John Maeda

How will American students remain competitive today, tomorrow, fifty years from now? How will they stay on the leading edge of innovation in a hyper-competitive world? President Obama’s education initiatives had focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math as the path to innovation and a robust economy. But, John Maeda says, these so-called “STEM” subjects will only get us so far. In this passionate, refreshing, and deftly argued talk, John posits that we need to add “Art” to turn “STEM” into “STEAM.” The arts teach us to empathize, to create, to collaborate, and—perhaps most importantly—to humanize. Through a personal exploration of his journey from MIT to the U.S.’s leading art and design college, John argues that critical thinking, critical making, and creative leadership can lead us to an enlightened form of innovation—one where art, design, technology, and business meet. The role of designers and artists is changing and expanding; what we learn from how they work, how they process, and how they think will help drive innovation—the engine of our economy—in the critical years ahead.

With ever more complex technology, instant communication, social media, and big data coming at us, we live in times that beg for simplicity to have meaningful discussions, make better decisions, and have others be genuinely informed. At the MIT Media Lab, John showed how design can simplify technology and help make our connections to each other more meaningful. And as Design Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Silicon Valley, he demonstrated that design can redefine leadership and be a powerful force in helping leaders navigate their competing priorities, agendas, and relationships. In this talk, he shows that in an age where anyone can friend the CEO, leaders need new tools that leverage the power of design and data to make them better informed and more effective communicators.

Over the last few decades, we’ve been conditioned to buy “better” computing technology—where “better” has meant faster, larger, cheaper. But between 2008 and 2009, while a global financial crisis took hold, something miraculous happened in the technology world. Smartphones had just started to become commonplace, and the first mass-consumerization of computing was officially underway. Computing used to be for the un-cool—the nerds—but after mobiles took hold, they’ve become an everyday fixture in modern life. The old way of making technology products for techies, by creating a technology and spraying design on at the end, is no longer sufficient. Tech companies now need to start with design, and not just end with it.

When designer and computer scientist John Maeda was tapped to be president of the celebrated Rhode Island School of Design in 2008, he went from being a professor—free to speak his mind against “the man”—to being “the man.” Asked if he has stopped designing, John replied (via Twitter) “I’m designing how to talk about/with/for our #RISD community.” John’s creative nature makes him a different sort of leader—one who prizes honest critique and learning how to “productively fail.” In this candid, entertaining, and instructive talk, John uses perspectives from his various backgrounds—as an artist and designer, a technologist, and a professor—to discuss new leadership lessons he learned taking the helm at RISD months before the Great Recession. What are the opportunities and the limits of using social media in the new networked organization? What does leadership even look like today? And how can we adapt and move forward in our ever-changing innovation economy?