(WARNING - audio is less than perfect)
There's a lot of fair criticism of TED around at the moment. A discussion I had with one of the organisers on the day of my TEDx talk was over the blinding positivity and techno-fetishism of the main TED canon and how this was potentially more damaging than helpful. Before doing this talk I consulted with numerous mentors and friends about their decision to either do or to turn down their TED/TEDx offers and decided to stick with the process. If at a point I found that I was being pushed to do or say things I wasn't comfortable with (as I've heard can happen) then I'd back out. This didn't happen and the organisers I dealt with were excellent, highly professional, helpful, considerate and genuinely interested in what I had to say - in itself slightly disarming. I had quibbles with having to learn a scripted talk, I much prefer to talk off the cuff and improvise but, that's not really anything to complain about.
I'm not sure that I'd do a TEDx again, which is not a criticism of the experience itself, which as I said was excellent. A few years back I was invited to go and do some catwalk modelling in Paris (photos are there if you know how to look) - I have no interest in fashion or even really Paris but that curious and experience-hungry part of me said yes and before I knew it, it was over and done with some fun memories and lessons learned. Forrays into the world of TED are filed in the same box for the time being.