Content tagged with "creativity"

I really wanted to “get” this book…but I didn’t. The text didn’t live up to the title – I came away from it no more prepared to create a “thing that matters.” The author purports to explain “aesthetic creation,” which sounds great, but it never really got explained. A lot of the book was examples…

This book tries to answer the question: will AI ever be able to emulate human creativity? It never really answers the question, but it’s still very, very interesting. Each chapter covers a different type of creativity: writing, music, art, etc. It’s full of examples and anecdotes about the advances…

This is the story of Pixar, from one of the founders. It reads like a standard business history until the second part, where he gets into some of the specific things they did at Pixar, especially during and after the acquisition by Disney. But, here’s the thing: how much is your business like Pixar?…

To be clear, this is a course in thinking. And it’s five days. It should be clear from the title, of course, but I wasn’t quite ready for it. There are actually three five-day courses. This isn’t really mentioned anywhere, but it’s clear in the table of contents. The first one is called “Insight…

An interesting book – more of a scrapbook or workbook, really. It’s 300 pages…but really like 100. There’s 2-3 blank pages for your own “ideas,” then a page of motivation/inspiration that gives you an exercise for thinking differently. They’re genuinely quite good, and I think this would be a handy…

This is a magisterial history of the Imagineering department at the Walt Disney company. These are the people who create the theme parks – they come up with the ideas, they decorate the themes, they figure out the rides, etc. The book was development along with a six-episode documentary series on…

Here are some notes I took on the acquisition of this book:

Bought used at a little bookstore in Cherokee, Iowa

a lovely analysis of why stories matter so much to us. the book dissects the concept of “story” into these areas: Author Audience Journey Character World Detail Voice Platform Immersion The author provides lots of examples of each, from both the creative arts and the business world. I’m having…

Mixed bag here. The book is equal parts practical techniques, and motivational speaking. A big part of it is that the author wants you to know that you can be creative. If you already know this, then a lot of the book will be lost on you. It’s better when he talks about some practical strategies for…

This is a pretty simple book. It tells short, chapter-length biographies of 12 people . It tries to get at the source of what made each of them special. Some examples: Shirley Temple had a strong bond with her mother who managed her career. She avoided Hollywood child actor dysfunction and launched…

This is one of those motivational/inspirational type books. It doesn’t really present a lot of new information, and it’s formatted all funky with weird fonts and colors and stuff , and it’s really short – you can read it in 30 minutes. The goal is to impress upon you that it’s okay to steal stuff…

A tiny book – not even sure it was actually a book. An essay? It was written by an advertising executive in the …40s? 50s? It’s a wonderful method for coming up with ideas in five steps. There’s no magic to it, and it’s almost comical in its simplicity, but it vibes with most of the things I’ve ever…

This is sort of a “Devotional” about the art of creating anything. The chapters are very short , and they’re written in a lyrical style, center-aligned down the middle of the page. Some of them are almost poem-like. It’s main focus is to try to get you to understand the subconscious force that stops…