It always takes a while after TED to come to terms with what happened. It's supposed to get easier, but after my fifth year, I still have the same reaction. For me, the best way to think about TED is to compare it to an expedition in the mountains. Although it's not physical, it has many of the same attributes.

First, it's more of a journey than an event. Before this year's conference I was intrigued by the vocal backlash against TED, from Benjamin Bratton's searing on-stage criticism at TEDx in San Diego, to Evgeny Morozov's withering criticism and The Onion's parody. This was the year that people had been declaring the end of TED. The criticism set up a cultural tension especially after it was highlighted in a New York Times story about Chris Anderson, the event's founder and curator.

TED is no different than everything else in culture these days; you're either shrinking or growing, and as a consequence it was only natural to wonder what would happen this year at the 30th anniversary session.

One of the big issues for Anderson and his team is how to maintain an event built on scarcity and privacy in order to allow for fragile, new ideas to incubate – in a world that is open. It's especially hard for TED since Anderson has so firmly embraced the open-source movement, democratising the event with over 6,000 gatherings since 2009 and opening up the TED.com platform with more than 1,800 talks online and well over 1bn views.

It raises the question: how does a business built on scarcity transition to a world of abundance? And, when a conference evolves into a media company, how does the conference stay relevant?

In this digitally democratised world every business is challenged with questions like these. How do you balance closed and openness in a way that makes both more powerful? With the vision of "Ideas Worth Spreading" Anderson has tackled the problem head on. While other brands have struggled to stay relevant in this new age, from brick and mortar retailers being challenged by Amazon to media companies challenged by YouTube, many can't let go of their old business model to allow a new one to be nurtured.

Conferences seem especially threatened by the new democracy, where everyone from everywhere can not only consume but also produce and share. Anderson and the TED team have done a brilliant job of making the transition and balancing the power of an open system with TED.com and TEDx – all the while keeping the experience and power of a closed event still relevant.

Like any other brand that is trying to completely reinvent its business model, I'm sure the TED team constantly battles to keep the balance between the scarcity of the event itself and the abundance of what TED has become.

Other brands can learn from TED. It has done a marvellous job of shifting their focus from answering the question "why?", which becomes reductive and internal, to "why not?". This allows the team to think expansively and engage with the world around them. It's Anderson's ability to question how things work that has given him the power to keep TED relevant.

This year's event restored my faith in big ideas that can profoundly affect the world. It is a place that can nurture ideas that are only half grown and need to be developed. Ideas might be worth spreading but first they need to be incubated in a safe environment. But, even better than the ideas are the relationships you build at TED. Much like on an expedition, the friendships that I've formed high in the mountains under challenging conditions are ones that will last a lifetime.

John Winsor is CEO of Victors & Spoils and chief innovation officer at Havas

To get weekly news analysis, job alerts and event notifications direct to your inbox, sign up free for Media Network membership.

All Guardian Media Network content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled 'Advertisement feature'. Find out more here.