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 Broad ideas, condescending tone Mar 14, 2008
This book has a lot of helpful ideas for running a company or a project/team, especially if you're in the design industry (but even if you're not).
My problem with it is Kelley's patronizing tone. Throughout the book I felt like I was being told just how great his company (IDEO) is, how they do everything right (even their mistakes are right!), etc. Needless to say, it got to be kind of nauseating/overwhelming.
Because of that, it took me forever to finish, and unless someone can give me an EXTREMELY compelling reason, I won't be reading anymore books by Tom Kelley.
 Watching 'The Medici Effect' at work in IDEO! Nov 18, 2007
The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
by Tom Kelley
The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
by Thomas Kelley
Much had already been written - the good & the bad - about these two books after they were published. I do not wish to travel on the beaten path.
I just want to share some of my own thoughts from a different perspective.
I have recently reread these two books following my return from holidaying in Italy. I had in fact read both of them for the first time when they were respectively published several years ago.
This time, I have in fact reread them syntopically with Frans Johansson's 'The Medici Effect', which in many ways, has influenced my own thoughts about the abovementioned two books.
Following my recent holiday trip to Italy, particularly my revisit to the Vatican Museums in Rome & the Uffizi Museum in Florence, I became fascinated by the great work of the Medici family.
The title of 'The Medici Effect' actually refers to an explosion of creativity and imagination that occurred in Florence during the Renaissance era, stretching from the late 14th century where it started right up to the early 17th Century, where it had spread to the rest of Europe, when the powerful & influential Medici banking family funded artists, artisans, painters, sculptors, and even thinkers and scientists from many different cultures and disciplines to come together to debate, discuss, and discover new ideas.
[Out of 1,000 European artists, painters & sculptors during that period, about 350 of them had lived &/or worked in Florence, Italy.]
Through their generous patronage, we are able to speak of and admire the wonderful masterpieces & elegant work of Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli, Donatello, Raphael, Ghiberti and countless others.
Tom Kelley's two books as mentioned above essentially drives home the point about 'The Medici Effect.'
I see IDEO's successful problem solving approach with clients as a true application of the deliberate 'blending' of brainstorming methodologies, work practices, human resource cultures & physical infrastructures. As Tom Kelley had steadfastly asserted: 'Methodology alone is not enough."
The adoption of the ten different high-touch personnas as defined by the author in his later book truely reflects the 'Medici Effect.'
In my personal view, this innovative 'blending' is the strategic heartbeat of IDEO's success in the marketplace.
The other stuff, like observing carefully the anthropology of endusers, high-energy brainstorming with time pressures, quick prototyping, & taking risks are actually peripheral to the deliberate 'blending' process. These stuff had been covered in great detail in the first book.
In fact, as part of IDEO's problem solving repertoire, the cross-pollinating of inputs from their internal teams, clients' teams, knowledgeable people not directly involved with projects, & from people who make up target markets, further accentuates the Medici Effect.
Come to think of it, & in terms of personnas from the creativity standpoint, I reckon what Tom Kelley had talked about so passionately in his latter book, builds, in some subtle ways, on the earlier thoughtware of Roger von oech (as illustrated in his two books on his four creative personnas: Explorer, Artist, Judge, Warrior) & Edward de bono (as illustrated in his 'Six Thinking Hats' book, which I believed had been somewhat influenced by Ned Herrmann's 'The Creative Brain'.)
Kudos to Ideos Aug 28, 2007
Excellent book with good insights. If you are in the business of innovation, this is one book that you shouldn't miss. I also recommend EIGHTSTORM: 8-Step Brainstorming for Innovative Managers.
Innovation for All Jun 29, 2007
Through anecdotes, Kelley demonstrates how stumbling blocks to innovation can be overcome. He shows an appreciation for experimentation, momentum, and embraces failure as a true path to knowing. Failed prototypes are wonderful learning tools. Kelley's perspective keeps spirits high. He leaves much of the innovative process open ended - nearly encouraging innovation on innovating.
Interestingly, Kelley notes how medicine is becoming personalized and that the future can not be perfectly predicted. Still, he says we must aim at it. This was an important nugget of wisdom for me, a research coordinator at a think-tank-like public health research group, the Healthcare Innovation and Technology lab at Columbia University. On a daily basis we deal with innovation to improve healthcare and need to effectively innovate. Given that we tread a very specific territory - health and technology - and that Kelley's book could be so useful to us, it is obvious that he really has something to offer to everyone.
Innovation and creativity "how-to" guide Jun 07, 2007
The Art of Innovation explains many of IDEO's creative techniques and in so doing paints a picture of the physical context in which all that creativity occurs, namely IDEO's office, your average geek's idea of paradise brimming with high-tech prototypes, foam cubes, "tech box" caddies with giant Post-Its and coloring pens ... and yes, it does look more like a playschool than Dilbertesque gray cubicle-land. Teamwork, friendship and a shared passion for helping clients innovate is clearly what binds people together and stimulates their creativity, while a supportive and forgiving management structure doesn't just tolerate weirdness, it actively encourages it. IDEO seems to have taken Tom Peters' advice "If you want to do weird, hire weird people" to the next level. In IDEO-land, "normal" people would probably stand out a mile.
Two creative techniques - brainstorming and prototyping - are particularly well described, in a way that encourages the reader to try something different. I've learnt some new tricks and even started applying them since reading the book.
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