Passion Talks 2020 Recordings Available Online

Passion Talks is an intellectual faith movement where humble dialogue generates opportunities to understand creation’s original purpose. Passion Talks answers why we do what we do, why we care, and how this ties to our personal story. PT seeks to answer both why and how to live for a better world. Speakers give short talks about their work, faith, passions, and dreams. Each talk is between 10-15 minutes, and will be followed by 5 minutes for Q&A.

Passion Talks 2020 was August 14-15. You can watch the recording at the Passion Talks International's YouTube Channel here.

This year's themes are:

• Passion as Platform
• Theology of Technology
• Gospel Justice
• Vocation, Purpose and Calling
• Educating in an Online World
• Economic Justice

Theology of Work Project board member Dr. Al Erisman will be presenting "Designing Public Policy Like We Design Airplanes" during the "Passion as Platform" session.

Talk Description: It is not enough to stop the virus. Or to get the economy mving again. Both are important. So how do we define public policy for a flourishing society trapped between good, competing objectives? Airplane design is also caught between important competing objectives including but not limited to range, saftey, efficiency, carrying capacity, and affordability. The process cannot be simply to listen to the loudest or most proponent. Instead, the experts from various fields must work together for a larger objective, applying exptertise from each area to define a product that meets a larger objective: a safe, affordable, efficient airplan that can meet the carrying requirements of the airlines. We imagine a process where infectious disease modelers, economists, behavioral psychologists, and policy experts work together toward a flourishing community.

Dr. Al Erisman spent 32 years at The Boeing Company, the last decade as Director of Technology where he led a 300-person research staff exploring innovation paths for the company. Since retring from Boeing in 2001, he has taught in the Business School at Seattle Pacific University and spoken on business, technology, ethics, and theology on six continents. He is co-chair of the board for the Theology of Work Project and a founding member for KIROS (Christians in Business in the Seattle area). In the past five years, he has authored The ServiceMaster Story: Navigating Tension between People and Profit; The Accidental Executive: Lessons on Business, Faith and Calling from the life of Joseph; Direct Methods for Sparse Matrices (with two co-authros); and The Purpose of Business (co-edited). Currently he is writing A Mathematical Way of Seeing: Mathematics as a Liberal Art.

Passion Talks 2020 was August 14-15. You can watch the recording at the Passion Talks International's YouTube Channel here.