Creative Selection

This was a short, entertaining read. Alongside books like Creativity Inc. and Hit Refresh, Creative Selection gives unique insight into the culture and creative processes of one of the most successful companies to ever exist. It stands apart though, having not been written from the bird’s eye view of a top executive, but from an employee embedded deep within the organisation, giving the book a more nuanced perspective instead of merely preaching the ideal.

I find that there are two main points Kocienda aims to drive home: iterative demos and the idea behind creative selection. Demos are a consistent theme throughout the book. Kocienda starts off by recalling the unnerving experience of presenting a keyboard demo to Steve Jobs himself — a perspective we don’t read about often — and the hard work that comes after. Through recalling his other experiences, like creating the Safari web browser and developing the auto-correct feature for iOS, he pieces together the process of creative selection for readers to understand.

Creative selection involves the following steps: inspiration, collaboration, craft, diligence, decisiveness, taste and empathy. In other words, working at Apple is about innovating with other talented people, working hard and exercising good taste and judgement in your work. Kocienda emphasises that the process of creative selection was only defined in retrospect. Apple’s iterative nature allowed for creative selection to naturally form around their successes.

What I find most striking about Apple is the trust they place in themselves to know what their users want. Instead of conducting data-oriented tests like Google once did to decide to best shade of blue — which they can’t anyway due to their secrecy — Apple engineers use their taste, judgement and heuristics to make product decisions. While they might not always be right, it helps them to be decisive.

Kocienda clear and concise writing made it quite an easy read, taking me a total of three days to finish. He never fails to reemphasise his main ideas and key takeaways for each chapter, and for each concept he introduces he bundles with an engaging story that illustrates it well. I highly recommend this book to those curious about what actually goes on inside Apple, and maybe even those looking to for ways to improve their organisation’s creative process.

The book closes with a recount of the decline and eventual passing of Steve Jobs. It still surprises me when I read about just how much of a figurehead Steve Jobs was for Apple and the impact he made on all of his employees. Without a doubt, he too played a significant role in shaping creative selection.