The book Creativity. Inc. , by Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace, is the chronological journey of Ed Catmul and Pixar from the early days until today. The best part of reading Creativity, Inc is that you know that Ed Catmull isn’t just talking the talk, he’s walking the walk. This book is separated into 4 categories: Getting Started, Protecting The New, Building and Sustaining and Testing What We Know. When Ed Catmul was younger he had two unconventional heroes for a young boy; Walt Disney and Albert Einstein. Ed felt they represented the two poles of creativity, Disney was about inventing the new and Einstein was a master of explaining (pg 7). Ed always wanted to be animator, but he really didn’t know how to go about becoming an animator, …show more content…
Ed also talks about the Suitcase vs the handle – ideas are just handles – suitcase is where the real depth and gravity of the meaning of the sentence. Great people or great ideas? Ed feels great people with good ideas is much more powerful than mediocre team with the great ideas because great ideas will come from great people. When faced with a challenge you need to get smarter, the way to get smart is to hire/get or around smarter people. Always take a chance on the better even it seems threating, even if chances of failure might be high. He’s made a policy to of trying to hire people who are smarter than he is. The obvious payoffs of exceptional people are that they innovate, excel and generally make your company and you look good. P23. In the section Protecting The New, Ed discusses honesty and candor, fear and failure, his version of the hungry beast and ugly baby, change and randomness and the hidden. One of the key exercises Ed implements is the Braintrust, which are regular meetings where there is no authority in the room and they are all there to solve problems. He emphasizes on being candid and honest with each other, candid feedback. It works on the idea that any person who takes a complicated project would inevitably get lost because of narrow focus. He feels candid builds trust and empathy. One of my favorite parts of this book is Fear and Failure – there is No success without failure. He states anyone who feels that any creative endeavor is great
Theories of creativity are vast. Several psychological theories on the process of creativity are chronicled. Some theorists explain creativity as intrinsic creative motivations, which individuals create a project for the sake of creating (Wibell, 2011). Other theorists convey the brain controls levels of creativity, and mental illness has an impact on creative process. Further, many believe the humanistic theory of creativity spawns the creative process. Through self-actualization creativity comes in peak experiences. The quality of the work depends on what is measured. The quality of the creative work depicts the message of the writing. The message can be
In the novel "What the Best College Students Do" by Ken Bain he states that learning is not only discovering new abilities, it is putting a creative twist into it (p. 4). He places Paul Baker (a professor that taught Integration of Abilities) in this story because he emphasizes what Bain is trying to convey (pp. 2-3). Baker states that "This is a class in discovering your own creative ability and all you will have to help you with your discovery is yourself and getting acquainted with the way you work" (p. 4). Everybody has different viewpoints because everyone has different backgrounds, therefore, creativity is not only a want it is a necessity. To deeply learn something, students needs to have a
The theme of the book is “to never give up on your dream.” Even if you think your goal seems
Let me introduce you to an overview of a book called “Originals,” written by Adam Grant, professor of Psychology at Wharton University of Pennsylvania. His book focus on how to generate new thoughts and battle mindless conformity. Grant achieved this idea by introducing groupthink, a mental wonder that happens inside a gathering of individuals in which the craving for agreement or similarity in the group brings a silly or broken basic leadership result. Also, by utilizing astounding reviews and stories spreading over business, legislative issues, games, and excitement. Indeed, Grant investigates how to perceive a smart thought, talk up without getting quieted, assemble a coalition of partners, pick the ideal time to act, and oversee dread and uncertainty; how guardians and instructors can sustain innovation in children; and how pioneers can fabricate societies that appreciated contradiction.
They look into their interests and discover what they would enjoy reading, something that would grasp their attention every given second. My book, Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull caught my attention because it is a book about something I love... Movies. Even though non-fiction books are not something that occasionally interest me, I found Creativity, Inc. very interesting, one, for the title. Creativity is very important and something that grips my attention. If the title is about creativity then the book must be inventive and imaginative. I also appreciated this nonfiction book because just as I read the introduction to see if I would like the book, I came upon just few of the many conflicts that Ed went
I was intrigued when our instructor indicated she was going to ask us to do an activity. Since this was the inaugural class, my interest was immediately piqued. When we were asked to describe ourselves as teachers by using fruit, the request invoked a momentary amount of trepidation. This is the first time I have been asked to describe myself in this manner and the entreaty took me by surprise. I didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about my response but rather was intently listening to how others class members described themselves. I was quite anxious to hear their analogies. A couple of people described themselves as hard fruit, such as pineapple and mango. They said, what they teach may seem hard, but when you get to the inside,
In regards to creative expression, It means to represent oneself through culture or art. This can also be defined as an artifact only limited by your imagination and the requirements. During this artifact I was given the task of creating my own menu for a restaurant. This artifact was considered a creative expression because we got to design our own restaurant, including its name, foods and prices. Me and my partner got the chance to actually create our own restaurant that focused around Hispanic and Chinese foods.I am guessing that our spanish teacher wanted us to express our creativity in a unique way and see that we are capable of thinking outside the box. Through this projects I learned more about foods in different cultures and seeing
For this challenge I had to draw with my non dominant hand, which in this case would be my left hand. There was a time limit of 15 minutes for me to draw anything that I wanted. After some thought I decided to draw a realistic eye, or at least as close to that as I could get. When I first started I will admit that I was a bit frustrated with the fact that I could not keep my hand steady. However, as I progressed through the challenge I started to get the hang of it. In the end, the drawing turned out way better than I had expected. Going into this challenge I knew that it would be hard, yet at the end I realized that I just had to keep my left hand relaxed and that I could always turn the page around, so that I
Former CTO and current President of Pixar, Edwin Catmull, describes in his article How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity of 2008 the numerous aspects used at the pioneer of computer animation for structuring and operating a creative organization. He bases his outline on the key assumption that finding and supporting smart people is much more important to Pixar than good individual ideas (Catmull, 2008). The principles and practices for managing creative talent and risk are proven successful and were transferred to the revived Disney Animation Studio after the merger in 2006.
Furthermore, Pixar provides facilities that employees are able to use as a creative outlet such as the bar and stage at the animator’s areas to play their music, also provides a “campus-like environment” containing a gym, soccer field and also game rooms. These facilities generate fun and freedom and this is reflected in their movies therefore it is also seen as a tool for increasing creativity.
Pixar’s management has been one of the major strengths in its successful history. According to Ed Catmull, the company adheres to three main operating principles. The first one is that everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone. It means that decision making hierarchy and communication structure are two different things in this organization. Members from any department should be able to approach anyone from another department to solve problems without waiting for permission. It is the most efficient way to deal with numerous problems. The second one is that it must be safe for everyone to offer ideas. The company highly values “feedback”, and they help make the ongoing projects perfect and give better solutions to the problems. The third one is that they must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community. Pixar strongly encourages its technical artists to publish their research and participate in conferences. This may give away ideas, but it can attract exceptional talents and reinforces the belief that people are more important than ideas (Catmull, 2008).
In the book, The Creative Explosion, John Pfeiffer addressed the issue of human origin, their cultures, their religion, and social power. It takes into account the prehistoric art and how cave painting has exploded over the years. This book can also be used to bring a deeper understanding of the then cold war, the war on drugs, and the war on the common crimes in the modern world. The book also puts into light the irony of how smart our ancestors were, despite their primitivism. The way the ancestors used to spend their time also carried a major topic of discussion in the book. Hunting and gathering are also considered important in the transformation of human beings’ culture.
Change, creativity and innovation are essential elements for survival and growth of an organization. Creativity is vital for the birth of fresh and beneficial ideas. Creative thinking allows groups and individuals to solve problems or stimulate to think differently in order to bring forth fruitful ideas. The above mentioned creative thinking enabled our team of six different personalities to come together and implement a plan to solve a complex problem in a hospital. Our assigned task was to recommend a plan in order to alleviate hospital readmission among elderly population within thirty days of discharge. In this paper the author is narrating the team dynamics, functionalities and personal competencies in the process of recommending a change in the system. As a member in the innovation leadership team the author is also reflecting on the assessment, capacity for innovation in the organization which is the hospital where the team is assigned.
In “The Creative Spirit”, the author says that “over-control” is one of the main creativity killers. According to Dr. Amabile’s, “telling kids exactly how to do things leaves children feeling that any originality is a mistake and any exploration a waste of time” is a good point; however, I disagree with it. In my opinion, most kids are likely hyperactive so that they should have their parents' surveillance. For example, learning things from their parents first; young toddlers , their parents sometimes educate how to greet people, brief of mindset, unaware of hazardous items, even he or she does not know what manners are good. Some research shows that parents should teach children when stage age of children is like a piece of blank paper. In
The companies that have done the best over the long haul are those who are the most creative and innovative. These organizations don't copy what others do; instead, they may use innovative ideas from others as a spring board to come up with a unique application, product, or service for themselves. They tend to distance themselves from the competition rather than compete with them. If they see another company copying what they do, they create something new and better. In other words, they are able to leverage their creativity and their innovative capabilities to attain long-term success.