Tamsen Webster explains how TED and TEDx talks get titled. TED focuses on the idea itself, often as a question or unexpected phrase, not the speaker's name. She shares examples like Amy Cuddy's talks and a retitled driverless cars talk, and warns that TED may retitle your submission.
In the previous episode, we talked about how to title your talk so that your meeting organizer or potential client gives it the green light. But what if the talk that you want to get the green light is a TEDx talk and the meeting organizer is a TEDx organizer? As it turns out, the rules are a little different, so that's what we're talking about this week on Find the Red Thread. I'm your host, Tamsen Webster, of TamsenWebster.com. Www.tamsenwebster.com. When it comes to titling a TEDx Talk, the underlying problem and truth are still the same. We need to make sure that we are answering the organizers' interests when it comes to that talk. Title because it's the organizer that's making the decision. So we need to make sure the title itself fits a format that the organizer expects and wants because it makes the organizer's job easier. If it already sounds like a talk that they want, then a lot of your job is already done. But with TEDx's and TED Talks, the titles are fundamentally different. Now if you go and just look at the top 10 or 20 titles of TED Talks, you'll notice something very significant. That there is no example that I have yet found of name:subtitle. They just don't happen on TED. And if they do, they're really, really old. They are always phrases like "Do schools kill creativity?" or "Your body language may shape who you are." They are just phrases. There's nothing ownable about it. And that's because the organizers of both TEDx and TED want the focus to be on the idea, not on the speaker. So you don't hear things like "Start with Why" or "The 5 Second Rule" in the title of the talk. Those may come out in the talk, but they're not in the title of the talk. Now, if you think about it, the ultimate reason is because the audience that TED exists for and that the TEDx organizers exist for have questions that they're hoping these talks answer. And so almost all of the titles are focused on what is the question that that talk will answer. And just like before, it still needs to be something specific enough that people understand that this is a different, unconventional, or new approach to answering that question. So if you think about, for instance, Amy Cuddy's Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are, we don't necessarily think of body language and who you are as something that has a cause and effect relationship. And so even though it's a very short title, it still has both pieces. Now you might be saying to me, well, what about titles like The Power of Introverts? Okay, well, that's still unexpected. It doesn't necessarily ask a question that you may have been asking. I mean, after all, I don't think most people walk— walked into Joe Smith's TEDx talk and said, well, shoot, how do I just use one paper towel Or another talk, "How do I tie my shoes?" We're not answering, we're not asking that question on a daily basis, but the fact that it's posed that way now all of a sudden makes us want to know, well, how do you use only one paper towel? What is the power of introverts? So it's still pieces, the piece that's still relevant there is that it's an unexpected answer to a question that in certain cases we may not have had. So, This is what it means for you when you are thinking about your TEDx talk. First of all, get rid of the colon subtitle structure. That's just— it's not gonna work. Now, I'll tell you that and that's fine, and you're like, "Yeah, but my TEDx organizer still let me do it." Yeah, and then TED is gonna retitle it. So again, make it easy for TED to take. Now, this is a lesson I learned while I was the executive producer of TEDxCambridge. Because we had 5 speakers promoted to TED.com, and every time they retitled what I even thought were great titles. So for instance, David Autor's talk on, as it was ultimately called, "Will Automation Take Away All Our Jobs?" was originally titled "Why Are There Still So Many Jobs?" Now I think they're both great titles, but I see why TED added the additional information. They wanted to make it clear that this was a talk not just about jobs, but specifically about the role automation will play in the future of work. As an additional example, we had a talk that was originally called "The Social Dilemma of Driverless Cars." We thought that was kind of like "The Power of Introverts." But when TED got hold of it, they retitled it as "What Decisions Should Driverless Cars Make?" So they turned it from that kind of "Power of Introverts" type title into a question that people might want to hear an answer to. So think about that when you're titling your talks. Make sure that for TEDx at least, that you're not putting ownable stuff in there, and yet you're still giving enough information to let the organizer and ultimately the audience know exactly why your idea is one worth spreading. If you want more information on how to find your TEDx idea or to work with me on that, and it's title. I do that with clients. Uh, the offer is called the TED Thread Session, and you'll read more about that at tamsenwebster.com/consulting under the products and packages section. Now, if this was useful to you, please do me a favor, like, subscribe, and share it. Otherwise, I will see you next time.
