Friday Fusion – Stuart School Seminar Series

Friday Fusion – Stuart School Seminar Series

“Where classroom education fuses with real world experience”

 

February 17, 2012 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. Room 115 Wishnick Hall

 

 

“CEOs Say Creativity #1 Trait For New Managers – What Are YOU Going To Do About It?” In 2010 IBM talked to 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries. IBM wanted to know what business problems were on the horizon and how these leaders were preparing to deal with them. The number one quality these global CEOs said they were looking for in their managers over the next five years to make their firms successful was CREATIVITY. Are YOU ready to pass the creativity test for new hires for these businesses? Tom Tresser ( www.tresser.com) is a long-time producer consultant and educator specializing in the creative industries and public policy related to creativity and innovation. He teaches “Got Creativity? Strategies & Tools for the Next Economy” and “How To Be A Social Change Agent” for the Stuart School of Business. Join Tom for a hands-on session that will reveal the new Creativity Imperative for global business. You will get some practical tips for boosting your own creative aptitudes and then the entire group of attendees will be challenged to create an event that will further develop creative skills and abilities. Tom will act as a coach and help students actually produce the event they decide upon.

 

 

The Speaker Tom Tresser (http://www.tresser.com) is a consultant, producer, educator and trainer who works with individuals, companies and communities to leverage and amplify their creative assets in order to solve problems, create economic value and trigger civic engagement. In 2007 he designed and produced training programs for the provincial government of Saskatchewan on how to use the arts and creativity for local economic development. He was director of cultural development at Peoples Housing, in north Rogers Park, Chicago, where he created a community arts program that blended the arts, education and micro-enterprise. Tom has acted in some 40 shows and produced over 100 plays, special events, festivals and community programs. He was an arts activist, having organized support for pro-arts candidates and developed a cultural policy think tank at Roosevelt University in the early 1990′s, where he taught “Arts & Public Policy.” In 2003 he was appointed Visiting Fellow in Arts and Culture at the DePaul University College of Commerce’s Ryan Center for Creativity and Innovation. Tom was elected to the Abraham Lincoln Elementary School’s Local School Council and served from 2004 to 2006. He was a co-founder of Protect Our Parks, a neighborhood effort to stop the privatization of public space in Chicago. He was a lead organizer for No Games Chicago, an all-volunteer grassroots effort that opposed Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. He has taught workshops on”The Politics of Creativity – A Call To Service”for arts service organizations in six states. He has taught a number of classes on art, creativity and civic engagement for Loyola University, School of the Art Institute, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and DePaul University. Tom also consults with arts organizations on strategic planning, audience development and peer-to-peer marketing. Tom has published a web-based project,  America Needs You! – about the need for artists to get involved in politics. Tom was the  Green Party candidate for the position of President of the Board of Commissioners of Cook County in November 2010 election. Tom recently taught “Got Creativity? Strategies & Tools for the Next Economy” (IIT Stuart School of Business), ” Introduction to the Creative Economy” (online for Project Polymath), and ” Acting Up – Using Theater & Technology for Social Change ” (online for DePaul University’s School for New Learning). Tom is currently working on establishing a new civic project, Protect Our Public Assets, to fight privatization and to defend and extend the commons. Download resume + Download my Creativity + Civics Manifesto (PDF).

 

 

RSVP When you RSVP and confirm your attendance you are automatically entered in our Applied Statistics Lottery in which the prize is a $50 American Express gift card. Email Stacy Harris sharris9@iit.edu to confirm your attendance.