Optimism boost: Tom Kelley visited Yahoo! on Monday and I’m still stoked!

by Kris   ⋅   July 26, 2007   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

If you’ve never heard of IDEO, you’re about to. IDEO is a company which makes other companies perform better. They analyze and restructure strategies and product designs for big name johns like Proctor & Gamble, Microsoft, Apple to design more effective products and/or concepts. For example, their fat squishy toothbrush handle for Oral B for kids boosted sales for a full 18 months before every other company copied them. Bank of America’s Keep the Change Program, Microsoft’s very first ergonomic mouse, Apple’s mouse for the “Lisa” Macintosh, the Palm Pilot, the improved Swiffer all blasted out of the minds at IDEO. In short, they are rad.

IDEO Chair Tom Kelley was a guest speaker at Yahoo!’s Design Week kick-off on Monday and I’m still reeling with excitement from it. Even though he barely made it through one of his “Ten Faces of Innovation”, I learned a lot about him and some shared similarities. Kelley’s from a podunk town in Iowa.. I’m from a podunk town too! We share a beleaguering distrust for California but love working here. He cares about creating products with psychological and anthropological substance. Me too! He wants to help people through innovation and research and experimentation. Me too! Anyway, this post doesn’t really have anything more to say besides the fact that I was honored and extreeeemely excited to have been able to be in the same room as Tom Kelley. My faith is restored in the world again *sigh*.

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