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IDEO's Featured Achievements |
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Implemented more than 3,000 new product
development programs
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Helped
old-line Fortune 500 companies reinvent their organizations and bold
young start-ups create new industries
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Teach the
process of innovation; often
host teams from multinational companies who want to learn from IDEO's culture and steep themselves in their methodology
The Jazz of Innovation: 11 Practice Tips
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IDEO Track
Record
Selected Products Designed by IDEO |
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Products |
Client Company |
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Computer mouse |
Apple (U.S.A.) |
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New notebook
computer |
NEC (Japan) |
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Water bottle for
mountain bikers |
Specialized Bicycle
Components (U.S.A.) |
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Cordless office
phone |
Dancall (Denmark) |
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"Datum shelf", an
office desk |
Pathways (U.S.A.) |
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Palm V handheld
organizer |
Palm (U.S.A.) |
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Kid's fishing kit |
Berkley Outdoor
Products (U.S.A.) |
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Computer input
device for children |
Philips (the
Netherlands) |
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Toothbrush for
children |
Oral-B (U.S.A.) |
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Neat Squeeze
toothpaste tube |
Crest (U.S.A.) |
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Recognition and Awards |
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Fast Company
magazine calls IDEO "the world's most celebrated design firm"
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The Wall Street Journal dubbed IDEO's offices "Imagination's
Playground"
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Fortune titled its visit to IDEO "A Day at Innovation U"
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Every spring, Business Week publishes a feature story on the
power of design in business and includes a cumulative tally of firms
who have won the most Industrial Design Excellence Awards. IDEO has
topped that list for ten years running
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IDEO's
Innovation Practice Tips |
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Tom Peters about IDEO
"In recent years, as the L.O.I. (Legend of IDEO)
has spread far and wide, the company has had clients begging for advice not
just on a product or two, but on the IDEO way of innovating. It has
responded vigorously." Their "methodology not only works for IDEO, but has
proven to be transferable. It's now quite simple, of course. Beneath the
IDEO method lies the incredible, throbbing IDEO spirit that led me to love
at first sight."2
Innovation
Is Love
Living the Future
Seeing and implementing thousands of projects
has afforded IDEO a unique perspective on the future. They've got a sense of
the holistic nature of
change,
learned how things evolve, and witnessed
cross-pollination
firsthand. "Knowing the start of the art or the soon-to-be state of the art
in one industry can give you a jump in your chosen field."
10 Commandments of Innovation
The Fun Factor
David Kelley, the founder of IDEO, believed
that if he
hired people he liked and respected, everybody would have
fun and more work
done.
Inspiring People: 4 Strategies
Pranks became second nature in the company very
soon. When Hovey left for a week's vacation, he returned to find a sheetrock
wall where his door has been. Windshield cement inspired many office pranks:
You'd leave your desk only to return to find everything glued down: soda
cans, papers, pens. David's door was once glued shut when he was getting a
pitch from a salesperson. Another office was webbed in by the sticky trails
from a hot glue gun. There were rubber band wars and squirt skirmishes, and
plenty of water balloons dropped out of the window."1
The pranks and play served a purpose – gave
people a sense that they had some control over their destiny, a feeling of
belonging to something larger then themselves...
More
Innovation-friendly
Organization
Observing People
All IDEO-designed products were inspired by
watching real people. "We are not funs of focus groups. We don't much care
for traditional market research either. We go to the source. Not the
"experts" inside a company, but the actual people who use the product or
something similar to what we're hoping to create. It's precisely this
observation-fueled insight that makes innovation possible. Uncovering what
comes naturally to people. And having the strengths to change the rules,"
writes Tom Kelley.1
Customer
Care
The Perfect
Brainstorm
Brainstorming
is practically a religion at IDEO, one they practice nearly every day.
"Though brainstorms themselves are often playful, brainstorming as a tool
– as a
skill – is taken quite seriously." In a company without many rules,
IDEO people have a very firm idea about what constitutes a brainstorm and
how it should be organized:
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Duration:
Sixty minutes in an optimum length. The level of physical and mental
energy required for a brainstorm is hard to sustain much longer than
that.
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Don'ts:
"Brainstorming
sessions aren't presentations or opportunities for the boss to poll
the troops for hot ideas. Nor should they feel like work. And
brainstorming is most definitely not about spending thousands of dollars
at some glamorous off-site location."
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Idea engine: "Brainstorming is the idea engine of IDEO's
culture. It is an opportunity for teams to "blue sky" ideas early in
a project or to solve a tricky problem that's cropped up later on. The
more productive the group, the more it brainstorms regularly and
effectively."
"The buzz of a good brainstormer can infect a
team
with optimism and
sense of opportunity that can carry it through the darkest and most
pressure-tinged stages of the project."...
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