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Summary: Breath of fresh air!
Review: A wonderful book, broken into several chapters which can be read over and over again. The "creative paradox" was a great concept, to seek out the shy and intimidated employees, not just the glory seekers, and get them to submit their ideas to the giant "Hallmark". Many employees and employeers should take these concepts and put them to use.
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Summary: Finally, a (help me, I am normal) book for creative genius.
Review: "The Pyramid and the Plum Tree" section needs to be read by every company head that needs creative individuals. Motivating creative people is tuff, but Gordon makes it seem like a dream ride. It was refreshing to see a creative person's point-of-view for a change. Finally, someone has the guts to tell it how it is! I read this book during a major power outage with a battery powered book light. In total isolation and in the dark I couldn't stop reading and experiencing this great book. In the dark, I became the creative guru that has been buried inside of me for years! In the next few days I was asked to attend a meeting with my fellow employees. To the horror of my boss, I burst forth telling them I was a creative genius and if given the time I could show them the total genius I really am. Everyone looked at me like I was loony, but I felt exhilarated and ready to take on anything that came my way. Gordon, thanks for waking me up.
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Summary: Business is about real people & real issues
Review: Reality business is the theme, told in such an engaging and honest way that you are enchanted, charmed, and delighted. I've already ordered 10 more copies, the first of several supplemental orders. Get one for you, and many for a friend.
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Summary: The canary in the coal mine of corporate creative indifferen
Review: Gordon's book is unique in that it offers a truely insightful and first hand account of how large corporations have (and unfortunately still do) abused and neglected raw and beautiful innovative spirit out of fear and ignorance. As one who has seen this from a competitive corporate vantage point. I can attest to Gordon's insight and grasp of facts concerning this pathetic battle,in which individual creative initiative and new to the world ideas are the first and greatest casualties. Gordon tells it like it is, was, and hopefully will be no longer in a fresh, funny and inspirational way. One need not look beyond the idea behind the book itself to witness Mr. MacKenzie's creative gifts.
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Summary: most timely business book in years!
Review: innovation is it. very few big corporations get it; or if they get it, they seem able to do little about it. want know why? read Gordon MacKenzie's matchless Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace. the rest of the book is as good - wise, witty - as the title. in short i think this is the best/most important business book to come along in many a year. it's a "must read" and a "page turner" - from someone who's been there (MacKenzie spent decades in creative posts at Hallmark). i have given over 25 copies to friends!
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Summary: A book by somebody who has been there.
Review: There are many books on corporate creativity but very few of them are written by creative people who actually worked in corporations. MacKenzie's description of both his successes and failures in, and slightly outside of, the hairball have that ring of truth. Its not like you can duplicate his journey, each ascent is up a different mountain, but it is really helpful to know what pick-axes he used in the climb. It is also a beautifully designed book with great drawings and pictures. It has become my first choice for a Hallmark Card.
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Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: In one of the books many anecdotes, Mr. MacKenzie tells the story of how his father and his father's cousin, each 10 years old in 1904, played hookey from church one Sunday morning and used the time to mezmerize about 70 chickens by holding their faces to white chalk lines. When his father's Uncle returned from church, by chance this day with the Reverend who was going to stay for Sunday Dinner, the Uncle was so furious that he place kicked every one of the 70 chickens off the porch in a flurry of curses and feathers. The scandalized preacher turned around and went back to town. "The same thing that happened to those chickens can happen to you." MacKenzie adds. This is a wonderful book and I only wish I could afford to buy a few hundred copies so that I could give them to everyone I know.
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Summary: Value hunters take note! Orbiting is worth EVERY penny!
Review: After experiencing the author's ideas at a seminar in Frisco, I was excited to get a copy of his book. Unfortunately I was put off by the price--a heafty $45--and delayed ordering it. But, when I got stuck in the Giant Hairball once again, I decided to bite the bullet and invest in a copy. Wow! Was I ever silly to put off buying "Orbiting"...it is a wonderful piece of art, right down to the binding and attachments. My spirits have soared since reading it, knowing I am not the only one out there that gets caught in the muck and mire that is corporate America. I highly recommend this title for anyone that has even a smidgen of creativity left in their soul! In fact, I just bought another copy for my boss (who also attended the seminar). BUY THIS BOOK!
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Summary: Refreshing outlook: Corporate America read this!!
Review: Have you ever had a good idea snuffed out, simply because the powers that be in your corporation (or whatever organization) were too involved in politics/committees/old ways of doing things? Then read on.
This is by far one of the most liberating books I've ever read. It says that anyone can be creative and get their ideas across, but it's not about being "arty", it's about finding ways to get new ideas into corporations, minus the yucky experience of getting stuck in corporate red tape (the famous Giant Hairball, as Gordon calls it). But it's not a string of boring lectures like a lot of the other corporate advice books out there. It's a collection of fun, short anecdotes. Real stories about Gordon Mackenzie and his HallMark days as he learned how to become a creative guru for his organization. That's right: he was learning. He tells the stories from this kind of perspective, and it is quite hilarious. Not to mention approachable. A must read. Maybe you, too, can be a creative guru...
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Summary: Profundity and Humor from a Creative Paradox.
Review: Not only have I read Gordon MacKenzie's "Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace", but I have also had the pleasure of interviewing the author for a newsletter piece and attending one of his workshops (better described as "performances").
The book is generally seen as "humor", even though book stores may display it in their business section. It could just as well be classified under "philosophy", however. Its message is a mix of the funny and the profound, examplified by the last chapter: "Paint Me A Masterpiece", which starts with God dispensing you at birth with a canvas rolled under your arm and the request to "paint a masterpiece for me", and ends with the writer's reflections on his now-abandoned doubts about his own talent, his current use of the wider brush, the Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine Blue, and this reminder to you: "If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you." The book is a written form of the workshops Gordon MacKenzie has been teaching since 1991. Workshops on maintaining creativity within bureaucratic environments. If Corporate America is to be the place that beckons us each day, that we long to go to every morning and leave fulfilled every afternoon, it had better get a grip on its hairballs, discard them and let its work places be filled with the creativity Gordon MacKenzie encourages us to reclaim.
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