TEDX at IIMB - Rating it 3 out of 10. What's yours?

Recently I attended a TEDx event organised by the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, and I must say that it was a huge disappointment all the way. I was pretty critical about the previous TEDx event in my blog post that I published last year, but honestly, the IIMB event made that event look like a rock star. My 5 reasons for why I hated the TEDX IIMB event are,

1. Starting late - common problem with both the TEDX events. I thought this one 'managed' by India's premier management institute would be different, but alas, we are all Indians nevertheless.

2. Selection of topics - there was absolutely no theme to the event. Each of the speakers came on the dias with their own random topics and made their speeches. The least I expected that each session/section would have a theme and some level of focus.

3. The speakers, barring one senior journalist, the rest of them were all low impact and not befitting the TEDX quality. I was surprised that they were unable to find speakers outside the IIMB network of alumni and faculty given their apparent clout in the industry. And yes, I am one of those who believe that getting a degree from a premier institute is one thing, and what you use it to achieve is another. So an IIMB degree or being a faculty there is not synonymous with success. It was pretty evident either that was the prerequisite for making the choice of speakers, or to make up for their inability to find someone else better, the organisers had to settle for this convenient quick fix. Hence, the quality of the talks suffered and added no value to the audience. However, there was one talk I enjoyed. It was on this organization named RangDe. Real impact story and an idea worth spreading. Clear example that brand IIM does not always sell.

4. General administrative issues - the stage was still being setup while we were waiting for the program to start, frequently defaulting sound and video equipment, very average registration experience all added to the agony. It just brought to the fore the clear lack of interest by the organisers to put up a good show. Seemed like everything was a last minute rush. 

5. For the same ticket price,  TEDXBLR served up a really scrumptious lunch. However, here, the audience had to settle for a meagre menu of samosa and tea.

In conclusion, a disappointing experience at TEDX IIMB. I had to force myself to survive the duration of the program.

In the 'buyer beware' age,  I have my share of mistakes I made to land at this mediocre event too. I bought a ticket to this event which had no website and no speaker information whatsoever. Purely had the interest to attend on the basis that IIMB was organising it and had a bare minimum expectation on the quality. Well, that's not how things turned out exactly. 

It now makes me ponder, in one of India's most premier management institute, how are graduates going to manage big organisations in the future while failing to even organize an event of this small a scale. Call it hype or marketing stunt! Or is the industry falling into the same trap as I just did?

IIMB Board meeting - we need more courses to increase our fee collection
Professor - sir,  we can start an MBA in event management.

5 out of 10 for TEDx Bangalore! Whats your rating?

When I bought the ticket to go to TEDx Bangalore that was held on 3rd August 2014, I was thrilled and overcome with excitement to be part of such a high impact global movement. Well, but what can I say? It was a like eating a bowl of stale salad served in gold china in an ultra luxury hotel. Read on for what I mean.....

Let me start with the positives!

Thoughtful categorization - 7 out of 10 

The whole event was divided into 3 sections, BLR to Bangalore, Down South and Outsourced. There was clarity in what the organizers wanted to portray to the audiences bringing together a nice flow of thoughts to the audiences.

Novel Initiatives - 9 out of 10

The paired lunch box wherein the lunch packet is received in pairs thereby encouraging sharing of the lip smacking tucker as well as "food for thought". Also the awesome informal type of seating enabling networking activity in comfort and leisure.

  

The drone 10 out of 10 :-) 

Also, who could not have observed the drone that was used to record the event. Just a kiddish observation, but I would like to put it down as a like. 

The anchor of the event, Sriram Sullia - 9 out of 10 

By far the saviour of the event! He kept pace with the slips and tumbles of the organizers by engaging and entertaining the crowd, while the organizers troubleshot. As usual, his wit was unbeatable while he charmed the audience. Well done Sriram! But I was shocked to hear that he even got a barely audible thank you, and whoever was doing that did not even know his name. There was a loud blurb in the microphone that we "we thank the anchor" (zero marks for that). Guys, he has a name and if there is one person you had to profusely thank, it had to be Sriram for holding the show together.

The Negatives....

The content curation - 3 out of 10

With all due respect to all the speakers and their causes, I feel the selection of speakers, except a hand few, could have been way better that what was mustered by. The best and most invigorating of the talks were those that were beamed on the screen from other TED and TEDx events. I explain why further along this post....
I must say the content curation was way off the mark, especially the BLR to Bangalore category. The selection of speakers brought to fore the blatant lack of knowledge on the issues the city faced and the history of Bangalore. Except the Ugly Indian and Naresh Narsimhan, all the other speakers in the category disappointed. There were no impact stories nor any take away inspiring messages from the others. Abhishek and Nitin Pai had nothing new to say, period. Why were truly high impact stories such as the Akshaya Pathra from ISKCON or individuals like Ashwin Mahesh overlooked?

The Down South segment was a total let down! Also, it was a almost a misnomer since 3 out of the 5 speakers surely were not from the South (Debarghya Das from Kolkata/USA, CREA based in New Delhi, Jadav "Molai" Payeng from Assam). However, the lone shining stars of this segment and arguably in the entire event were Mrs. Shobha Murthy and Sanusree Gomes from HelpDesk. Truly awesome, yet simple solution to a problem that existed for decades. The curator probably turned lucky with this find.

In the highly anticipated Outsourced segment, the audience as I observed were fighting hard to stay awake due to the lack of invigorating talks and the awesome meal. Ibrahim Nehme and Tamadher saved the grace with some impact stories to say. Adnane could hold my attention in patches purely because of his humorous narrative. Wonder why Zac Greene had to fly half the globe to read his talk from a piece of paper, or Jon Walls to make a sales pitch on behalf of Swiss startups in India?

The Delay in Starting the event - zero out of 10

Although scheduled to start at 9:30 AM, the show never got underway till 11:15 AM. While I came into the convention centre at 8:45 AM, I could see the organizers painting the decorative blocks right near the registration counters. I knew I was extremely early and I immediately braced myself to the ensuing long delay. Events of this caliber don't start late and I felt let down right from the beginning.

The broken promise of the Uber Rides - 5 out of 10

I received an email in the morning of the event that mobility partners Uber were offering free rides 'to and from' the venue. There was promptly a discount code sent along with it and it worked great for me to get a taxi to get to the venue. We realized that promise was broken only when we decided to Uber ourselves back from the venue and were surprised that the discount coupon was not working. And then all of those who Ubered in were to crowd ourselves in the buses on our way back!

The ever-breaking Microphone, Visual Systems and Slide Clicker - 1 out of 10

All through the event, that one thing that had a high irritability value was that every time a speaker came on the stage and tried to start talking, the microphone would not work. Then one of the sound crew members would come on stage to fix it. Then when the speaker starts his talk, its the slide mover's turn to not work. The speakers were struggling and taking wild jabs at the slide mover in vain. Nithin Pai had to actually continue his talk without the slides. And somewhere between the talk, its the huge LCD screen's turn to flicker and make it even more embarrassing. Guys, this is a global event that the world is watching, and what a sorry figure we were cutting! And to everyone's dismay, none of the organizers decided to fix the problem although it was persistent throughout the event. Anyway, less said the better on this.

I would like to provide an overall rating of 5.3 out of 10 TEDx Bangalore. I was wondering if I could have spent that scarce Sunday in a better manner. Hope its better next time around, because we have Bangalore's and TED's reputation to preserve. Your ratings are welcome in the comments section.