Part standup act. Part PhD lecture.
It’s hard to call Eric Corey Freed just a “speaker.” His talks take audiences through history, culture, and comedy to land bold ideas they can actually use.
Not a talk.
An experience.
Eric takes the audience on a journey through history, culture, and entertainment to present bold new ideas they can apply to their business, with the rare ability to entertain, hold attention, and change how people see the world.
His quick wit and dry humor have made him an audience favorite for more than 10,000 people a year. After 35 years and two TEDx talks, he knows how to read a room, whether it’s a boardroom of twelve or a main stage of two thousand.
Architecture, meet Biology.
Signature Keynotes
1
Frictionless
Everyone thinks innovation is about ideas. Ideas are the easy part. Successful innovation is about overcoming the fear that shuts it down, because our brains treat every new idea as a threat and throw up roadblocks, bottlenecks, and resistance. Eric calls those “Frictions.”
Drawing on his new book, this keynote gives your team a shared language for naming the frictions in your organization, and a practical framework practical framework for clearing them.
Key Takeaways
- Reduce future liability and risk to lower operating costs
- Examine your product lifecycle to find new margin
- Explain your mission to customers in a way that engages them
- Set a “Mission Zero” and use it to transform how you operate
2
The Seven Secrets of How Nature Designs
Twenty years ago, no one would have believed a company without a website wouldn’t survive. Today, the same is true of companies that ignore their environmental footprint. In this talk, Eric shows how to take a leadership position by turning that challenge into opportunity.
Rather than a depressing talk on the environment, it’s a hilarious one that transforms how your team how your team looks at your own business model.
Key Takeaways
- Reduce future liability and risk to lower operating costs
- Examine your product lifecycle to find new margin
- Explain your mission to customers in a way that engages them
- Set a “Mission Zero” and use it to transform how you operate
3
It's Zero or Nothing
The next generation of buildings can’t keep trying to be “less bad” or make us feel guilty about our lifestyles. What’s needed are living, regenerative buildings that repair the damage already done.
By examining the emotional, psychological, and financial reasons we design the way we do, your audience will leave with better arguments, and specific, bold ideas, bold ideas for both new and existing buildings.
Key Takeaways
- How biomimicry can transform the built environment
- New methods to sell these ideas to the whole team
- Bio-inspired solutions to the industry’s hardest problems
- Design solutions modeled on what already works in nature
4
Attack of the Dodo-Sapiens
Whether by tradition or habit, the human race does some silly things that hurt us all long-term. Our cities and buildings were designed around cheap, abundant oil, and now we’ve painted ourselves painted ourselves into a corner.
This talk explores what history, biomimicry, crowdfunding, and collaborative consumption can teach us about designing regenerative places within decades, not centuries.
Key Takeaways
- New financial models for sustainable development
- Hidden opportunities to transform existing cities and suburbs
- Why voluntary programs don’t go far enough
- Case studies of tools to design and fund new projects
Don't See Quite the Right Fit?
What working with Eric actually looks like.
A call first, always
- Promotes your event across his own channels
- Can record a greeting to help publicize the talk
- Can provide a short article for your newsletter
Yours to use
- Books available wholesale as attendee takeaways
- Happy to hold a book signing
- Meet-and-greet after the talk
The message keeps going
- A summary article to email or publish
- 52 short posts, one a week, carrying the key messages
What planners say afterward.
ORGANIZATIONS ERIC HAS WORKED WITH
Everyone thinks innovation is about ideas.
Ideas are the easy part. Successful innovation is about overcoming the fear that shuts it down. Our brains treat new ideas as a threat and throw up roadblocks, bottlenecks, and resistance.
96% of leaders call innovation a top priority, yet most still fail at it.
