IDEO
Tom Kelley is currently General Manager at IDEO, a firm that helps its clients create innovative products, services and environments. Tom is a frequent speaker on managing innovation for U.S., Asian and European audiences, and has appeared on international news programs for BBC Television and Nikkei Satellite News.
As the co-author of three books, including The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm, Tom illuminates the strategies for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation.
Prior to joining IDEO, Tom was a management consultant for Towers Perrin, advising senior executives on organizational and operational issues in North America, Asia and Australia. Tom holds an MBA in Marketing from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, where he received the Delbert J. Duncan citation as the year's top marketing scholar.
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Last Updated: Tue, Nov 11, 2008
| Category | Title | Author/Speaker | Organization | Length | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video | Cultivating an Attitude of Wisdom | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 01:53 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Innovation Made Personal | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 02:27 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Field Observations with Fresh Eyes | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 02:48 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Orbiting the Giant Hairball | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 02:51 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Case Study: Best Buy's Failure to See Napster | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 03:22 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Using Your Whole Brain | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 04:10 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Thinking Like a Traveler | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 04:40 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Treat Life As an Experiment | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 04:56 | 11/2008 |
| Video | Do What You Love | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 05:31 | 11/2008 |
| Podcast | Young at Heart: How to Be an Innovator for Life | Tom Kelley | IDEO | 58:52 | 11/2008 |
Be confident in what you know well, but be distrusting enough of what you don't know to keep yourself learning more at all times. This axiom will keep life-long learners of innovation thirsting to know more, broaden their skill set, and continuously second-guessing themselves in a way that will promote growth and knowledge, says Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO. Resting on your laurels, says Kelley, is never a good idea, and it's not served anyone - including Caesar - very well.
Tom Kelley, the highly acclaimed general manager of IDEO and author of best-selling books on creativity, targets his thoughts on corporate creativity to the inexperienced student - and how the young innovator can learn to foster the nature of creativity for life. He urges entrepreneurial thinkers to resist the forces that chip away at creative energy, and encourages an effort toward innovation to remain young at heart.
IDEO's General Manager, Tom Kelley, shares a case study demonstrating value opportunities that arise when designers, innovators, and entrepreneurs see with fresh eyes. He cites his company's challenge to design a new children's toothbrush. Rather than relying on industry assumptions, his team did hands-on field research and discovered new ideas on how children actually go about brushing their teeth. Subsequently, IDEO's new take on an old product became a bestseller for their client, and caused an industry-wide re-design by other toothbrush manufacturers.
IDEO's General Manager Tom Kelley relays a tale about artist and author Gordon MacKenzie. In his book, "Orbiting the Giant Hairball", MacKenzie asks school children from kindergarten through sixth grade if they consider themselves to be artists. While the enthusiasm for creative free expression seems to run freely for the youngest children, the author notes some attrition from the idea starting with the second graders, and full-blown shame for artistic expression by the time he speaks to the sixth grade. The take-away from this exercise, says Kelley, is that we are all born with a high level of innovation, but it is the cultural norm to have these aspirations and pleasures flattened at a surprisingly young age. Kelley assures his audience that it is, indeed, OK to be an artist.
"It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that ain't so," says Mark Twain. And Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO, cites this famous quote as an example of why it's important for creative minds to continue to cultivate a dedication to continuous learning. He tells the story of retailer Best Buy, and tracks their huge investment and acquisition of a large CD retailer which they thought was a good idea - except for that their target market had stopped buying music and started downloading MP3's instead. The electronic retailer was overly confident in their knowledge of the market, and paid for their lack of learning with a billion dollars in lost revenue.
Fine tune your left brain, but don't overlook the opportunities to let your right brain make its mark. Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO, also discusses the use of the "hare" brain, meaning the aspects of thinking that we can control, and the "tortoise" brain, meaning giving though processes time to sit, ruminate, and percolate to slowly process creative solutions. Kelley claims this slower level of background thinking is even smarter than our cognitive problem-solving, and that it can be used to address dilemas directly. Creative thinkers should schedule some time for daydreaming to give these slower mental processes a chance to be effective.
Like taking vitamins or exercising daily, Tom Kelley, General Manager of IDEO, points out that fostering lifelong creativity depends on instituting good, healthy mental habits. This first habit on his list of five encourages thinkers to become hyper-aware of their environment, and to notice the common and everyday with new eyes. Capture fresh ideas and don't be afraid to use them later, he insists.
Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. Just ask Thomas Edison, the makers of WD-40, and vacuum guru James Dyson - who collectively tested thousands of ideas before finding a handful that stuck. But the point behind the practice of experimentation in innovative thinking, says IDEO General Manager Tom Kelley. Take risks frequently, and be prepared in case the resulting action fails to meet your expectations. Fail forward, and there will be learning from your mistakes along the way. 
You won't just be happier when you follow your passionate career path; you'll be better at it. IDEO's General Manager Tom Kelley quotes author Jim Collins who identifies a Venn diagram in every career path - the overlapping intersection of what you're good at, what you're born to do, what people will pay you to do, and finding a happy group of co-workers with whom to work. In the pursuit of self-discovery, Kelley suggests keeping a laboratory notebook tracking the happiest moments in life to discover our own true passions.
Tom Kelley, general manager at the world-renowned design firm, IDEO, presents five core practices that enhance creativity. Through entertaining stories and examples, he describes how these techniques help us all become more innovative in every aspect of our lives and lead to more success.