Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks)

If you go on the TED website, you can currently find there over a full week of TED Talk videos, over 1.3 million words of transcripts and millions of user ratings. And that's a huge amount of data. And it got me wondering: If you took all this data and put it through statistical analysis, could you reverse engineer a TED Talk? Could you create the ultimate TED Talk? (Applause) And also, could you create the worst possible TED Talk that they would still let you get away with?

To find this out, I looked at three things. I looked at the topic that you should choose. I looked at how you should deliver it and the visuals onstage. Now, with the topic -- there's a whole range of topics you can choose, but you should choose wisely, because your topic strongly correlates with how users will react to your Talk. Now, to make this more concrete, let's look at a list of top ten words that statistically stick out in the most favorite TED Talks and in the least favorite TED Talks. So if you came here to talk about how French coffee will spread happiness in our brains, that's a go. (Applause) Whereas, if you wanted to talk about your project involving oxygen, girls, aircraft -- actually, I would like to hear that talk, but statistics say it's not so good. Oh, well. If you generalize this, the most favorite TED Talks are those that feature topics we can connect with, both easily and deeply, such as happiness, our own body, food, emotions. And the more technical topics, such as architecture, materials and, strangely enough, men, those are not good topics to talk about.

How should you deliver your Talk? TED is famous for keeping a very sharp eye on the clock, so they're going to hate me for revealing this, because, actually, you should talk as long as they will let you, because the most favorite TED Talks are, on average, over 50 percent longer than the least favorite ones. And this holds true for all ranking lists on TED.com except if you want to have a Talk that's beautiful, inspiring or funny. Then, you should be brief. But other than that, talk until they drag you off the stage.

(Laughter)

Now, while -- (Applause) While you're pushing the clock, there's a few rules to obey. I found these rules out by comparing the statistics of four-word phrases that appear more often in the most favorite TED Talks, as opposed to the least favorite TED Talks. I'll give you three examples. First of all, I must, as a speaker, provide a service to the audience and talk about what I will give you, instead of saying what I can't have. Secondly, it's imperative that you do not cite the New York Times. (Laughter) And finally, it's okay for the speaker -- that's the good news -- to fake intellectual capacity. If I don't understand something, I can just say, "et cetera, et cetera." You'll all stay with me. It's perfectly fine. (Applause)

Now, let's go to the visuals. The most obvious visual thing onstage is the speaker. And analysis shows, if you want to be among the most favorite TED speakers, you should let your hair grow a little bit longer than average, make sure you wear your glasses and be slightly more dressed-up than the average TED speaker. Slides are okay, though you might consider going for props. And now the most important thing, that is the mood onstage. Color plays plays a very important role. Color closely correlates with the ratings that Talks get on the website. (Applause) For example, fascinating Talks contain a statistically high amount of exactly this blue color, much more than the average TED Talk. Ingenious, much more this green color, et cetera, et cetera. (Applause) Now, personally, I think I'm not the first one who has done this analysis, but I'll leave this to your good judgment.

So, now it's time to put it all together and design the ultimate TED Talk. Now, since this is TED Active, and I learned from my analysis that I should actually give you something, I will not impose the ultimate or worst TED Talk on you, but rather give you a tool to create your own. And I call this tool the TED Pad. (Laughter) And the TED Pad is a matrix of 100 specifically selected, highly curated sentences that you can easily piece together to get your own TED Talk. You only have to make one decision and that is: Are you going to use the white version for very good TED Talks, about creativity, human genius? Or are you going to go with a black version, which will allow you to create really bad TED Talks, mostly about blogs, politics and stuff? So, download it, and have fun with it.

Now I hope you enjoy the session. I hope you enjoy designing your own ultimate and worst possible TED Talks. And I hope some of you will be inspired for next year to create this, which I really want to see.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)