December 2012 Articles

Students often come to Stanford University’s “d.school” (which was founded by one of us–David Kelley–and is formally known as the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design) to develop their creativity. Clients work with IDEO, our design and innovation consultancy, for the same reason. But along the way, we’ve learned that our job isn’t to teach them creativity. It’s to help them rediscover their creative con dence–the natural ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out. We do this by giving them strategies to get past four fears that hold most of us back: fear of the messy unknown, fear of being judged, fear of the rst step, and fear of losing control.

This link has been posted in retrospect from a collection of articles I compiled in 2012 using the iOS app, Instapaper.

In [Tim] Cook’s first 16 months on the job, Apple has released next-generation iPhones and iPads and seen its stock price rise 43 percent. Though it hasn’t yet expanded into new product categories (still no Apple TV set), the company has changed in significant ways, largely because of Cook’s calm and steady influence. In his most wide-ranging interview as CEO, Cook explains how Apple works now, talks about the perception that he’s “robotic,” and announces the return of Apple manufacturing to the U.S.

This link has been posted in retrospect from a collection of articles I compiled in 2012 using the iOS app, Instapaper.

Wrapped in steel and plastic and surrounded by strangers, public transportation can be as soothing as a night out with friends.

This link has been posted in retrospect from a collection of articles I compiled in 2012 using the iOS app, Instapaper.

I realize that while Twitter is a great place to listen and lurk, it may be an odd place to lengthen time, to stretch out a conversation of ideas. I wonder, for instance, which approach benefits students more – a real-time tweet session in which ideas, questions, and answers swirl in the air all at once in a dizzying yet stimulated hour, or a more leisurely session like the one I did with the students, in which ideas simmer over the course of a day, allowing them to stick and resonate?

This link has been posted in retrospect from a collection of articles I compiled in 2012 using the iOS app, Instapaper.

People have the misconception that a gay person comes out once. It’s not true. If you’re gay and you’re authentic, you’re coming out constantly. You’re on a business trip, for example. A cab driver asks if you have kids, and you say that you do. Then he asks about your wife. Even though you may be exhausted, you find yourself summoning the energy to have a transformative conversation with a total stranger on whom you are depending to get to the airport and whose reaction you have no way of predicting. It takes a few tablespoons of courage. Every time. But you do it. Because it’s who you are, and you’ve learned long ago not to deny who you are or who your partner is. Because to deny who you are is a betrayal of yourself and the man you love and the children you have together. So you never, ever skirt the issue, no matter how tired or busy you are. You become a Jedi with your truth. Not just the truth, but your truth.

This link has been posted in retrospect from a collection of articles I compiled in 2012 using the iOS app, Instapaper.