Here are some of my all-time favorites:

What did I miss and what was your favorite?

I have seen this mural, from Adult Swim,  on the side of a deli for close to a month now in Boston, but finally got a chance to stop and grab a picture in daylight today. The mural is interesting in a number of ways.

The first asking the obvious that in today’s uber-PC world, is there a place for Santa Claus and do you believe in the season.  To that I say the hell with PC – it’s Christmas time.

The second connotation could be a jab at Boston and asking whether they still believe in the terrorist threat that Adult Swim (and Comedy Central) posed to the city while promoting the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. Don’t know what I am talking about, check out the PR stunt gone awry here.

What do you think? Do you still believe that this is the season of giving and in Santa? or is this just another let’s stick it to the man moment from the cartoon juggernaut?

Ahh the beauties of the Internet. One would never guess that some of the tools we use daily were made by the same guys that we make fun of living in basements across the country.

Everyone have a safe day trick or treating and celebrating this fun day.

Funny thing is that I am not sure we’ll ever truly get “it”

Image: 3dnews.ru

Well way back in September, a copy of the Harvard Business Review crossed my desk and had an intriguing cover that caught my eye. On the left were Pixar’s light icon and the phrase: Creativity at PIXAR. This company has fascinated me for years and I was determined to check out the article and see what kind of creativity – aside from the movies smartass – was lurking behind their animated gates.

Well as you can see by the date, days turned into months and the magazine was lost in a scrap/trash pile never to be heard from again, until at the end of January, my team had to move our location. Thus forcing the cleaning process, it was here that the magazine popped back up. While a month may have passed before I got the chance to give it a read, the wait was well worth it.

The article is penned by Ed Catmull a cofounder of Pixar and current president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. The first person narrative goes on to show what makes Pixar so special as a company. Again, more than the movies, the company relies on innovation and creative thinking to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Teamwork and a nurturing & creative environment allows for the company to have everyone make a difference in a movie. Pixar’s goal to always one-up themselves is only matched by their ability to grow/learn from a failure while not settling for anything less.

We all know that their movies have been box office successes, however the one thing that the movie-going public will never see is the behind the scenes postmortems where the crew lays out what went wrong and what they can do better rather than being content to have a product out the door. This kind of thinking has not only elevated them to a top-tier theatrical company, but also may have saved Disney’s movies from the straight-to-DVD imposed hell.

The key takeaway from the article is not only the nurturing of talent and cultivating a goal orientated team, but also the three core principles of the company.

Pixar’s Operating Principles

1. Everyone must have the freedom to communicate with anyone
2. It must be safe for everyone to offer ideas
3. We must stay close to innovations happening in the academic community

I would suggest checking out the article, found in its entirety here, for anyone looking for ways to motivate their direct reports or team, HR reps or anyone like me who is a five-year old caught in a adult’s body who loves movies.

Random Tangent

My only wonder is why we never saw this Pixar commercial during the World Series?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_7_xz2OtoI]

Some things grow better with time, wine, cheese, scotch, etc. However many have complained that the Simpsons have been sliding down the slippery lame slope. After seeing the new opening, I am jacked to see what the season has to hold.

My favorite part was Barney under Willy’s leaf pile.

What’s yours?

Image courtesy of www.gocomics.com

I saw this cartoon earlier today on the homepage at GoComics and couldn’t help but see the sad reality that we now live in. I am not talking about the extinction of the rabbit ears, but rather the state of the youth in the country.

Instead of playing outside and building a relationship with good ole’ dad, the child would rather stick inside watching the Jonas Brothers, Cheetah Girls or American Idol. By blatantly marketing these shows as can’t miss broadcasting the Idol results on evening news, these shows become larger than what they really are ~ Entertainment.

With the media further glamorizing (and here) these pop stars and reality show contestants, it is no wonder that today’s youth shuns playing outside, joining Little League, or going for a hike as it’s simply easier and more profitable to strike it rich with some stupid human trick.

I thought I would never say it, but maybe we are better off without the constant drum of the TV.