Denny Griffith

TEDx is hosting its third event on Nov. 11, 2011; and, true to the national TED mission, the event has a stellar line up of people with ideas worth sharing—including CCAD President Denny Griffith.

The TEDx 2011 event, A Moment in Time, is an all-day experience for attendees and will include 18 speakers and performers presenting their discoveries and observations to spark discussion and interest within the group and community. TEDx speakers come from all walks of life ranging from poets to entomologists, and, yes, college presidents.

Griffith’s speech, “Personas in Balance,” will reveal his insights on balancing his public and private personas.

In the short video preview of his speech, Griffith commented on how he will explain the tension and balance between his workplace and studio—his life as an artist and his life as an administrator.

“I hope participants will get a sense of their own inner/outer balance and the way that the things of our lives tend to carry us forward in unexpected and happy ways,” he said in the video.

CCAD students will not have to go far to hear their president and the rest of the line up speak. The college will be hosting a live stream of the event in the Canzani Center multipurpose room from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. the day of the event.

For more information on the TEDx Columbus event click here.

A participant of TEDxColumbus

By Melissa Ricksecker

Six hours, 14 speakers and performers, two breaks (one for sweet and one for salty treats), and more people doing live twitter feeds (#tedxcbus) than I could count added up to more that the sum of their parts at the TEDxColumbus conference that took place at CCAD’s Canzani Center auditorium on Friday, October 22. An overflow crowd of students watched the event via simulcast upstairs.

People and topics as diverse as Doug Kridler, president of The Columbus Foundation, reminding us how Columbus is a place where an “inner go” moves people to become community influencers, to Meagan Jones, a recent graduate of Columbus’ Metro High School who told how she moved seamlessly from Metro’s rigorous STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) program to study history at OSU.

Throw in performances by Matt Slaybaugh, artistic director of Available Light Theatre and pianist Andrew Varner, who connected the dots of the speakers with some nice boogie-woogie piano chops, and you get a potent recipe for cranial combustion.

Check out the TEDxColumbus website www.tedxcolumbus.com for a rundown of the event. It’ll get you thinking. And maybe it’ll get you doing too. Just don’t let your head explode.