IDEO founder David Kelley describes the early history of David Kelley Design and its pivotal client relationship with Steve Jobs and Apple.
Opinion
Kelley: Steve Jobs Was the World's Best Client for Designers
“Everyone would tell you who was a designer of any kind that in their career they did their best work for Steve. He was the world's best client because he cared so much.”
Insight
Kelley: Corporate America lacks patience because early answers look smart
“Patience to wait for the big idea is just not inherent. Well, it's inherent in the design kind of way of being, but it's not inherent in corporate America because you look smart if you have the answer early on.”
Insight
David Kelley: Designers look like geniuses by transferring methods across industries
“One of the tools that a designer has is that they have had a broad experience, and you can apply something that seems pretty straightforward as a methodology in doing things in one industry, and bring it to another industry and look like a genius, and all you'…”
Insight
Kelley: Breakthrough innovations frequently lie adjacent to the original problem
“Really happens a lot in design where you think you're working on one thing, but the real innovation is adjacent to that, and you pivot to the place where the real innovation is, and that's what happened in this case, and it has happened to a hundred times.”
Insight
Kelley: Guided mastery through small successes is the only way to unlock creativity
“And so what we tend to do, which we try to convince companies to do, this management of companies and ourselves, is to convince people that they have that inherent creativity is what we call guided mastery. If you can take the people in your group and lead the…”
Assertion Partly supported
Kelley: Innova Schools has 63 schools, 51k students, and 99% higher-ed rate
“Today, you know, we have 63 schools up and running 51,000 students, and, you know, 99% of those kids end up going to higher education.”