Jessyca Holland

“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.”

A clinic that doesn’t treat people; rather, it treats ideas. Brilliant! I love it!

Joe Winter’s (C4 Atlanta) guest column on Maria Saporta’s blog: SaportaReport.

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.

Why shouldn’t people enjoy being an artist & an athlete?

I remember right before the election that ended the democrat’s reign in the Governor’s seat of Georgia, I attended a local forum called “Political Party.” I believe this was once a monthly event hosted by Dad’s Garage in Inman Park. The Anyway, the question arose: “why wouldn’t Roy Barnes be reelected?” I raised my hand to answer the panelist’s question: “uh, because of teachers…” We did a brief back and forth about teacher’s not getting paid enough. I was told, essentially, that issue would not affect the race.

SIDE NOTE: My husband was a teacher at the time and the major lunch grumble at his place of employment concerned salary step increases (or lack thereof). Mr. Roy Barnes was on the other side of pointed fingers from teachers who felt betrayed.

So? The moral to this story? Ha! I was right! In your face!

I needed to get that off my chest. This post really has nothing to do with the current Governor’s race. It just has to do with the fact that large groups of people coming together can make a HUGE difference. Don’t underestimate power in numbers.

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.