Business lessons from the guy that started Pixar, Ed Catmull.

Before I begin, I have to preface this book report of Creativity, Inc. by stating the obvious: I love Pixar.

Who doesn’t, right? I love Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Cars, and don’t even get me started on Up. And the more recent ones… like Frozen… ?… Zootopia? No? Oh crap, I’ll be honest I can no longer tell whether a movie is made by Pixar about ten minutes after seeing the lamp. But, that’s not all bad. I mean the reason I can’t tell the difference is because Pixar raised the stakes all around. And this book lays out how.

I listened to the Audiobook version. I always wonder who picks the readers for this. When your business is making movies, why would you choose a guy that sounds like Winston Churchill chewing toffees to read your book? It was a tough listen. Incidentally, the word “human” is said Hew-man, not Yu-man. Just sayin’

There are a lot of takeaways from the book – how to set up a meeting room, what to do when George Lucas funds your passion and how building small wooden cottages for employees is a better creative space than cubicles – but, honestly most of them were just out of my reach. Abask Marketing is small. We can’t afford to shut down for an entire day to spend time mulling over ways to shave a couple million off the budgets of each individual project.

I think the book is interesting and the movie about Pixar is even better, but it felt like getting advice from Donald Trump at times. I enjoyed the idealistic point of view, but as he was preaching that I should be hoping to fail every now and then, I kept thinking, “So that’s what business looks like when your passion has always been funded by millionaires.” Personally, I’m more worried about paying employees than building them a cabana as a workspace. If unlike me, your worry is how to keep employees happy, this is the book for you. But skip the audiobook.

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”
― Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Did you know we have a book club of sorts? Check it out here: https://abaskmarketing.com/content-marketing-blog/the-ten-book-challenge-to-be-a-better-creative/

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