David Kelley's Creative Essentials: Storytelling Project

Over the past fifteen years, I’ve had the gift of building a special relationship with the Stanford d.school, mostly as a friend somewhere near the edges of the room. One of the great joys of that chapter has been getting to know David Kelley, the founder of IDEO and the d.school.

For David’s 50th year at Stanford, and the d.school’s 20th anniversary, I was invited to help tell the story of a small, personal project David and I created together called The Shapeless Shape. The story was part of David Kelley’s Creative Essentials, a performance at Bing Concert Hall celebrating the ideas, habits, and creative philosophies that have shaped David’s work and the many people around him.

The creative essential I represented was Bias Toward Action — or, in David’s language, the simple wisdom of not waiting too long to make the thing. I wrote and presented the story live, while a wonderful creative team designed the visuals and a live band brought the piece to life. It was part tribute, part tiny act of making, and a sweet reminder of something David has modeled for decades: sometimes the best way to understand an idea is to build it, share it, and see what happens.