Bill Strickland knows how to change the world

Bill Strickland is a MacArthur Genius, innovator of hybrid non-profit/for-profit institutions, director of leading culinary, horticultural, music, chemical and pharmaceutical training and services centers. He started his programs in inner-city Pittsburgh, and is spreading the love to other American cities and the world.

Design of Leadership presentation at AIGA 2005: (taken from AIGA presentations page.)

• Podcast: Main-stage presentation (MP3, 42.6 MB)
• Main-stage presentation (PDF, 72.3 MB)

Quotes from the presentation [emphasis mine]:

• "The way you solve the problem of violence is not to talk about violence reduction but to create communities that encourage different behavior."
  
• "The way you think about people determines their behavior."
• "The only thing wrong with poor people is that they have no money. That is a problem that is easily remedied."
• "If you want to ... change lives, you have to look like the solution, not the problem."
• "I'm in the attitude business."
• "The sun is available for everybody ... not just for rich people."
• "Go toward the light. Hold on to the light and take away the dark."
• "Create spaces where people can understand their similarities and experience that on a day in and day out basis."
• "Excellence, quality, doing the right thing is the cure for 'cancer'."
• "My work requires constant reassurance ... that I'm doing the right thing."
• "Depression accompanies this work ... the cure for the occupational depression ... make friends wherever you go. The next time you go back, you won't be lonely."
• "Art is a portal out of poverty."

More about Bill Strickland:

• "Genius at Work" (Fast Company, 1998)
• "Attitude is the Answer" (Masters Forum, 1999)
  
• Speaker profile at Lavin Agency
  
• BillStrickland.org