On Thursday 05 Nov 2009 1:00:39 pm Priyanka Sachar wrote: > a paid conference for 2400$
What is TED? To me it sounds like a lot of talking. Why is it so expensive? Talk is, after all, cheap. Do the speakers get paid? Paid well - that is. Getting paid to talk is a very American thing. In India people get to talk without being paid. But if the speakers are not being paid, then why is it so expensive? Last time I checked an expensive branded watch and a cheapo one did the same work, mostly equally well. The same is true for apparel. The cost is for the brand. It is the cost that builds the brand. A certain segment of people pay the extra money and say "I have the money to go where you cannot go". That sets up a dynamic of its own for people with money. And it also makes it "desirable" for people without the money who get the feeling that they would be in exalted company if only they could get there. The value of a lecture and what you feel you get out of it is enhanced because of that. There is a surgical analogy. A man comes to a surgeon for a minor 10 minute operation under local anaesthesia. If the surgeon does it for Rs 1000, the man who can afford more than that is happy but keeps going back to the doctor and asking about why the scar itches a bit or why it is slightly discolored. If the surgeon charges him 10,000 in expensive looking surroundings the man feels that he has paid for the best treatment on earth an accepts the itching and discoloration as minor unavoidable consequences of even the best treatment on earth. The man's perception changes once the money is out of his pocket. This forms the psychological basis for 150,000 Rupee "birthing suites" and their "childbirth packages" in Bangalore hospitals when women are giving birth unstoppably and inevitably for no fee in railway compartments and village homes. I downloaded a long list of Silklist emails under the heading "TED" a few days ago after the list had seen a period of quiescence. It appears to me that this TED business has more than a small amount of one-upmanship and "mine is bigger" involved, based around its exorbitant fee. The number of things that you can do with $ 2,400 or its Rupee equivalent is interesting and a separate parallel value judgement would revolve around how many people would spend that to hear someone talk and for what reason. shiv
