Archive for the ‘Focus’ Category
Saturday, July 4th, 2009
A memory is only as good as our ability to turn it into action. We remember what we want to keep alive.
It has never been more important than it is on July 4, 2009, that we remember the founding of the United States of America as a Revolution, an overthrow of a distant ruling elite that had lost touch with the people.
Because today we need another Revolution.
We need a revolution against the kinds of businesses the U.S. has invested in way too heavily for the past 125 years, the businesses that sustained the oil-and-war economy built by people like George W. Bush’s granddad, businesses that President Eisenhower in the 1950s labeled the military-industrial complex. Today the news media is complicit in the complex. After all, what is more likely to keep you glued to the feeding tube than something scary happening right outside your front door? (more…)
Tags: 2009, Business, Change, Environment, George W. Bush, Green, Growth, Harry Reid, Indpendence Day, Innovation, John Boehner, July 4, legislation, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Revolution, Sustainability, Themes
Posted in Branding, Coaching, Communication, Creativity, Education, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Focus, Games, Innovation, Narrative, Speed, Themes, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Multi-tasking is a myth, in the sense that a person can only do one thing at a time, otherwise there is no true focus. We can process on many parallel levels, but our actions happen in sequence. Skilled players can perform tasks so quickly in sequence that it looks like they’re doing two things at once. This is an illusion, like a flip card with a bird on one side and a cage on the other. Twirl the card fast enough and the bird appears to be in the cage. Skilled players can make you think the bird is in the cage, when in reality it is the fast juxtaposition of bird and cage that creates this illusion. (more…)
Tags: Caged Bird Effect, Ed Catmull, Focus, Innovation, John Lasseter, Multi-Tasking, Pixar, Speed, Tofurkey, Tom's Shoes, Trader Joe's
Posted in Branding, Entrepreneurship, Focus, Innovation, Narrative, Speed | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
Our November GameChanger of the Month selection was a slam dunk. Barack Obama is going to be America’s first baller president, and he’s going to be its first Improviser-in-Chief.
His and his team’s ability to improvise their way to an election victory against rivals who were, initially, much better funded, more networked and more familiar brand names proved beyond any doubt how skillful improvisation can change the game. Obama is the epitome of what it means to be a gamechanger. (more…)
Tags: Barack Obama, Chicago, Economy, Follow the Follower, GameChanger of the Month, Hyde Park, Improvisation, Inauguration, Innovation, Lincoln, Listening, McCain, November 2008, Palin
Posted in Agreement Principle, Branding, Casting, Character, Communication, Creativity, Education, Entrepreneurship, Focus, Fundamentals, Group Mind, Innovation, Listening, Narrative, Networked World, Objectives, Themes, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
To introduce her students to the concept of improvisation, Viola Spolin, the godmother of modern improv, used to summon half a dozen students onto the rehearsal stage, and then say nothing to them. Literally nothing. No direction. No reason for them to be there.
Nothing.
Nothing…
Still nothing… (more…)
Tags: Biology, Entrepreneurship, GameChangers, Games, Global Economy, Hierarchy, Improvisation, Industrial Age, Networked Organizations, Networked World
Posted in Coaching, Entrepreneurship, Focus, Fundamentals, Games, Group Mind | 1 Comment »
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Josh Greer is the co-founder and president of Real D, the leading 3D visual delivery system in the world. Greer is the epitome of an improvisational player in business, and Real D is proof that no successful improvisation happens solo. Greer had partners. For example…Real D owes its existence to Puff, the Magic Dragon. You know. Lived by the sea? Land of Hona-lee? That Puff. (more…)
Tags: 3D Motion Pictures, Dick Cook, GameChangers, Intelligence, Josh Greer, Lenny Lipton, Michael Lewis, Puff the Magic Dragon, Real D
Posted in Casting, Entrepreneurship, Focus, Games, Innovation, Listening | No Comments »
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
The extraordinary improviser, Paul Vaillancourt, gave me a list of sayings that have been compiled and passed around the improv theater community over the years. The legendary teachers, Mick Napier and Del Close, get some of the credit, though the exact origins of these are as hazy as the roots of any folk wisdom. Here is the second in a series of sayings from what I call Vallaincourt’s List, with my extrapolations in italics: (more…)
Tags: Action, Blank Canvas, Detail, Email, Environment, Folk Wisdom, GameChanger, GameChangers, Gifts, Improvisation for Business, Management, Preconceived ideas, Preconceptions, Producitivity, Sayings, Talk vs. Action, Vaillancourt
Posted in Agreement Principle, Coaching, Communication, Environment, Focus, Fundamentals, Gifts, Objectives, Themes | No Comments »
Monday, May 19th, 2008
If Viola Spolin is the godmother of modern improvisation, that makes her son, Paul Sills, its Michael Corleone — the heir to the family business. Sills, who assisted his mom with her children’s theater workshops in the 1940s, enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1948. There, he directed many student productions and in the process met David Shepherd, with whom, in 1955, he organized the Compass Players, the first improvisational theater company in the U.S. In 1959, Sills and Bernie Sahlins formed Chicago’s Second City Theater, where he was director until 1965. All of Sills’ work in comedy theater, and in fact his life itself, was influenced by the theory and practice of improvisation. (more…)
Tags: , Bernie Sahlins, Change, Coaching, Compass Players, David Shepard, Focus, Improvisation, Paul Sills, Practice, Sayings, Second City, Theory, Transformation, Viola Spolin, Wisdom
Posted in Coaching, Focus, Fundamentals, Games, Narrative | No Comments »
Friday, February 22nd, 2008
When I was a kid, the classic stop-motion puppetry film by George Pal about John Henry and the Inky Poo, wherein the Steel-Drivin’ Man’s heart bursts in his heroic effort to defeat the machine, induced a kind of sadness in me I had not known before. When John Henry’s friend turns to camera after John Henry’s mother screams, and exclaims “John Henry’s dead!” it broke my heart.
On a meta scale, the Industrial Age was, one humongous scene about human beings like John Henry and machines like the Inky Poo. About people keeping up with the inexorable march of machines, facing the threats of being replaced by them, devoured by them or cast adrift into space by them. (more…)
Tags: , Doug Bawel, George Pal, Industrial Age, Inky Poo, Jasper Engines, John Henry, Networked World, Pax Machina, Solar
Posted in Focus, Innovation, Networked World, Themes | No Comments »
Friday, January 4th, 2008
Tags: Barack Obama, Branding, Character, Communication, Listening, Networked World
Posted in Branding, Character, Communication, Focus, Fundamentals, Listening, Networked World, Photos & Videos, Themes | No Comments »
Monday, December 17th, 2007
Okay, now that I got your attention by initiating with the the smart funny American TV sitcom chick and the dashing Brit billionaire with the brilliant hair, here’s the game…
A month ago, Carleen Hawn, the editor of Found/Read, asked me to write a post about improvisation for business, which I did. She gave it the catchy headline above. This is the gist of it… (more…)
Tags: Carleen Hawn, Decision-Making, Focus, Found/Read, Improvisation for Business, Principles, Richard Branson, Speed, Themes, Tina Fey
Posted in Communication, Focus, Group Mind, Networked World, Speed, Themes | No Comments »
