I’m in Delhi for a few days, recuperating from the intensity of TED India. I met dozens of people who blew me away, slept about 12 hours total over 3 days, and somehow ended up giving two talks!  More on the talks (with video, hopefully) later, but right now, here is a recap of some of the TED experience.

The People

Due to writing/rehearsal time for my talks, I ended up missing more than a few TED talks, which was fine with me: I’ll catch them online, when they’ve been edited and produced for maximum enjoyment. Instead, I prioritized the time I had for meals and parties, where we got to sit down with people like Tony Hsieh, Nandan Nilekani Rohini Nilekani, Jacqueline Novogratz, Scott Cook, and others.  Many of those conversations were better than most of the TED talks I attended (especially an illuminating sourcing discussion with Scott Cook, CEO of Intuit).

Infosys

Most of TED’s attendees were whisked by bus (with police escorts) from the modern Bangalore airport to the Infosys campus in Mysore.  Those who left the country directly afterwards are going to have a very skewed perspective of where India is at.  The Infosys campus in Mysore is spotless and organized like a gated community in Orlando (it even features an Epcot Center dome).  You get this nagging sense you’re on the Indian IT version of the Truman show. While this was a great venue for TED (parties at palaces in Mysore, a beautiful outdoor Greek Theater, and fantastic venues for talks), it often felt contrived.

Sunita Krishnan

Sunita Krishnan is about 4 feet tall, which surprised me when I later met her in person, given her gigantic stage presence. She spoke of her work rehabilitating thousands of sex slaves and her own personal experience being gang-raped by eight men at the age of 15. Sunita’s talk was devoid of self-righteousness; instead, she touched the audiences with simple stories of joy and assimilation that she encounters every day in her work.  Make sure you catch this talk when the video is released.

Other Talks

When the videos come out, I’d also recommend that you catch Pranav Mistry (his demo of Sixth Sense floored the audience), Derek Sivers (shifting perspective), Sidi Goma (black sufis from Gujrat – no shit!), Sivamani (percussionist), Anupam Misra (rain water retention), and Anindya Sinha (monkeys!).

Jugaad

Jugaad (Indian-style entrepreneurial improvisation) loomed large as a theme at TED India.  Many speakers showed us nifty inventions like an amphibious bike or a coconut tree climber.  I incorporated Jugaad into my final comedic piece as well (where I parodied the Embrace, probably the most amazing innovation I saw at TED, next to Pranav Mistry’s Sixth Sense).

Although I don’t really buy the “Jugaad is India’s innovative advantage” argument (more on this later), I expect that at least half a dozen books about Jugaad and innovation will be published over the next year. Use the term as much as you can in 2010, because, shortly, it will be more cliched than “tipping point”.

Charter For Compassion

Karen Armstrong didn’t speak at TED, but her Charter for Compassion loomed large (at least for me – am a huge fan of her writing).  It is a simple call for religious leaders around the world to acknowledge that the Golden Rule exists is a core part of all the world’s major religions.  Check out the charter here.

India’s Inferiority Complex

Many of the business speakers at TED felt the need to prove that India had arrived on the world stage, leading to slide after slide about Indian accomplishments like the Tata Nano.  One of the low moments of TED was Dr. R. A. Mashelkar’s presentation, where we spent almost 2 minutes listening to R. A. sing the praises of Ratan Tata, as an innovator and man. Total shlock.

It may have been interesting to hear about surprising innovations if the country in question was Burkina Faso or Cameroon.  India has no need to prove it has arrived on the world stage, especially not to the TED audience!  And instead of using these slides to provide background, speakers like Mashelkar and Srivatsa Krishna (talk on infrastructure) made them the whole point of their talk.

India the Exotic

It was also disappointing to see how many presenters (and audience members) still push the idea of India as the land of exotica.  The worst offender here was Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda.  His talk was a mishmash of spiritual cliches and business philosophy that he crapped out with slides featuring titles such as “India: land of many gods”.

Standing Ovations

There were probably more standing ovations at TED India than at all of the previous TEDs combined.  Hans Rosling gave a good talk, but I’m not sure that it deserved a standing ovation by TED standards, but we gave him one, mostly because I think we were all really excited that TED had begun  And, after we gave the first ovation, I think that the polite Indian crowd just felt bad not giving everyone a standing ovation.  I think we gave the woman who made an announcement about luggage pickup a standing ovation.

Shashi Tharoor

Tharoor’s talk was delivered well, but it was full of cliched stories about India that we have heard several times.  Besides his introduction as the “man who brought Twitter to India” (he should talk to Al Gore about that one), it was largely forgettable.  For me, Shashi was a highlight because of the 5 minutes I spent with him backstage, when we were both getting our pre-performance makeup.  Shashi is totally natural in a makeup chair.  He’s the runway model of Indian politicians, the Gisele of parliamentary bureaucrats.  So, there we sat. I’m getting my lips glossed; he’s getting powder on his neck.

Then, the makeup lady accidentally dropped some powder on his shirt:

Shashi: The girl put powder on my jacket!

Coordinator: Let me see, sir. (opens up Shashi’s jacket).  I don’t see any powder.

Shashi: *There is powder on my jacket!  I see it, right here!  You think I’m powerless here?  You think I can’t take this straight to the people?  Wait until I post this to twitter, and my tweeps see it!  I’m going to tweet about this, bitch!  I’m gonna fucking TWEET!!!

*he might not have said that last part, but I had to leave, so I’m just inferring what he probably said.