Dyslexic Co-Founder of Stanford Design School and IDEO David Kelley

"I'm totally dyslexic and don't write at all." - David Kelley, Co-Founder of Stanford Design School and IDEO

We were at the Nueva Innovative Learning Conference listening to David Kelley speak on education when he mentioned the above in response to an answer why a book on his ideas of Creative Confidence hasn't been written yet.

David Kelley is celebrated as one of America's leading design innovators and co-Founder of the innovative IDEO company. He's won the Thomas Edison Achievement AWard for Innovation as well as numerous other awards for innovation and innovative thinking.

In The Art of Innovation, a book written by David's brother Tom, we learn about David as as child: "My brother David...has been building things and then trying to make them better for as long as I can remember. We had a snowy Ohio winter the year I was six years old, and David started a series of increasingly complex snow construction projects in the backyard. He started with the basics--thre-tiered snowmen--but soon progressed to whole forts by lining up snowmen shoulder-to-shoulder to form four walls.

Looking for the next revision of his prototype fort, David briefly considered a two-story model, which he thankfully abandoned when he hit upon the idea of using a cardboard box to make snow "bricks". We were industriously building snow fort 2.0 with our adobe-style construction techniques when David hit upon an idea for revision 2.1: adding water to each brick so that it would freee to a solid (and incredibly heavy) block of ice, which David hoped might help the fort last until Memorial Day."

Different kind of thinker, right?

Also from the book: After his college education, Tom writes: "David recognized that he had to start his own busienss. He knew he couldn't fit in a conventional workplace. he wasn't linear. his forte wasn't sitting down and working. Nor did David have the attention span to follow somebody else' direction. If he wanted to have a chance at success, he'd have to lead."

http://www.designinginteractions.com/interviews/DavidKelley

Tags: david kelley, design, dyslexia, dyslexic, education, engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, stanford

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Comment by Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide on October 27, 2011 at 6:44pm: Hi Michael, Maybe you should be an entrepreneur?

From Business Week: Why Dyslexics Make Great Entrepreneurs

Comment by Theresa on October 27, 2011 at 6:37pm: Michael,

That's so cool! My son doesn't do well on the standardized testing.

I would love to meet this professor. I agree that things in the way we educate kids needs to change. My son probably still doesn't know his times tables. When we tried to teach him, he did not see the use for it. But, he is an auditory learner and can recite a lecture verbatum when he listens to one.

The best of luck! You will go far!!!!

Comment by MIchael Egan on October 27, 2011 at 6:06pm: I wish I would have had the guts to do the same...while only mildly dyslexic, my thinking process is so foreign to my associates. Registering in the 99.7 Percentile of persons taking the GMAT exam, I have the uncanny ability to connect relationships that most people don't see, until they have been kicked in the butt as a result of not seeing the relationship...I struggle however to communicate how I know what I know...I am rarely wrong...