Gregg Fraley

As in-flight entertainment luck would have it, I’ve now seen the film Moneyball twice within a week. On the surface Moneyball is a true-story film about baseball — but it’s really an innovation story. I enjoyed the film but nothing about it struck me as profoundly good in terms of story, or character development. I always like the charming Brad Pitt, and he’s good here in a tailor-made part as Oakland Athletic’s General Manager Billy Beane. He keeps you interested, but this doesn’t feel like an Oscar worthy role. Same with Jonah Hill as the nerdy statistician and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the disgruntled coach — good work — and not notably so. We don’t quite see enough about what

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Smokey Robinson and Barry Gordy, 1981I’ll briefly note here the passing of Motown Records founder, Barry Gordy, and make four points about creativity along the way. I never met him, but I certainly experienced, and continue to experience, the results of his prolific creativity. In his amazing career he created songs, records, stars, companies, good will, and films. First lesson in creativity from Barry Gordy: Create a lot and keep creating a lot. Perhaps his greatest creative skill was simply finding and developing talent. He had a hand in the careers of Jackie Wilson, Mary Wells, The Jackson 5 (and Michael Jackson), Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, and many

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I posted an idea yesterday about having Steve Jobs create a series of videos targeted towards educating and inspiring young people. A day later, I’m modifying the idea — I think Ken Burns should do it. If Ken takes the project on Steve needs only to cooperate. As it turns out there is a lot of historical footage of Jobs — which might supply a good percentage of the content. The SmartBrief on Leadership newsletter published a link this morning to a series of videos on a Washington Post site. Interviews with Jobs in the early 90’s included. The original material was part of a PBS special “Triumph of the Nerds.” Another clip is from PBS’s Wall Street Week with

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Who remembers “Happenings?”  I’m not referring to the Supreme’s song, or to the TV show, but actual… Happenings.   Before Tweet-ups, before flash mobs, before raves, before disco, there were Happenings. A cultural trend of note, highly innovative at the time, and worth revisiting. I’m creating a new version of a Happening in Boston next week, but more on that later. Why am I posting about this? Because there is something to learn from the old trend, and that is, we learn best through interaction with cultural stimuli. Back to history — the first Happenings were hosted by high level artists in the New York City area (such as George Segal and Allan Kaprow) in the early 60’s.  Characterised as “the

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I watched a wonderful HBO movie last evening, Temple Grandin.  It’s been out in the USA, the illustrious, talented, and ever-refreshing Claire Danes won an Emmy for her role. She was fabulous in the part, you made it live Claire  — but enough already — this is not that kind of review, look for more Danes plaudits elsewhere.  For me, this program was about lessons in personal and industrial innovation. Do watch this film if you get the chance, and view with an eye towards opening your own doors of perception. Temple Grandin is real, this is a true story of a “high functioning” autistic person.  Grandin grew up with loving support and overcame her disadvantages, achieving a great deal.

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I keep a close eye on Grant McCracken’s postings, his insights on culture are always fascinating. Grant is the author of Chief Culture Officer, and I’ve alluded to him here before. He recently made some interesting comments about the fallout of hiring Barbara Lippert as “curator of pop culture” at the ad agency Goodby Silverstein. Reactions to her hiring included several age-ist comments about how a 55 year old woman couldn’t possibly be on top of trends. McCracken pointed out, among other things, that trends are only 20% of culture to start with. In his view age is actually an advantage when it comes to the broader task of culture watching. Do read his very pertinent comments. Lippert did a

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There is a memorable scene in Godfather III where Michael Corleone laments his inability to stay out of the mob game, he screams —  “Just when I thought I was out of it, they pull me back in.” This is something like my relationship with start-up companies. I’ve been involved with several, and whether they were successes or not, at the time, I always felt that this ‘was the last one.’ I don’t know why exactly. Perhaps because of the intensity of the work, or the roller coaster ride of high high’s and the low low’s. Maybe just because it’s a bit scary.  At times, back in the day, I was ambivalent about my own motives. That ambivalence is probably what

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Alright, maybe it’s not that different, but I swear, Jimmy Fallon is pulling out all the stops to innovate and entertain on his late night show.  Let’s face it, being a big late night star is a high risk business, witness Conan O’Brien’s crash and burn — and Conan was funny!  Fallon is an SNL grad with a couple of interesting movies under his belt (my favorite being Fever Pitch). I’d seen Late Night just after he’d started the gig (March 2009), and at the time, to me, he was trying a bit too hard.  Accidently revisited these last few weeks, and things have changed, Fallon’s at the top of his game. On the one hand, he’s doing some old

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I was in London for a meeting last week and due to my “on time” compulsion, arrived quite early. I was killing time window shopping, and I spotted a cool looking linen walking hat on display at a men’s store.  On impulse, I went in and bought it. I had a nice conversation with the clerk at T. Fox & Company. They had some high quality hand-made knit ties — got one of those as well.  I resisted the lovely leather baggage, but was delighted to hear all their goods are made in the UK. Made in the UK means jobs in the UK.  The UK and the USA certainly need more brands like this.  Started me thinking, again, about

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Call me a Johnny-come-lately but I’m suddenly enamored of what’s going on with electronic book readers (or “e-readers” as they are sometimes called) and the potential for a whole new kind of reading experience. This is an area of exploding innovation. I’m talking about devices like the Kindle, and the iPad.  And there are others — from Sony and Barnes & Noble — that I’m less familiar with. I’m going to leave it to others to do a cross compare of features and functions, this post is more about the potential for innovation in this space. Apologies to Sony and Barnes & Noble, I may try to do you justice in a future post. Up until now I’ve thought of

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