Bill Strickland on redemption through arts, music, and unlikely partnerships at TED

Potentially one of the Rust Belt's Casualties, Bill Strickland tells a tale of redemption through arts, music, and unlikely partnerships at TED

As a Pittsburgh youth besieged by racism in the crumbling remains of the steel economy, Bill Strickland should have been one of the Rust Belt's casualties. Instead, he discovered the potter's wheel, and the transforming power of fountains, irrepressible dreams, and the slide show.

Why you should listen to him:

Bill Strickland's journey from at-risk youth to 1996 MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient would be remarkable in itself, if it were not overshadowed by the staggering breadth of his vision. While moonlighting as an airline pilot, Strickland founded Manchester Bidwell, a world-class institute in his native Pittsburgh devoted to vocational instruction in partnership with big business -- and, almost incidentally, home to a Grammy-winning record label and a world-class jazz performance series. Yet its emphasis on the arts is no accident, as it embodies Strickland's conviction that an atmosphere of high culture and respect will energize even the most troubled students.

With job placement rates that rival most universities, Manchester Bidwell's success has attracted the attention of everyone from George Bush, Sr. (who appointed Strickland to a six-year term on the board of the NEA) to Fred Rogers (who invited Strickland to demonstrate pot throwing on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood). And though cumbersome slide trays have been replaced by PowerPoint, the inspirational power of his speeches and slide shows are the stuff of lecture circuit legend.

"With his potter's hands, Bill Strickland is reshaping the business of social change. His Pittsburgh-based program offers a national model for education, training and hope."

Fast Company

To hear Bill Strickland’s story, click here.

Daniel Pink on Pecha 20 slides 20 second Pecha Kucha

To view Daniel Pink's 20 slide 20 second Pecha Kucha on Pecha Kuchas, click here.

Let us now bullet-point our praise for Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, two Tokyo-based architects who have turned PowerPoint, that fixture of cubicle life, into both art form and competitive sport. Their innovation, dubbed pecha-kucha (Japanese for "chatter"), applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That's it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and 40 seconds of exquisitely matched words and images and then sit the hell down. The result, in the hands of masters of the form, combines business meeting and poetry slam to transform corporate clich into surprisingly compelling beat-the-clock performance art.

The duo — Dytham is British, Klein Italian — invented pecha-kucha four years ago to help revive a struggling performance space they owned. The first presentations were such a hit that they began hosting monthly pecha-kucha events, boozy affairs at which Tokyo architects and designers showcased their streamlined offerings to crowds of hundreds. Now there are pecha-nights in 80 cities, from Amsterdam and Atlanta to San Francisco and Shanghai. Why? Dytham believes that the rules have a liberating effect. "Suddenly," he says, "there's no preciousness in people's presentations." Just poetry.

By Dan Pink | Wired Magazine Issue 15.09