Last fall, Manhattan Beach resident Kate Bergin attended a panel discussion at Northrop Grumman that planted a seed.
“Everyone was saying that America can produce technically smart engineers and scientists, but they’re not creative,” said Bergin, a mother of three. “People talk about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) but really we need to be talking about STEAM, which includes the arts.”
As the lead organizer of this year’s TEDxManhattanBeach, an independent, locally-organized conference inspired by TEDTalks, she has set aside an entire day for the community to think and talk about it. Sponsored by the city of Manhattan Beach, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District and the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation, the all-day event is expected to gather more than 400 people, ages and backgrounds across the spectrum, with the sole purpose of inspiring.
The theme of the fourth annual TEDxManhattanBeach conference is “Imagine That,” an exploration of creativity as not only a means of innovation but an applicable principle in everyday life. Twelve speakers, whose fields range from tattoo art to space policy to archaeology, will each take the floor next Saturday at the Manhattan Beach Middle School to share how applications of nonlinear creativity have shaped the trajectory of their careers.
“When we think about finding speakers, we look at different levels,” Bergin explained. “We want to make sure that some of our talks are disruptive, some are inspirational, some are informational, and some might even be emotional … we have a very diverse group.”
When John Marston, a 20-year Manhattan Beach resident, obtained a TEDx license for Manhattan Beach in the summer of 2009, he sought to provide a platform for intelligent discussions about hot-topic issues that are often relegated to political jabs without a solution in sight.
“What I hoped to do was to share ideas and encourage carefully thought discussion,” Marston said. “…Just talking about how you foster creativity in a community or what’s a good education–it’s not a bullet point answer.”
The inaugural TEDxManhattanBeach conference in 2010, held at the Joslyn Center, focused on the topic of community. Due to a ballooning attendance, the event was moved to the middle school the following year with a theme of education, under the direction of then MBEF co-president Marla Zaslanski. Last year, TEDxManhattanBeach partnered with Blue Zones Project for the conference, themed “Journey to Purpose.”
“When I think of TEDx, it’s about community,” said Bergin, who joined the team in 2011. “If there’s no community and no community involvement, there ‘s no TEDxManhattanBeach. This is a very diverse community effort.”
Some 75 locals–from Mira Costa students to business owners to retirees–have enlisted themselves as volunteers for next Saturday’s conference, emcee’ed by former Beach Reporter editor Paul Silva. A team of middle school students, under the guidance of film teacher David Bainer, will roam the venue toting cameras to create a documentary of the event.
Plus, three of the speakers have ties to Manhattan Beach: David Benoit, a five-time Grammy-nominated jazz musician and composer, grew up in the city and was last year inducted into the Mira Costa Hall of Fame; Alison Wright, an artist and architect, sent her two daughters to Mira Costa; and Danny Zuker, executive producer of ABC’s hit comedy show “Modern Family”, is a longtime resident.
For Zuker, the process of creation begins with observation.
“It’s obviously the price of admission in a creative career like mine,” said Zuker, a 16-year Manhattan Beach resident. “Our whole job is observing and creating.”
Now in its fifth season, his mockumentary-style sitcom has deeply resonated with the American audience, garnering four Emmys since its initial airing in 2009. Zuker said he derives much of his material from his personal experiences raising three children in Manhattan Beach — “the good and the bad,” he said.
An episode in the first season, called “Starry Night”, shows a frantic Claire and Phil trying to ensure their kids Luke and Haley finish their school projects on time. The idea for this episode, he said, came from an observation of his own parenthood in the competitive Manhattan Beach school system.
“If I had just let my children do the project as they should, they were gonna be up against other kids’ parents,” Zuker said, chuckling. “We were being graded on parental gluing skills. I knew a lot of parents equally felt that way. There’s virtually no way a child could accomplish these things.”
At TEDxManhattanBeach, Zuker said he plans to discuss the power of jokes–getting a message across through comedy.
“You don’t have to write an entire novel or aria or play,” he said. “You can really start with a small observation that is funny and absurd and build off of that. The natural state of human being is to create, and my narrow focus is to be funny.”
At the end of the day, Bergin acknowledges that not every speaker will resonate with every audience member. However, she said she hopes attendees will walk away with a renewed openness to new ideas.
“It’s so easy to say no because it looks like a lot of work, it requires us to change our system or we might think we have better things to do,” she said. “But if people can just take one breath before they say ‘no’ and say ‘maybe’, then we’ve done our job. Where does the buck stop? Ultimately it’s you.”
Tickets are available at tedxmanhattanbeach.com. Regular admission is $95. Senior pricing is $35 with promo code “SENIORS”; Mira Costa High School students’ pricing is $35 with promo code “MCHSStudent”. For more information, visit the website.
