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Tickling the Ivories
KAO: Out of conflict and apparent mistakes, a beautiful, coherent melody.
Photo by Peter Dasilva
The Economist magazine has called him “Mr. Creativity” and a “serial innovator.” A former keyboard player for Frank Zappa, John Kao (MBA 1982), an HBS faculty member from 1982 to 1996, holds an MD degree from Yale, is a film producer (sex, lies, and videotape), and is a prolific author. Founder and chairman of the San Francisco–based Institute for Large Scale Innovation, he advises corporations and governments on innovation, organizational transformation, and emerging technologies.
At a World Economic Forum presentation in January, Kao compared the innovation models of Apple (edited, intuitive, top-down) and Google (data-driven, reactive, bottom-up), noting that they highlighted “the archetypical tension in the creative process,” the New York Times reported (January 26, 2012). To illustrate the conflictive mix of discipline, creativity, and risk-aversion that contribute to innovation, Kao sat down at a piano and played improvisational jazz. According to a rapporteur at the session, Kao artfully demonstrated how “seemingly mistaken notes” can be “woven into one beautiful, coherent melody.”
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