Innovating the Pixar Way, with Bill Capodagli

Pixar is a company that is frequently lauded for the innovative environment the company has built, not to mention its unparalleled creative output and success at the box office. In a little over 25 years of existence, the company has enjoyed an incredibly high success rate with animated feature films like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. Pixar also just so happens to be featured in the cover story of this month’s Wired for bringing the magic back to Disney Animation.

On this week’s episode of the podcast we’ll be looking at Innovating the Pixar Way with Bill Capodagli, co-author of Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Playground. Along with Lynn Jackson, Bill also co-wrote The Disney Way: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company, which was named Best Business Book of the Year by Fortune Magazine. Bill is also an internationally-acclaimed speaker on the cultures of Disney and Pixar, and he frequently gives keynotes around how to innovate like Pixar and Disney.

Here are some of the highlights from this episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast, with Bill Capodagli:

• We talk about Pixar’s aversion to sequels and how their focus on creating original stories that audiences will love has driven their success
• Bill discusses the making of The Incredibles and shares an anecdote on why the “black sheep” in your company may be the best ones to put on your toughest innovation projects.
• We discuss the open environment for communication at Pixar in the context of how their “dailies” differ from other Hollywood studios and how that enhances their creative process.
• Bill talks about Pixar’s commitment to continuing education for its employees and their mandate that each employee spend at least 4 hours a week studying something new.
• Bill outlines 3 qualities that it’s imperative for any organization to have for them to become truly innovative.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

Interested in hearing more? Tune in to the full episode of “The Innovation Engine” podcast below.

About The Innovation Engine

Since 2014, 3Pillar has published The Innovation Engine, a podcast that sees a wide range of innovation experts come on to discuss topics that include technology, leadership, and company culture. You can download and subscribe to The Innovation Engine on Apple Podcasts. You can also tune in via the podcast’s home on Spotify to listen online, via Android or iOS, or on any device supporting a mobile browser.