000萬英鎊於戲劇，此舉十分精明。BBC相當受敬重，但在這方面，它得更努力才行。（黃維德譯）

©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014

經濟學人英文原文

The Economist

Bagehot

The kindest cut

By The Economist

From CommonWealth Magazine

Published: March 20, 2014

Mar 15th 2014 | From the print edition

Lord Hall is trimming the BBC intelligently. That will not be enough.

IN HIS scrupulously modest office in Broadcasting House, the vast, art-deco headquarters of the BBC, Tony Hall looks relaxed for a man who has just taken a pair of shears to a national treasure. At least, that is how many of the public-service broadcaster's 20,000 employees view his decision to take the youth television channel BBC3 off air. Lord Hall, an avuncular 63-year-old, wearing a courteous half-smile and a media man's black suit, has just been to see its bosses. How did that go?

"They were unhappy—we've never closed anything before," he says. "But I also need to think about what is going to happen to our audience over the next three, five, ten years…" And he goes on, describing a strategy that is designed, he claims, not only to save money—as he must, by the truckload—but also to anticipate the TV-viewing habits of the future.

Lord Hall thinks the big predicted change in television, the demise of the channel, may happen far sooner than pundits predict. Data suggest only 2% of viewers are watching programmes exclusively online, where BBC3 is now heading. Yet tablet-savvy youngsters seem hardly to notice channels or schedules, picking and mixing content from the BBC's two children's channels. A step change is looming, he suspects, which will rapidly accelerate the switch to online viewing: a big problem for an outfit mostly paid for by a licence fee on television ownership. "My sense is that, although the data say that we're canoeing down a canyon, around the corner could be the most enormous waterfall."

This is a momentous idea—which also lends a reassuring intellectual ballast to the cost-cutting Lord Hall has embarked upon. Over the life of this parliament, the BBC's £3.6 billion ($5.8 billion) budget has been held flat, even as its commitments have multiplied, the coalition government having transferred responsibility for the World Service from the Foreign Office to it. An outfit unaccustomed to penury still needs to save £100m a year. The signs are that Lord Hall is coping well, however. Even aggrieved BBC3 staffers concede that, after a dreadful couple of years, the world's biggest public-service broadcaster is in good hands.

Lord Hall is certainly building from a low base. When he switched from the Royal Opera House a year ago, the BBC was reeling from multiple scandals. The biggest stemmed from the revelation that Jimmy Savile, a recently deceased BBC presenter, was a prolific paedophile and, what is more, that a BBC exposé of his alleged crimes had been quashed. Over-eager to compensate for the Savile debacle, a BBC programme then hinted that an elderly Tory politician, Lord McAlpine, was another child abuser—which wasn't true. Inept handling of this blunder forced out Lord Hall's predecessor, George Entwistle—eased by a fat pay-off as, it transpired, was customary for departing BBC bosses. Seedy, inept and captured by fat cats: one of Britain's hitherto revered institutions seemed hardly better than an investment bank.

To hear Lord Hall refer to that grim time, you might think the BBC's very existence had been in doubt. His speeches are peppered with commitments to "never again forget" that the broadcaster exists to serve its viewers. He has also cut the size of pay-offs and salaries—which helps to secure internal support for spending cuts. So does his generally unthreatening posture. A BBC veteran, Lord Hall is a staunch defender of its public-service ethos and responsibilities—which are to produce a blend of high-quality programming, as private firms might not, with enough popular content to justify the universal licence fee.

Polls suggest public support for that—over half of Britons are content with the licence fee. Far fewer want the BBC to pay for itself through advertising or subscription, and it is easy to see why. The broadcaster shows a lot of pap, especially on BBC3. No one should mourn the threat to "Snog Marry Avoid?" But it also produces vast quantities of fairly impartial news. Rival broadcasters gripe: by one estimate the BBC accounts for over 80% of TV news viewing. But none rivals the BBC's reputation.

Snog, marry, who cares?

Yet Lord Hall's mission, to improve the BBC but not much change it, could come unstuck. To begin with, he is going to have to carry on cutting. "I hope we can avoid more channel closures," he says. "But I can't rule anything out." There is speculation that BBC4 or some local radio stations may have to go. Neither step would be cataclysmic; both would erode the hope of reaching everyone, a process that BBC3's demise has begun. That could reduce support for the licence fee as Lord Hall prepares to renegotiate it in 2017. Loading the BBC with extra duties could have the same effect: if the unpopularity of Britain's foreign aid budget is a guide, licence-fee payers are not keen to fund the Somali Service.

A bigger threat, as Lord Hall suggests, is the rapid rise of online viewing and the demise of the channel as a way of watching programmes. Viewers of the BBC's online iPlayer are not charged a licence fee unless they watch live TV; the Beeb says they could be. Yet the technological barriers are daunting, which is why Lord Hall, in a recent speech, cited the slow pace of viewers' migration online to argue that the licence fee has a strong future. He cannot be right both ways.

If Lord Hall is truly overseeing a revolution in television-watching, the BBC will also have to change in another way. Ever since HBO launched "The Sopranos", TV companies have understood the importance of high-class dramas for hooking viewers and building a brand. AMC, once an obscure American cable channel, did it with "Mad Men". "Downton Abbey" helped restore the fortunes of ITV, the BBC's commercial rival. In an online world where everything competes against everything this is all the more vital, which is why Netflix and Amazon are pouring money into shows. To compete, Lord Hall has promised another £30m for drama, which is shrewd. The BBC is respected, even loved. But in this regard it needs to become more remarkable.

©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2014