Steve Jobs

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Apple, biography, design, jobs, open system, product, Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson

Recently I have finished a biography of Mr. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. Now, you may know that I don’t like Apple (or at least I don’t like their approach to customers). Reading that book only convinced me that I am right, but I suppose there will be millions of people out there who will think differently. It’s OK.

I tried very hard not to be biased when reading, but I couldn’t help thinking that Jobs was a… well… how to say it? OK – in my opinion only, from reading this book and not knowing him personally, he was a prick. I would not want to know him as a human being, and I would not really want to work with him, despite all the hype.

The beginning of Apple lies in stealing an idea from Xerox and making it better (as much as the beginning of Windows lie in stealing an idea from Apple). Then this “making things better” strategy coupled with close system approach to business is what made Apple what they are today. Competition with Windows – and later Google – is what shaped the computer business, as those two companies preferred open system strategies.

We can of course draw some lessons from Jobs: attention to detail, fanatic obsession with a product and all things (design, software and hardware) related to it, conviction in decision making and having beliefs which made making those decisions easier and shorter. Consequence in approach and perseverance in getting your idea through to other people. Imagination and freedom to experiment. Ability to see so-called big picture while taking care of small details – and many others. He did, after all, change the shape of music business, created app industry worth billions today – so he was not all that bad. For all those things, he has my respect and admiration. Because of those things, I doubt really if anyone else at Apple now can walk in his shoes. Can this person come up with more products or services in Jobs style? Small hint – you want to know what is coming, check Apple patent filings…

The book though, somewhat indirectly, teaches us something about ourselves. Apple would not be the company it is today if we, as consumers, did not purchase its products. Why do we prefer to be led by our noses instead of having freedom of managing own data, viewing content without limits, or setting or connecting our devices to whatever we want? Are we so lazy or so stupid? Or maybe both?

 

Humility

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creativity, development, idea, presentation, product

Yesterday evening I had my product idea shot down by a group of influential people in my organisation. The arguments were good and it was apparent that I didn’t do my homework and didn’t properly thought the idea through. A lesson in humility for me.

But the experience was not all bad. It was good to be able to actually discuss the idea, not be handed a note saying no. It was good to see people trying to make something out of it, add something on top of it, instead of ridiculing it. They had every opportunity to do so, but they didn’t. For that I am grateful.

I got my lesson and I hope that I will learn from it for the future. One more thing is important – the experience (although not easy) did not leave me angry or mad or anything. In short, it will not stop me from trying to come up with more. I hope that it will help me to do it better.

Secondly, I think it is almost impossible to come up with something good today on your merry own. The ideas need to be built from other ideas. Thinking fuels thinking (or maybe I should say, creativity fuels creativity). No matter – on your own, it is very difficult to get through the maze of possible scenarios, your own relation to your idea makes you blind to some twists and turns. I liked the team play, I think that it can work wonders.

What the World Is Coming To?

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product, service, skills, technology, wholesale

I noticed that a lot of things, which were complicated to do or required certain skills to produce, are being offered wholesale. Examples? Have a look at the shelves in your favourite supermarket: pizza pie, french cake, various “do it yourself” cakes, ready to grill marinated meats… Digital cameras have pre-set programs so you can shoot perfect portrait every time and then you can feed the related file into software which will remove red eyes by a push of another button. Cloud computing slowly replaces a need for in-house IT divisions. Cars can no longer be repaired in your home garage. Electronic calculators freed us from having to know basic mathematical functions, text messages replaced letters and handwriting became a chore.

Many people say that all those changes are coming with the wave of innovation and improvement, I say that this is a part of a vicious spiral of idiocy. The more products or services requiring specialised skills and knowledge are being offered wholesale, the less people are having skills needed to produce them. Consider computers: at the beginning, every one of us old farts could write simple code (Basic) on Atari or Commodore. Then those were replaced by desktops and you needed more skills to write or do anything on new machines – number of people knowing what to do was reduced. Further reduction came with IT departments. Now cloud will kill those too.

This is the paradox of numbers I see here – the more “skill rich” products are on offer, the less are people out there with those skills. I think that this is what leads to general stupidity of fellow humans, loss of jobs, etc. Why learn certain skills if products or services requiring those are offered wholesale?

Where all this leads to? After all, 5 people with baking skills can create a formula for a cake, which then will be produced for billions of humans. What will happen though if those 5 will die? We will use their recipe. And if that will disappear?

Hmmm…