Videos of these presentations are currently available.   For more information please contact Michigan Government Television at (517) 373-4250 or e-mail mgtv@mgtv.org
http://mgtv.org

The Creative Economy: What Is It and How Do Michigan Communities Get There?

Richard Florida, author of the award-winning, national best-selling book, The Rise of the Creative Class and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, will share his vision of the creative economy and describe how Michigan communities can forge links between art, culture, commerce, and community to develop thriving creative economies of their own.  Currently in its tenth printing, the book has stimulated an international debate about the causes and consequences of economic growth.  The book was awarded the Political Book Award for 2002 by the Washington Monthly and named by the Globe and Mail as one of the ten most influential books of that year.

• Richard Florida, PhD, Heinz Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon and Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution

Florida is the Heinz Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon, where he also heads the Software Industry Center. He has been a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

He is co-author of five other books and more than 100 articles in academic journals.

Florida is founder and principal of two companies, the Creativity Group, an innovative communications and strategies team, and Catalytix, a strategy-consulting firm that works with regions, governments and corporations around the world.

He earned his Bachelor's degree from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

http://www.creativeclass.org/

Luncheon Keynote Speaker

Be inspired by our luncheon speaker, founder of the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, a nationally recognized training facility that fosters community development through the arts.

• William E. Strickland, President & CEO, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild

Bill Strickland is the President and CEO of Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and Bidwell Training Center, Inc., both founded in 1968.  As a teenager growing up in Pittsburgh’s North Side, Bill Strickland was not much different from other kids in the neighborhood. That was true until, one morning in school, he passed the open door to the art room where teacher Frank Ross was working on the potter’s wheel. Awestruck by the sight of a skilled artisan raising and forming the walls of an urn, Strickland approached the teacher. Over the coming months, the relationship that Ross and Strickland initiated with a revolving mound of clay began to give form to the future vision of Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild.

Strickland was born in Pittsburgh in 1947 and graduated from David B. Oliver High School in 1965. In 1969, he earned a bachelor’s degree in American history and foreign relations from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated cum laude. Currently he is a Masters of Arts Degree Candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. Throughout his distinguished career, Strickland has been honored with numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to the arts and the community. In 1999, he was presented with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Arts Leadership and Service Award. In 1998, he received the Kilby Award and “Coming Up Taller” Award presented in a White House ceremony by first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. In 1996, he received the MacArthur “Genius” Award for leadership and ingenuity in the arts.

He has served as Chairman of the Expansion Arts Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C. and served a six-year Presidential appointment as a Council Member to the NEA. He was also a Council Member on the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pennsylvania State Board of Education, a trustee at the Carnegie, and a Consultant with the British/American Arts Association in London, England.

Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild is a multi-discipline, minority directed, center for arts and learning that employs the visual and performing arts to foster a sense of accomplishment and hope in the urban community.

http://www.manchestercraftsmen.org/