Tom Peters Quotes

At MakerBot, we joke that if we were engineers we would still be on our first prototype. There's something about just 'Doing it”iteration is a way of engineering.

There's the famous quote that if you want to understand how animals live, you don't go to the zoo, you go to the jungle. The Future Lab has really pioneered that within Lego, and it hasn't been a theoretical exercise. It's been a real design-thinking approach to innovation, which we've learned an awful lot from.

We built the iPod in weeks. It had to be what I thought it was going to be because there wasn't time for endless refinements.

I ended up going to do a matches program at the state for industrial design. And from there, I got hired at IDEO to joint their design team there - and basically, you are starting as an industrial designer to design products - and then kept asking the question, 'What else can design accomplish? What else can design do?'

There's a lot of buzz words in the business world these days - Design thinking, innovation, fast-failure, disruption, cross-functional leadership - and at the heart of every one of these concepts is the ability for people to make small moves forward, learn, iterate.

Start with something simple and small, then expand over time. If people call it a 'toy' you're definitely onto something.

I knew a lot about product design before coming to Apple, but I didn't understand a lot about consumer experience design, which is really Apple's forte.

There are two different types of prototyping. First, the gut sense. You know how far you can take it. Second, you need experts to figure out whether or not it is attainable.

I'm not a designer, I'm an inventor.

I'm an investor in MakerBot, which is a good example of the 'thingiverse'. The idea of applying collaboration and rapid iteration to things that we interact with and hold in our hands every day is super revolutionary.

It is sad that so many designers don't know how to make. CAD software can make a bad design look palatable! It is sad that four years can be spent on a 3D design course without making anything! People who are great at designing and making have a great advantage.

Manufacturing is more than just putting parts together. It's coming up with ideas, testing principles and perfecting the engineering, as well as final assembly.

I spend my money on my props and my creations. I'm an inventor.

I'm an inventor.

I have a strong sense that every project is an invention, which is not a word I hear being used in architecture courses.

Design and technology should be the subject where mathematical brainboxes and science whizzkids turn their bright ideas into useful products.

My work is more about trying to ask good questions and not trying to come up with big shows. Every fashion company is doing that, every car company is doing that.

We very much use a prototyping model, play with ideas, and then get stuff started that way, which is how the greatest projects get started.

I have always just made things. I don't see what I make as being defined by a medium or aesthetic. It probably comes more from a fundamental restlessness, an attempt to create tools for questioning or understanding, and I have always been interested in using a wide spectrum of mediums to do this.

We have no general conceptual thrust for the band, other than trying to make music that keeps our interest. When things are novel, they are probably things we have discovered by accident or investigation rather than by design.

Ideas must be put to the test. That's why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realisation. I've had what I thought were great ideas that just didn't work.

We struggle with the right words to describe the design process at Apple. But it is very much about designing and prototyping and making.

I deal with creativity all the time. What I have fun with is trying to transform creativity into business reality all over the world. To do this, you have to be connected to innovators and designers but also make their ideas livable and concrete.

My focus is incredibly narrow. I can't talk with any authority other than design and development of product.

The reason why the Wright brothers were successful wasn't because they had the most resources, but because they understood how invention works. You have to iterate quickly, and you should be prepared to fail. Because things often don't go as planned.