It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.
~J.K. Rowling
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Crisis of Creativity in American Business
“In a Newsweek cover story last month, Bronson and his co-author Merryman write about the crisis of creativity now affecting the American educational system. According to Bronson, the results of creativity tests for American kids has been falling since 1990 — a particularly worrying statistic for American business given that these test scores have been rising over the past twenty years in most other industrialized countries around the world.”
Losing job opens new doors to strengthen the arts in Atlanta
Joe Winter’s (C4 Atlanta) guest column on Maria Saporta’s blog: SaportaReport.
Throughout history, almost every culture has had art, music, dance, architecture, poetry, storytelling, pottery, and sculpture. The desire to create is not limited by beliefs, nationality, creed, educational background, or era. The urge resides in all of us…[it] is not limited to the arts, but can encompass all of life, from the mundane to the profound.
Robert Fritz
Ian David Moss: How does mapping a community’s cultural assets benefit the arts and culture field?
I have been reading, and pontificating on, systems thinking. Not looking at just one piece of a system, but looking at the whole. The book that has been my nightly devotional about systems thinking: The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge.
Example after example, Peter demonstrates the importance of looking at the forest instead of a single tree. In one example, Peter tells the story of a technology company that, despite increasing sales staff and pouring money into marketing efforts, went from top dog to bankrupt. It was the inattention to customer service that was the company’s demise. The technology company, to paraphrase Peter M. Senge, became their own worst competitor. Seems simple, but if we are only looking at one piece at a time, the simple can be missed. Sometimes the entire system is flawed.
My co-worker pointed me to this link. It is a piece I see missing in Atlanta’s arts and culture: understanding the system, or the macro picture. We cannot move forward until we know, as a community, as a system, where we stand now, and how we all fit together.
Take a very brief moment to view this video.
How Did Peter Drucker See Corporate Responsibility?
I agree, we all need to be socially responsible. If for no other reason, it save us all money in the long run. This blog is so timely, because it reinforces a discussion my C4 Atlanta co-workers and I had the other day. It is integrated into our business plan & training we would like to offer artists as well.
Moving From Strategic Planning to Story Telling
Wow. This so speaks to how I feel. I feel like my business plan is entropic. Today, my co-worker Joe Winter lead us through an exercise that helped us (C4 Atlanta) focus on tasks to complete withing one month.
