People Wit

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So what do three decades of consistently amazing industrial design teach us? At least eight things:

■ Form follows function. Except when it leads function, or runs alongside it.

Apple sometimes observes the time-honored maxim of form following function. And other times, including some of Apple’s biggest successes, form dictates function, or at least is a coequal.

Finding the future isn’t enough.

You also have to deliver it. Steve Jobs’s relentless perfectionism is the medium that brings the future to life. No, he’s not easy to work with, but he delivers.

■ If your product is inherently scary, go to great lengths to make it look friendly.

The personal computer, as Jobs saw it, had to look like a consumer appliance to win over the consumer. Even the most exotic Apple products are, at heart, appliances.

■ Even a know-it-all doesn’t necessarily know it all. Even a genius know-it-all.

A compelling vision can be blinding. Sometimes the visionary needs a little myopia around just to keep good options open.

■ How to become an aesthete: pay attention, and get help.

Study the world around you, and hire a good coach. Start with the classical center, and work your way out toward the avant-garde

edges. Be aware that you’ll begin as a conservative (a fan of, say, Victorian-era gingerbread), and get wackier over time (becoming,

say, a fan of Frank Gehry).

■ Don’t go halfway with your aesthetic.

Go all the way. The great design companies of the world build their brands through a relentless application of their aesthetic. Go for broke.

■ If you know what they want, give it to them. Ignore the skeptics.

The boo-birds are always out there. If your gut is talking— and if your gut has a reasonable track record—follow your gut.

■ Innovate, but don’t force it.

Otherwise, you’ll wind up with a mouse that looks—and works—like a hockey puck. Take their breath away, but as a result of their cursing at you.

Source : The Apple Way. 12 Management Lessons from the World’s Most Innovative Company. Jeffrey L. Cruikshank.McGraw-Hill. 2006