Edition No. 39
In this Edition
Arts and Culture
This week, we share a podcast we love, IdeaCast; a conversation that examines the untapped experimentation, collaboration, and reinvention senior leaders at organizations can learn from musicians.
More Arts
Our friends at The Grosse Pointe Artists Association are hosting a special event on Tuesday, July 27, where they will be joined by the Stahl family to discuss their participation in the Great Race.
American Democracy
Netflix recently released their new series, “We The People,” which features upbeat songs from popular artists like Janelle Monáe and Adam Lambert, and teaches the basics of rights and citizenship.
Lessons in Innovation from Bowie, Beyoncé, and More
As an arts nonprofit, we can find the irony in asking the question, “When does life imitate art?” In an IdeaCast podcast from Harvard Business Review, Allison Beard chats with two music brain trusts on how corporate America could adopt many of the principles that go into writing, producing, and creating music. Joined by Panos Panoy, the outgoing senior vice president for global strategy and innovation at Berklee College of Music, and the incoming co-president of the Recording Academy, and Michael Hendrix, partner, and global design director at IDEAO, the three discuss the untapped experimentation, collaboration, and reinvention senior leaders at organizations can learn from musicians.
This twenty-seven-minute podcast dissects the power of collaboration, the mindful art of choosing and putting together talent, intuitive decision making, remixing (or transferring what works in one industry to another), and keeping intention and purpose at the forefront. They share stories of some of the music industry’s most well-known names like David Bowie, Lady Gaga, and of course, Beyonce (who utilized 15 different collaborators on one song)! Not only will this podcast have you searching for the next great playlist to listen to, but it may inspire you to take some new tactics into the office and the conference room!
“Music is all about dynamism. It’s about improvisation. It’s about creativity and unlocking the potential of one another. What we are advocating for is adopting more of that mindset that focuses less on creating master plans and optimization. It focuses more on building collaboration and respect between peers, and then moving into those relationships with openness and curiosity, with expectation for new outcomes that were not planned.”
Vintage Car Race
Stories from The Road with Brett, Sarah and Noah Stahl
Just back from competing in the Great Race for vintage cars, Brett and Sarah Stahl and their son Noah are ready to share their stories from the road in the Grosse Pointe Artists Association gallery at The War Memorial. At The War Memorial, we are proud to promote our partner organizations and their desires to tell meaningful stories of family, ambition, and self-growth to our community. This event is taking place on Tuesday, July 27 at 6:30pm.
The Great Race covered 2,000 miles over nine days, starting on June 21 in San Antonio, Tex., and ending in Greenville, S.C. The team in the car was Driver Brett and Navigator Noah. Sarah was the support crew and leader of the cheering section. The racecar was a 1941 Packard 120 Coupe Convertible. Each day the driver and navigator received course instructions (usually 220 to 250 per day) indicating every turn, speed change, stop, and start that the team had to make. Adding to the difficulty, the odometer was taped over and GPS and computers were banned. The Great Race is a test of human mental agility and classic car endurance, rather than programming capability.
Ted Stahl, founder of the Stahls Automotive Foundation and Museum in Chesterfield, and his wife Mary began competing in the Great Race in 2012. Since then each of their seven children and oldest grandson has joined the challenge.
Will “We the People” Become This Generation’s “School House Rock?”
“Schoolhouse Rock,” you may recall, slid brief lessons on various subjects between the cartoons during ABC’s Saturday and Sunday morning programming from 1973 to 1984 and then again from 1993 through 1996. To this day, “I’m Just a Bill (sitting here on Capitol Hill)” from the original series remains a great tool for teachers of American government to break the ice with their students; children, youth, and adults can all relate to poor forlorn “Bill” waiting on the Capitol steps for his chance to become law.
“Schoolhouse Rock,” however, may finally have a worthy successor. On July 4th, Netflix released “We the People,” a series of short videos with lessons on American government embedded in songs by popular artists from many different genres. In the videos, the colors are vibrant, the images engaging, and the tunes catchy. Most importantly, the factual content of the videos is correct and balanced.
To help build interest in the new series, Netflix has released a full episode—Adam Lambert singing about the Bill of Rights—on YouTube,
Here in the American Democracy section of Inspired Thoughts, we typically point readers to weighty sources like The Atlantic, Times, Post, PBS, or NPR. This week, however, we’re suggesting that you visit a somewhat different kind of publication—Variety, the self-described “bible” of the entertainment industry—for their review of this new series from Michelle and Barak Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. For the Variety review, including a link to the series “trailer,” follow the link below.
Inspired Thoughts is a collection of highly curated content that embraces the spirit and purpose of The War Memorial: arts and culture, community enrichment, leadership, and patriotism.
Derived from the notion that learning from others is the key to success, Inspired Thoughts is meant to shine a light on those making a difference in the world around them. This collection features artists, poets, writers, architects, and every thought leader in-between. Inspired Thoughts is the strongest reflection of what The War Memorial stands for, and what we aim to be.
The content featured on Inspired Thoughts is curated by War Memorial leadership — we also look forward to featuring special guest curators in the near future. If you are interested in providing content for Inspired Thoughts, please email our Communications team at jkaminski@warmemorial.org.