Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

TEDxGrandRapids - Michael Strong - Innovate: Experience

TEDx Talks TEDx Talks Uploaded on Jun 3, 2011

As a greater percentage of the population rises up Maslow's pyramid, an increasing percentage of market share in the developed world will come from companies that succeed at making human life more meaningful, richer, and more delightful for all stakeholders. How can we consciously create such companies and such an economy?

Speaker Bio: Michael Strong is the co-founder (with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market) and Chief Visionary Officer of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., a non-profit organization that promotes Conscious Capitalist solutions to world problems. He frequently speaks and writes on issues related to entrepreneurial and capitalist solutions to world problems. Michael's work is featured in academic journals (The Journal of Business Ethics, Economic Affairs, Critical Review, etc.), speciality publications (Microfinance Insights, Policy Innovations, Carnegie Ethics, etc.) and in media reaching popular audiences (The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, RealClearPolitics, etc.) Michael is also the lead author, along with Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Hernando de Soto, Co-chair of the U.N. Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, and others of Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World's Problems. Prior to founding FLOW (the predecessor organization to Conscious Capitalism, Inc.), Michael spent fifteen years in K-12 education, where he founded a charter high school ranked the 36th best public high school in the U.S. He is the author of The Habit of Thought: From Socratic Seminars to Socratic Practice and has consulted for hundreds of schools and universities around the world. He was educated at Harvard, St. John's College, and the University of Chicago.

http://www.consciouscapitalism.org

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxGrandRapids, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxGrandRapids event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.