How do you build a company that continually creates value, attracts smart people, and stands out for being exceptional? If you’re TED-Ed — the educational arm of TED that produces Lessons Worth Sharing — you do this by giving your audience a key role in your content, from concept, to production, to distribution. Download the case study to learn how they're doing it!

1. 01TedED - Empowering Co-creation With Communitygetsatisfaction.com | 877-339-3997
THE NEED FOR
CONVERSATION
It’s hard to find someone
out there today who has
never been impacted by a
TED Talk. TED’s education
initiative, TED-Ed, takes
the mission a step further
by creating video lessons
that are short, entertaining,
and optimized for use in
the classroom. Educators,
students, and all life-long
learners can enjoy TED-Ed
Lessons.
“Getting people to watch our videos was
only half the battle,” said Jordan Reeves,
Community Manager at TED-Ed. “And
once they watched the videos, there was
no place for them to engage with us in
a conversation.” Conversation is very
important to the TED model.
According to Jordan, “Education is
one of the most important rights we
have. So, development of a great video
works best when it’s not one-sided.
We value the back-and-forth with our
community — a place for people to
deliberate, to conceptualize, to praise,
to complain. It is through conversation
that we co-create the best content for
educators and learners.”
To deliver on their promise of “Lessons
Worth Sharing,” TED-Ed launched a Get
Satisfaction community to facilitate
conversation with teachers using TED-Ed
in their classrooms and people interested
in participating in a conversation about
education around the world.
The Science: How It Works
Strategy and Planning - The TED-
Ed team knew they needed to create
a friendly, welcoming environment in
the community before they launched
it to the public, so they reached out
to some key players to ask for help.
Together, those Champions and TED-
Ed employees seeded content that
they knew would spark the interest and
conversations of “TEDsters” (the name
they use to describe the members of
the TED community at large including
the teachers, students, parents, life-long
learners, and animators who bring TED-
Ed lessons to life).
Set-up and Management - The TED-
Ed community is displayed prominently
on the website’s main navigation so
that it’s easy to find. To ensure the
greatest collaboration and get closer
to their users, the entire TED-Ed team
participates in the community.
Jordan Reeves
Community Manager
THE COMMUNITY EFFECT:
“Previously, people came to the website
to consume our content. Now they come
to participate.”
The Community is a prominent feature of the entire TEDed experience.
THE COMMUNITY EFFECT: INNOVATING TOGETHER
Empowering Co-creation of
Content with Customers

2. 02 TedED - Empowering Co-creation With Community getsatisfaction.com | 877-339-3997
“While the rest of the TED-Ed team
drops in to comment on existing topics
or start new ones of their own, I spend
all day in the community connecting
our members with the TED-Ed staff,
other community members, or experts
in the TED community at large. It’s
the dream job — I get to converse with
brilliant people and introduce them to
other brilliant people as often as the
opportunity presents itself. In addition to
creating new content, I make sure that
all the appropriate people have seen the
topics that are started every day in the
TED-Ed Community. This ensures the
whole TED-Ed team remains focused on
the needs, feedback, and priorities of
TEDsters.”
TED-Ed directs everyone to the
community and encourages them to
share their experiences there. Thanks
to Get Satisfaction’s Community Health
Analytics, they have identified one
community champion, Della Palacios,
and are in the process of developing
a system that will recognize many
more. The SEO value of the community
draws new people into the conversation
who may not even be familiar with
TED-Ed, but who have searched for
information in the education space. This
allows them to expand their influence
and bring more educators and learners
into the mix.
But TED staff don’t just listen and
respond, they pose questions to their
community so that they can foster
collaboration and co-creation … and
ultimately, the community means
that everyone can find the right way
to participate. This is where the magic
happens.
The Art: Community Impact
One of the things that makes TED-Ed
work is matching great lesson ideas with
the animators who are willing to animate
them. With the community, animators
“The ripple effect of one
conversation in the
community, turning an idea
into a video with more than 1
million views... The creativity
set in motion is astounding.”
~Jordan Reeves,
Community Manager, TedEd.
can determine which ideas attract the
greatest interest by looking at the stars
and me-too’s certain ideas receive, and
they can participate in the conversation
to better choose the ideas they work
on. This allows them to take ownership
in the creation process, and ensures
that everyone is excited about the work
they’re publishing.
Through conversations happening in the
TED-Ed Community, several new TED-Ed
Lessons have been brought to life. One
of the lessons that was conceptualized in
the community received 1.1M views in
the first 3 days! By drawing on the
ideas, creativity, and inclusivity of their
community, TED-Ed was able to create a
lesson that was infused with enthusiasm.
The TED-Ed Community is a powerful
collaboration engine that generates
ideas, helps to bring those ideas to life,
Attract the greatest interest by looking at the stars and me-too’s certain ideas receive.
.
THE COMMUNITY EFFECT:
TED is one of the most beloved brands around. Their ethos of
radical openness, collaboration, and co-creation allows them to produce
content that is at once interesting, relevant, and of the highest quality.
Their audience doesn’t just consume TED-Ed content, they are part of
the TED-Ed story. With community, they’re bringing to life the TED-Ed
mission of “Lessons Worth Sharing” to the greatest extent possible.
THE COMMUNITY EFFECT: INNOVATING TOGETHER
Empowering Co-creation of
Content with Customers