Favorites of 2012: Sometimes it takes a village to make a transcript

2012 was the year of radical openness at TED. In that spirit, while our office is closed for winter break, TED’s editorial staffers have selected their favorite talks of the year …  giving you a peek into both our process and our personalities. We hope you enjoy.

I’m impressed and intimidated by people who can give a TED Talk in more than one language. So let me start by saying: Arunachalam Muruganantham speaks much better English than I do Tamil. He even cracks jokes in English — really funny jokes. Respect.

Muruganantham is an inventor from Tamil Nadu who started a business making something he knew nothing about: maxipads. It’s a painfully intriguing topic — of regular interest to some of us, it makes others squirm in their chairs. (And given the number of people on Earth who have periods, compared to the number who have, say, robotic prosthetic arms, it’s actually strange we hadn’t yet seen a great talk on the subject. Believe me, we are looking for more.) When Muruganantham saw that his wife had a problem affording sanitary supplies, he worked for years to design and (here it comes…) test an effective and cheap maxipad. He then built a philanthropically oriented business helping women’s groups around India make and sell their own pads.

So: a topic we’re squeamishly passionate about, a social message worth hearing, gorgeous footage, and a warm and laughing audience in the theater at TED@Bangalore. There’s just one thing standing between this talk and the TED front page, and it’s a tough question to think about: Some of the words that Muruganantham speaks are hard for our wider audience to understand.

Understanding is something we take really seriously. When TED first started posting videos online in 2006, we didn’t yet have transcripts or translations. And we started right away to get emails from people in the hearing-impaired community, as well as from those who did not speak English. Both of them said the same thing, and I’ll never forget hearing it: You’re sharing these ideas with everyone but me. Transcribing all our talks, and building the Open Translation Project, were driven by the desire to fix that. Now, below the window of every TED Talk is a button to turn on a transcript in English or any language it’s translated into.

So we decided, for Muruganantham’s talk, to build a text transcript and have it pop up automatically when you visit his TED Talk. It took a surprising number of people to make this simple thing happen.

First, the transcripts themselves, which happen at top speed. TED staffers Thu-Huong Ha and Morton Bast work together with a professional transcriber to attach time-coded text to the edited video. It’s doubly important to get these texts exactly right, both for our users who choose subtitles and because the English text is used as a basis for translations in 94 languages. Something like 35,000 separate text files depend on these English texts to be correct.

Then, the default behavior of our subtitles is to disappear until needed. So the transcript team had to work with our engineers to make sure that on this particular talk, the the subtitles would pop up automatically. While we’ve placed auto subtitles on talks given in French and Spanish, making it work in English took a little tweaking. Thanks, engine room!

To get around the issue, our video editor Laurie House tried a quick experiment with burning subtitles into the talk video itself — instead of using a separate layer — but quickly realized that once the talk was translated, the new language would want to go right where the English titles were burned in. So, scrap that.

Meanwhile we’ve got three people working on this transcript over the weekend, checking the text phrase by phrase into our subtitling back-end software. And they’re making a lot of headway. But on the Monday the talk is scheduled to run, just hours before we post it at 11am, we still have seven “[unclear]“s. In other words, seven places where the speaker mumbles, or makes a reference we can’t catch, or is drowned out by laughter. We’ve never gone live with this many “[unclear]“s, but we can’t just guess at what Muruganantham is saying. So at 9:30am, we socialize the problem, sending an email to everyone and anyone who might have insight on the talk.

At 9:40am, Jenny Zurawell, our Open Translation Project coordinator, takes a pass (she speaks four or five languages herself) and clears up three of the missing words.

At 9:48am, Lakshmi Pratury, the host of TED@Bangalore, weighs in from India with the rest of the four words, and a major correction we’d all missed:

At three minutes in, the transcript reads “that is why I am jealous of science in India”. ‘Science’ is not what Muruganantham said. He said ‘Saints.’  The sentence should read “…jealous of saints in India”.

And just before post, we hear from Muruganantham himself, who confirms Lakshmi and Jenny’s readings, and says:

“further any doubts, i can clear it.”

We post the talk, and — well, what we expect to happen happens. There are those few folks who won’t ever watch a talk about maxipads and lady problems. There are those few folks who get frustrated by someone who can’t speak perfectly crisp English. But most people watch the talk, read the subs, and fall in love with this beautiful guy, who just wanted to solve his wife’s monthly problem, and then found a way to help a nation full of women too.

As Rebecca Eisenberg wrote when Upworthy featured the talk on Facebook: “It must have been this guy’s time of the month to be awesome.”

Arunachalam Muruganantham at TED@Bangalore, part of the TED2013 Talent Search. Learn more at http://talentsearch.ted.com/. Photo courtesy TED@Bangalore.

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Sometimes You Have to be Social Even When You Don’t Feel Like It: Here’s How

Some of us are just naturally introverted and dread social situations, others may enjoy being social, but just don’t feel like it sometimes. Unfortunately, there are times, both in our personal and professional lives when we have to do it whether we like it or not. It’s not that easy to simply tell yourself that you have to do it when your mind and your body don’t want to hear it. It’s far more effective (and usually more enjoyable,) to figure out what the true reason is.

Are you tired, avoiding someone, or shy? Maybe you lack solid social or conversational skills. Perhaps you don’t know anyone who’ll be at the gathering or you’re wary of conflict. Whatever the reason, it’s much easier to overcome once you know what it is.

Energy fixes – You’re tired. That’s completely understandable. Most of us can relate to that “feeling so tired, you just want to go home and be left alone” state. But sometimes that’s just not an option. So what can you do?

The obvious solution is to take a quick nap.The tried and true fix would be a jolt of caffeine…I would recommend something with moderate caffeine content, (not Red Bull or a triple espresso) otherwise you’ll be bouncing all over the place and talking so fast no one will be able to follow your conversation anyway.Maybe your tiredness is caused by dehydration (most of us are at least mildly dehydrated.) Drink a glass of water and then keep drinking throughout your social event to stay hydrated.Are you hungry? Often lack of energy is caused by going too long without food. When did you last eat? Even if you did eat recently, was it healthy? A healthy meal or snack with a good mix of protein and carbs with a little bit of fat (A LITTLE BIT) thrown in will help to keep your energy up and even.

People problems – Sometimes we don’t feel like being sociable because of the other people involved. That’s a bit harder to fix, but there are some things you can do.

Are you trying to avoid a particular person or group of people? Maybe you can go with a friend or enlist a colleague to act as a buffer. If you want to avoid or minimize conversation or contact with someone, the easiest way to do it is by choosing to converse with someone else. Keep some distance and keep busy. You might try offering to help the organizer so that you have an excuse not to engage. Also, have an exit plan ready. If you get in an uncomfortable situation, you can pull out your “exit excuse” and make for the door.Maybe it’s not a person, but a conflict that you dread. Again having another person or group as a social buffer is a great solution. If a conflict arises having someone else to run interference or help diffuse a tense situation is very handy. When you are in the social situation, stay calm, remind yourself that while you cannot control what other people say, you can control how you respond. Remain polite and remove yourself if an unpleasant situation arises.If must socialize at an event or some other type of gathering where you don’t know (or don’t know well) anyone else there, it can be very uncomfortable. The first thing you can do is to try to reframe it as an opportunity to expand your social sphere. You’ll get a chance to meet new people, add some names to your contact list, and widen your social network. Choose someone who looks interesting, sounds interesting or acts in a friendly manner and introduce yourself. That’s usually all it takes. Be honest. Don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know anyone. Your new “contact” may be able to introduce you to others, and if not, at least you can bond over being fellow loners.

Personality– If you’re an introvert, you’re an introvert. Nothing you can do is going to make you an extrovert, but you can increase your comfort level in social situations. As an introvert, socializing may cause a great deal of anxiety or simply be draining. Chaos, large groups, noise, and too much activity can be very stressful for someone with introverted tendencies.

Choose your atmosphere if you can. Try to socialize in quieter environments, without so much noise and activity.Choose someplace you are familiar with. If you’re already comfortable with the setting, the actual conversation and interaction won’t feel so intimidating.Enlist a partner. Once again, this is a great strategy. You’ll feel more comfortable if you’re not alone, especially if you choose someone who tends to be more extroverted. They’ll carry much of the social burden, and most likely, they won’t feel that it’s a burden at all, because they enjoy and feel energized by the interaction.Work on improving your social or conversational skills. Not knowing what to say or how to act would make anyone not want to be sociable. Try practicing your introduction. Have some conversation ideas memorized. Think of a few questions you can ask if you don’t know what to say. “How long have you known…or worked at…lived here…” is a basic conversation starter.

When you don’t feel like socializing, you can often shift your mood by figuring out what the reason is and then taking steps to mitigate it. You still might not enjoy being sociable, but you can make it a bit less uncomfortable.

Featured photo credit:  Curious striped Scottish fold kitten via Shutterstock

Royale Scuderi is a life fulfillment specialist, success consultant, and writer who specializes in cultivating human potential. She excels at helping others achieve growth, lasting change, professional success, life satisfaction, and clarity of purpose. Her passion is asking questions that matter and finding solutions that work. As owner of Productive Life Concepts, she uses her expertise to help individuals and businesses maximize their potential. Find out more at Productive Life Concepts.

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