book review -- to do (for everybody.)

Another in The Facets of Jobs And Friends -- CREATIVITY, by Edwin Catmull (Random House, 2014.)

Many books are published about technology every day, general and technical, on new and legacy

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technologies alike.  The story of Pixar Animation above all, regardless of its affiliation to show business and other well - known and well - connected people, needs be considered as that of a classically super - successful growth company that Steven Jobs, Ed Catmull, and others husbanded through all the possible permutations of organizational life according to their own edicts, and with the dynamism that in the day, along with company goals, held businesses together despite the many competitive and economic forces, including non - market overtones and influences sometimes, that would have such businesses fly apart from their own internal energies as generated by the inventive, innovative, and continuously creative tone that pervades the company culture and its story amid other, more ephemeral start - up adventures.  From the way Mr. Catmull introduces his company, it is difficult to determine from a reading of the text whether or not the original business was the purview of Mr. George Lucas (Hollywood and Napa,) or Steven Jobs (Silicon Valley).  People like me know from the way the story of this wonderful company is begun in the text, that LucasFilm for various and original reasons in the old days needed a fresh production company, and Steven Jobs was in control if not in personal possession along with his associates of the required software and hardware "stuff" to accede to the great demands of Lucas animated production ideas and projects.  The overall special character of Pixar over time has changed in scope as the market power of the business has changed, at people like Catmull and his buddies are in some respects just supposed to be cartoon guys, though this view only burnishes in a simplified way the technical and even greater imaginative character of these people along the trajectory of their business from a narrowly functional animation company to a megastudio and blockbuster standard for media through Hollywood at this point.

Pixar produced a number of giftedly animated "Toy Story" and other productions of equally, and quite hard - hitting impact for movie audiences and young people above all.  Some of the themes as presented in the Pixar films, such as those in the relation between Cowboy and Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story" or even the depiction of Hopper in "A Bug's Life", and there are many more such examples, that evoke the virtues and vagaries of human character along with various background.  This is perhaps an important part of Pixar's films as intoned by Mr. Catmull and Mr. Jobs that approaches things like finances and even software functionality as a set aside given the aims of film projects themselves to have themselves a highly memorable character along with educating and entertaining, and other imperative items, at the same time.  One opens this text, simply and directly presented as it is, to find first a story of a typical media start - up, and then one presided by both individually cultivated genius and the same of worldly industrial strength, that has become a proverbial "Star of India" in its animated productions in Los Angeles, past, present and possibly and probably future given the way Hollywood has captured and openly employs Pixar's company and employee culture.  This read is greatly captivating and hopeful from beginning to end, and depicts a business in which the overall goals and hard work of those in charge have made themselves and everyone around them more than just elite and extremely successful.  The text is also not lost on business and management processes as so enumerated for the reader or for anyone looking into this and related stories.  It is possible that Steven Jobs, Mr. Catmull and so forth, had believed the powers ruling business leadership and innovation, etc., originally had a kind of cookbook, and this outside the Socratic and other imperatives that run through this narrative.  It is also possible these people, and just by their nature, captured at least some of that cookbook in their methods and practices.  As much is on every in this outstanding and compelling story of this media company that has captured the physics of human imagination in many ways.

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