I love a good myth-busting talk. Telling the audience they’re wrong is a sure-fire way to get them to listen. 

It plays off two basic human instincts – 1) Not wanting to be wrong about anything, ever (hello, ego!), and simultaneously / paradoxically, 2) Wanting in on a secret.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out: Everything you know about addiction is wrong by Johann Hari or Sex trafficking isn’t what you think it is by Meghan Sobel.

Immediately, you gotta click, right? “I’m wrong about addiction?? Sex trafficking isn’t what I think it is!! Tell me more immediately, ma’am!”

So in that spirit, today, we have a myth-busting blog. Not only will you learn something about TED & TEDx, you’ll learn how to write a better talk in the process.

Buckle up!

---

Myth: TED & TEDx Talks are 18 minutes long.

There are no keynotes or panel discussions at TED. Every session is comprised of 5-8 talks, each 18-minutes max. And that number doesn’t budge, regardless of how famous or successful you are.

According to TED Curator Chris Anderson, 18 minutes is “short enough to hold people’s attention, including on the Internet, and precise enough to be taken seriously. But it’s also long enough to say something that matters.”

This 18-minute rule is well known among the public, but what most people don’t realize is that 18 minutes is the maximum length, not the average.

Of the 50 most-watched TEDx Talks on TED.com, the average length is 13.5 minutes (including the credits).

And that brings me to another common misconception:

---

---

Myth: Longer is better.

So many speakers beg for a longer time slot, thinking that length correlates with prestige. They assume that if they have a 9-minute slot, the organizer doesn’t like their idea as much as the speaker with a 15-minute slot. Nonsense.

In the world of TED & TEDx speaking, longer isn’t necessarily better. Think about it – if you saw two videos in your Facebook feed, one is 9 minutes and one is 15 minutes, which one are you more likely to click on? Probably the 9-minute one. 

In general, short videos are more likely to go viral.

Paradoxically, that doesn’t mean that shorter is better either! You don’t want your talk to be so short that the audience doesn’t fully understand your big idea. 

Just like there’s no formula for the perfect TEDx Talk, there’s also no right or wrong length.

---

---

So, how long should my TEDx Talk be?

In 1972, Canadian Broadcaster Peter Gzowski held a contest to come up with a new phrase for Canadian identity, like we Americans have “As American as Apple Pie.” The contest received many predictable answers like “As Canadian as Maple Syrup” or “As Canadian as Ice Hockey.” But the phrase that won, and this is true, was “As Canadian as possible under the circumstances.” Amazing! I think about this at least once a week.

So that’s my answer to you:

Your TEDx talk should be as short as possible
(under the circumstances).

Said another way:

“It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.” 
 - William of Ockham

It all depends on the complexity of your subject matter. If you can communicate your big idea well in 8 minutes, please do it! The audience will be so grateful. But if it takes 12 minutes, that’s fine too.

As you’re working on your speech, you can estimate its length in minutes by reading it out loud & timing yourself (duh) – but most speakers will rehearse 1-2 minutes faster alone than in front of a live audience. So if it’s 13 minutes long when you rehearse alone, it’s probably closer to 15 minutes live.

Instead, I suggest estimating your speech’s length by wordcount.

Then,

When you think you’re done polishing your script, trim at least 5% more.

Your TEDx Talk should be so tight you can bounce a quarter off it. Only then will your speech be:

• Easier to memorize
• Easier to deliver
• More compelling
• Less boring
• More likely to go viral online

So, dear speaker, go forth and kill your darlings.