Monday, February 28, 2011

Toy Story 3’s Lee Unkrich Accepts Oscar for “Best Animated Feature”

Big dreams call for big celebrations, and Pixar is throwing a BIG party for a BIG award!   Congratulations to Pixar and to Lee!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

National Seminars Presents Customer Service – The Disney Way with Bill Capodagli

Bill Capodagli presents Customer Service - The Disney Way

National Seminars Live Web & Audio Web Conference
Item No. 1832272

$179.00

Location:
Date:

Web Conference

03/08/2011

Time:

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM CST

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Innovate the Pixar Way Book Cover Wins Design Award

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Dowagiac Union Schools Superintendent Invitation to Disney Way Initiative

It gives me great pleasure to invite you to Dream with Dowagiac Union Schools. As representatives of Dowagiac Union Schools, Larry Seurynck, Board President, and I would like to express our sincere desire for you to attend the keynote address presented by Bill Capodagli on Monday, February 28, at 6:00 PM at the Dowagiac Middle School Performing Arts Center. Bill Capodagli is the author of the best seller, The Disney Way and Innovate The Pixar Way, and an international business consultant for Fortune 500 companies.

The keynote address will begin the process of creating a collaborative plan with community members to prepare our students for the demands of the 21st Century and a global economy. The Dowagiac Union Schools Board of Trustees and I believe all people of Dowagiac should be part of the dream process to shape Dowagiac Schools for the next decade. From my experience exceptional student achievement can be obtained and sustained if a common dream is generated and implemented with community input and support.

To that end, please join us for this keynote address to be part of the beginning of the Disney Way initiative. An initiative ensuring high school graduates are ready to enter college or other post secondary training. A plan where students trust through education and training they can make a family sustaining wage. A Dowagiac Dream where students can rise to the rigor of the curriculum because they have significant relationships with adults making the curriculum relevant and meaningful resulting in higher test scores, increased academic achievement, and increased graduation rates.

Utilizing community input, a 21st Century Educational Plan will be crafted and presented to our community with a target date of August 31, 2011. As superintendent of Dowagiac Union Schools, I can honestly state our Dowagiac Union Schools will improve because stakeholders like you participated in our Dreaming, Believing, Daring, and Doing. I look forward to seeing you on February 28, 2011. There is no cost except your valuable time and a commitment to our Dowagiac community.

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Dr. Mark Daniel

             Superintendent

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Italian Nonprofit Management Magazine Review of Innovate the Pixar Way

The following review was sent to us today from Valerio Melandri, Director of Philanthropy Centro Studi, Universita`diEconomia di Forli

 

Terzo Settore– II sole 24 Ore MAGAZINE

(Published in Milan)

 

Starting from the
business case
one of
most important
studios in the world,
authors, business advisors,
deduced settings
the strategic basis of the statement
company in question.
According to its authors
success is mainly due
team spirit, respect
and mutual trust, the
ability to believe in dreams and
then to achieve them. In the appendix,
The text is enriched by curiosity,
anecdotes and references to other
major companies that have
traced this pattern.
(Adele Guardigli)

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Justify Blog Review of Innovate the Pixar Way

It’s been a while since we’ve talked book reviews, but we finished reading “Innovate the Pixar Way” by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson this weekend. To summarize in a few points as possible:

  • The book was pretty light on the history of Pixar
  • The artwork, pull-quote text and some chapters come across almost condescending, but mostly it sounds like they’re trying too hard.

The whole premise of the book when I picked it up was to get an inside look at Pixar Animation Studios, to really have in-depth interviews with their staff or past employees. It wasn’t so much that as it was a compilation of quotes and tidbits compiled from other video and text interviews conducted with key staff over the years. And while it wasn’t the job of this book to run you through the whole history of Pixar, the amount of text supplied to educate the reader on Pixar could be picked up from Wikipedia.

To be honest, I didn’t like this book. It read very vaguely with whispy high-flying ideas on how to innovate and be creative by having fun at work and letting employees be creative with their office space and not getting tied up in your failures. All good ideas, but not practical if your business has less than a few million in the bank.

One good takeaway was a look at Disney and Walt Disney himself, alongside Ed Catmull and Jon Lasseter of Pixar. The concept of scrapping work that was merely “good enough” to take advantage of “great work” is valid, important and arguably the most important lesson of the book. The authors give good examples, accounts and stories to further this concept well.

In all, a pretty light book on Pixar from a detail standpoint; there’s nothing new to be read here that can’t be surmised from articles, videos and interviews already on the Internet.

 

Bill and Lynn say, “He’s right about the book being ‘pretty light on the history of Pixar.’  (If you want to read a book about Pixar’s history, pick up droidMAKER or The Pixar Touch.)  He’s wrong about needing ‘a few million in the bank’ to practice the principles.  In the early days of Pixar, they were operating in the red and STILL found ways to jazz up their offices, keep team spirit soaring, and encourage fun in the workplace. Lastly, the purpose of this book was not to provide a Pixar cookie cutter approach to developing an innovative culture, but rather to spark one’s imagination for producing a dream, believe, dare, do culture that is right for each reader’s organization. As Bill says in his keynote presentations, ‘Innovate, don’t Imitate.  It’s hard work.  There’s no instant pudding.’”

Monday, February 14, 2011

National Seminars Presents Leadership–The Disney Way

Bill Capodagli presents Leadership - The Disney Way

Live Web & Audio Audio Conference
Item No. 1832244

$179.00

Audio Conference

 

02/14/2011

Time:

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM CST

Request On-Site

Description:

Success isn’t magic. It's systematic. It comes from passionate leadership and the relentless pursuit of a long-term foundation for excellence. What better business model to follow than that of the phenomenal Walt Disney — an industry titan with a gift for innovation.

Walt Disney was not only a creative genius but also one of the most respected business leaders of the last century. The leadership lessons and core values Disney instilled in his organization are still thriving today.

Disney has achieved leadership success beyond anyone’s imagination. Let Bill Capodagli show you how ...

Now you can learn the inside story behind what makes leaders successful in this inspiring Audio Conference with Bill Capodagli, a Disney expert and co-author of The Disney Way: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company.

When you attend this session, you’ll discover how to establish and manage a creative climate where people and teams are self-motivated. You’ll learn why a short-term mentality creates long-term failures. You'll learn how to foster a fun team atmosphere for your employees — one that energizes their talents and ideas.

Leadership — The Disney Way offers amazing insight into leadership success don’t miss this event!

What’s worked for Disney can work for you. It’s that simple. If you’re ready to take your leadership skills to the next level, you simply can't miss this event. Enroll now.

A Glimpse at Your Agenda …

  • Two key elements for managing a creative climate
  • The top 3 reasons why people work (besides money) and why they are important to your success as a leader
  • How to foster respect and trust among your team
  • The key to setting long-term goals — what you must do
  • 3 elements of creating a team-focused climate

Meet Your Speaker: The Disney Way Author, Bill Capodagli

A serious student of excellence, Bill Capodagli has a thriving success story of his own. The original edition of The Disney Way, which Capodagli co-wrote, received the coveted “Best Business Book of the Year” award by Fortune magazine and was published in eight languages. He is also the co-author of The Disney Way Fieldbook, which provides action plans for instilling Disney’s vision into any company, complete with diagnostic exercises, practice sessions, proven advice, and insightful questionnaires. Capodagli also co-wrote the popular book Leading at the Speed of Change: Using New Economy Rules to Transform Old Economy Companies.

The prolific best-selling author has nearly three decades of expertise in management consulting and corporate research. As managing partner of Capodagli Jackson Consulting, he brings dynamic managerial experience and graduate-level teaching experience to the firm.

Ever practical, Capodagli’s style is also passionate and hard-hitting. He is currently the most requested speaker in the United States on Walt Disney’s original success and leadership principles. This Audio Conference is a rare opportunity to hear directly from Capodagli.

“This book is about the real magic: Stimulating and harmonizing the collective energy of your people.” — Ken Blanchard, best-selling author of The One Minute Manager

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Carson City Hospital, Carson City, Michigan Adopts The Disney Way

Success in today's changing world comes from inspired leadership and a relentless pursuit of a long-term culture of excellence. There are great lessons to be gleaned from Walt Disney who believed that creating a memorable experience for "guests" was more about "systems" than "smiles." Carson Health Network and Carson City Hospital are adopting The Disney Way by "creating the magic with a dream, believe, dare, do" philosophy.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Business 901 Review of Innovate the Pixar Way

The past few weeks I have been heavily immersed into Kaizen, Kanban, Agile Project Development and as a result Scrum. I have found it quite interesting but somewhat overwhelming along with a few other things I am doing. I have taxed my learning absorption level to say the least.

What did I do? I took a little time off and sat back with a good book and a little Jackson Browne(Just like Bach to me). The book; Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Corporate Playground. It was written by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, the pair that wrote The Disney Way, Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company.

It wasn’t long into the book that they discussed stories and development that my mind drifted to agile and scrum comparisons. What they really brought home was the importance of collaboration and building a team. They even discussed the great lengths they go to hire people who are interested in working in a “network” type environment in solving problems, building and supporting each other. Here is a short excerpt from the book; the definitions of a set of proficiencies by Bill Nelson of Pixar:

Depth – demonstrating mastery in a subject or a principal skill; having the discipline to chase dreams all the way to the finish line.

Breadth – possessing a vast array of experiences and interests having empathy for others; having the ability to explore insights from many different perspectives; and being able to effectively generate new ideas by collaborating with the entire team.

Communications – focusing on the receiver; receiving feedback to ascertain whether the message sent was truly understood. Realizing only the receiver can say, “I understand!”

Collaboration – bringing together the skills(depth, breadth, and communications), ideas, and personality styles of an entire team to achieve a shared vision. Fostering an attitude to say, “Yes, and…”, rather than “No, this is better.”

Collaboration is critical to the process of generating ideas and problems in any organization. When you review the principles of Kaizen and Agile, your ability to succeed really comes down to how good of a team you put together. Very few times in an initial read of a book, I started reading this for pleasure, have I never stopped so soon in a book and reread an entire chapter.

The rest of the book proved to be just as valuable and I think the authors did a very nice job of displaying the brilliance and the imagination that is taking place at Pixar. I encourage you to read the book before you put together your next team.

Business 901 provides practical, information-rich, immediately applicable direction that profoundly impacts the success of small and mid-sized businesses. We have designed our services and product offerings so that they are implementable systems that work in the real, not enough time, not enough people world we operate in. Tools that simplify the marketing process, not complicate it.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Disney Way and Disney Way Fieldbook Reviews

The "Disney Way" describes a philosophy for running an organization
that engages team members and always strives to deliver top-notch
results. This text delves into Disney's “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do”
philosophy, exploring its transformative power by citing numerous
examples from both Disney and other corporations/organizations that
have  successfully implemented the “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do”
philosophy.

While reading this book, I began to see how this
philosophy could relate to my organization on many levels. Enter the
"Disney Way Fieldbook", a collection of exercises designed to foster
the Disney's “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do” philosophy. While most
management books leave one seeing the possibilities without a defined road map to the desired goal, These two books come as close as possible to a turnkey approach to transforming an organization. The "Disney Way" will get you dreaming of the possibilities within your organization and believing that it can work. If you have the drive and determination to dare to transform your organization, then the "Fieldbook" provides the tools to do the transformation.


Scott L Goodrick
USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station
Center for Forest Disturbance Science

Innovate the Pixar Way Book Review from Italy

"…your book started a real waterfall of ideas to adapt the Pixar approach to our company and set our business goals. Before reading your book, we tried to innovate our products/services; after this ‘catalyst event’, I’m sure that the real innovation can come from people!”

Alessandro Rogora, IT Consultant, Busto Arsizio (VA), Italy