I’m publishing this blog post to help every Apple Keynote user on the planet. I encountered this familiar problem last week when using the Keynote software last week: My text kept getting resized as I continued building my deck. A quick Google Search proves I shared this pain with countless users. 1,570,000 Google Search Results Pages (SERPs) can’t be wrong: (more…)
Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlendler and Rick Tetzeli is an outstanding book (especially if you’re an Apple Geek, Fanboy, and Investor like myself). Their book explains how Steve Jobs chose to adapt and transform his management style and behavior after Apple fired him in 1985. Fast Company’s April 2015 issue summarizes chunks of their book in the following articles:
Believe It or Not, Steve Jobs Reinvented Himself. Jobs learned from his management and behavioral failures. He successfully applied those lessons to reinvent himself in the second half of his career. Along the way, he and a crackerjack executive team transformed Apple into the world’s most valuable company. (more…)
Thank YOU. Publishing and writing for Social Media ReInvention Community Members brings me immense joy and fulfillment. I can’t thank you enough for your amazing support and generosity to read and share my content. Thank you of sticking with me for five and half years! Time’s flown by.
2014’s Most Popular Social Media ReInvention Blog Posts
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Your Turn
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
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Covering: A term used to describe the ways in which outside groups – women, minorities – try to cover up, minimize or disguise their difference. For women, this may manifest in any number of ways: never talking about domestic life, feigning an insincere interest in golf or football, steering clear of discussions on diversity.
Calculating: Research shows that women are just as willing to compete in a game if – and it’s a big if – they believe they have a good chance of winning. In the Olympics, women entered confident that they competed on a level playing field – on which they could, and did, win. At work, women are very good at gauging their chances, eschewing contests in which they’re likely to fail.
So the challenge for women isn’t that they lack competitiveness or drive. It’s that they are shrewd estimators of risk and therefore spend too much energy trying to fit in, instead of standing out. And one way not to stand out is not to look ambitious or to ask for stretch assignments that we might not get.
That Highlighted Quote Concerns Me
I’m a Dad and Uncle of Two Remarkable Daughters and Four Incredible Nieces. My daughters are still young (10 and 3 years old). Two nieces are in university (the other two are pre-high school and kindergarten). Every time I see them it’s a gift. Time vanishes as I see their personalities, self-image, and self-confidence transform.
Please Don’t Jump to Conclusions by this Article’s Title. My mission as a parent (and uncle) isn’t to develop the next Most Powerful Women in a Fortune Magazine Most Admired Company. My goal as a parent and role model (I hope a good one on both counts) is to guide and encourage my female loved ones to:
Choose To Stand Out
Define What Standing Out Means For Them
Make Smart Choices Leading to Healthy, Productive, Fulfilling, and Independent Lives and Careers
I Value Relationships with Women Who Stand Out
I Gravitate to Proactive and Strategic Thinkers. I’m grateful some of these smart, generous women provide their friendship and advice. Others, I have yet to earn the privilege of meeting face-to-face. I’m lucky they’ve granted permission to directly communicate via emails, social media, blog commenting, etc.
Building and nurturing these relationships are important to:
Benefit Each Other. I hope I help them as much as they help me.
Learn and Understand The Female Perspective. I don’t know what I don’t know. I seek first-hand experience from women I know and trust. That’s the only way I’ll be able to help my loved ones face situations when I have no frame of reference (like what Heffernan describes in her Fortune article).
6 C-Suite Traits Emerge Among Female Business Executives Who Stand Out
Forgive Me for Focusing on Business World Examples. I’m aware of success patterns in other fields such as the arts, healthcare, entertainment, and education. I’m a marketing and corporate strategy geek. My stock and trade: identifying and uncovering trends/patterns from multiple industries.
Here’s What I Observe. These are the patterns and traits I am going to advise my daughters and nieces to practice so they stand out:
They Practice the 4 R’s: Risk, Relentlessness, Resilience, and Reinvention
They Write With Purpose
They Possess the Courage to Speak Up
They Connect Others
They Deliver Generosity (with a Stick of Butter and a Smile)
They Fake It, Till They Become It
1. They Practice the Four R’s: Risk, Resilience, Relentlessness and Reinvention
I Read Those Words and Think of Julie Roehm. Julie embodiessafe is risky (and risky is safe). I’ve tracked Julie's career moves since 2005. She was THE Marketing Strategy Purple Cow of the automotive industry. She could have stayed in Detroit, but she took a risk in accepting a new challenge in the retail industry with Walmart.
It didn’t work.
I respect her for leaving an industry she knew like Coach Pat Summitt knows championships. If she stayed in Detroit, Julie could have continued making a great salary and building her sizable expertise and reputation. She took on a high-profile risk to learn if she could adapt and excel in a different corporate culture and industry (direct quote from a Fast Company 2009 article):
"I wanted to be able to show that I can adapt anywhere, I can do anything. The thing I learned about myself is that I'm not a full-on chameleon, and there's nothing wrong with that."
Julie Roehm Learned and Recovered from a HUGE Career Setback. That type of public, high-flyer mishap would have crushed most people. Not Julie.
Julie was Relentless. She Showed Up Everyday. I’m glad she did. I’d miss her marketing talent, charisma, and chutzpah if she didn't. All successful women (insert your definition of success here) understand and practice the power of reinvention. Here’s great advice from my reinvention hero — the brilliant Dorie Clark:
I’ll Counsel My Daughters and Nieces to Seek Out and Welcome that "I’m Afraid Feeling.” If they have that feeling, they’re on track to doing or making something important. If it doesn’t work out, I want them to have the self-confidence and awareness they WILL recover. Because, they’ll be wiser and smarter for attempting "whatever it was."
“How Can I Write Like That?” I ask that question every time I read and study Ann’s work. I can’t (and I wouldn’t expect my daughters and nieces to either). There can be only one.
Here’s Ann purpose for Everybody Writes (direct quote from page eight):
What’s harder is to find a book that functions for marketers as part writing and story guide, part instructional manual on the ground rules of ethical publishing, and part straight talk on some muscle-building writing processes and habits.
What’s also hard to find is a book that distills some helpful ideas about the craft of content simply and (I hope) memorably, framed for the marketer and businessperson, as opposed to say, the novelist or essayist or journalist.
I wrote this book because I couldn’t find what I wanted—part writing guide, part handbook on the rules of good sportsmanship in content marketing, and all-around reliable desk companion for anyone creating or directing content on behalf of brands.
I drew on this advice when I was a new research analyst and published less-than-rosy recommendations, when most of Wall Street was bullish and left me feeling exposed. I drew on it when senior executives of a couple of the companies I covered tried to have my boss fire me because they didn’t like that research. I drew on it when I was named Director of Research and we decided to take ourselves out of the investment banking business because we believed the client conflicts were too meaningful. And I drew on it in the recent market downturn, when my then-company and I disagreed on how to treat individual investors who had suffered investment losses from our products.
Those were important. But its greatest impact may have been in less-public ways. Early on, this advice enabled me to “find my voice.” There is plenty of research that shows women are less likely than men to speak up in business meetings or state their opinions;many report that it is because their upbringing conditioned them to not stand out and to wait their turn. But sometimes the meeting is over before their turn comes. Having the confidence that standing out need not be a point of shame – but indeed can be a point of pride, particularly for the right reasons – can make the world of difference….perhaps especially for us southern females.
Speaking Up Means Sharing Your Experiences to Help Others. Sallie’s LinkedIn Influencer Articles are vital in career development. I love her articles not only because her insights benefit me but also because her experiences guide me as a parent. Here are some of my fave Krawcheck Classics:
Sprinkled among every walk of life, in other words, are a handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances. They are Connectors.
Connectors are important for more than simply the number of people they know. Their importance is also a function of the kinds of people they know.
They are people whom all of us can reach in only a few steps because, for one reason or another, they manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches.
The point about Connectors is that by having a foot in so many different worlds, they have the effect of bringing them all together.
It isn’t just the case that the closer someone is to a Connector, the more powerful or the wealthier or the more opportunities he or she gets. It’s also the case that the closer an idea or a product comes to a Connector, the more power and opportunity it has as well.
Barb and Kathy are Living Proof of Who You Know is What You Know. They’rewickedsmart, resourceful, successful, and well-connected. They can talk to anyone about anything because each “has a foot in so many different worlds.” They understand the value (and discovery) of diversity in thought. When I lived in Chicago (Barb) and St. Louis (Kathy), they introduced me to different people I’d never meet on my own (or would have access to).
I’ve Never Forgotten Their Kindness and Generosity. If you’re a current or aspiring Chicago-based or St. Louis-based female executive who's serious about your business career, invest in yourself and build a relationship with either Barb or Kathy. I’ll advise my daughters and nieces to seek out the Barbs and Kathys.
Buy them lunch / breakfast and get to know them. Just don’t talk smack about the Chicago White Sox (Barb) or St. Louis Cardinals (Kathy) when you meet them…
From Zena Weist of Kansas City, I learned about helping others, “A stick of butter and a smile, and no need to pay me back.”
I Learned That From Zena Too. These past six months, I benefited from her advice, knowledge, and connections so I could follow through on an important career change. I hope my daughters and nieces will practice how Z gives away abundance (without keeping score). There’s an important lesson (and movement) Jeremiah observes in Silicon Valley that’s relevant to delivering generosity (direct quote from his article):
The Midwestern value of helping others without expecting reciprocation is best summarized by the “stick of butter and a smile” axiom when a neighbor is in need. Silicon Valley’s traditional come-get-mine attitude rewards the disruptors and the fiercest competitors. While San Francisco boasts that nearly one of every eight residents are millionaires, a vast majority are not living at middle class standards and are struggling just to get by. The potential for a backlash is rapidly increasing.
Be Like Z. I hope the backlash Jeremiah writes about never comes to fruition. We can prevent it from happening one "stick of butter and a smile" at a time.
6. They Fake It Till They Become It
Susan Kare’s Advice For Young Designers Applies to Any Woman with an Opportunity for a Stretch Assignment. Kare has two (2) simple rules for designers: 1) Fake It Tlll You Make It and 2) Design Never Really Changes. When Susan Kare applied applied for Apple’s first-ever graphic designer position, she worked at a furniture store. She prepared for her interview by studying graphic design books from the Palo Alto library (direct article quotes):
Having designed many of the Mac's early system fonts such as Chicago, the (original) San Francisco, Geneva, and Monaco, Kare is one of the pioneers of early digital typography. But when she first applied to Apple, she was pulling her type design qualifications out of thin air.
"I was working at a furniture store at the time, and I didn't know the first thing about designing a typeface," she told me. "But I'd studied graphic design, so I said, 'How hard can it be?'" So Kare went to the Palo Alto Library and took out a number of books on typography. "I even brought them to my interview to prove I knew something about type, if anyone asked!" she laughs. "I went into it totally green."
Think About That. If Susan Kare listened to The Resistance, she wouldn’t have achieved designer history. So if my daughters or nieces ever experience self-doubt, I’m going to tell them to have the self-confidence and self-belief to "fake it till they make it." Or, as Dorie Clark of Reinventing YOU, teaches: “Fake It Till You Become It.”
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. If you disagree, I would love to hear from you. I’m also here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
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Hi Social Media ReInvention Community Members! Apologies for not consistently posting our Sunday Brunch Edition. External circumstances prevented me from keeping up. I promise to do better job. I hope you celebrated blessed and happy Thanksgiving Holidays with loved ones and friends.
Here are your share-worthy links. Enjoy your Sunday Brunch!
1) CNET: How-To Video: Upgrade Your RAM on Your MacBook Pro. I upgraded the RAM on my MacBook Pro 15 this week. I suck as a do-it-yourselfer (DIY). I researched required steps and tools to lessen my anxiety and increase my confidence. The Result: I successfully upgraded my MacBook Pro 15 (late 2011) from 4MB to 8 MB of RAM (and she performs like a champ)!
As I type, I’m running seven (7) applications: iTunes, Google Chrome (with 12 tabs open), Apple Preview, MarsEdit, Finder, Evernote, and Dashlane. Here’s the content I found most helpful:
You’ll need a Phillips 00 screwdriver to unscrew the bottom panel. I paid a premium price for the iFixit 54 Bit Driver Kit because the magnetized screwdriver bits are HUGE in removing and reinserting the six (6) tiny screws on the back panel. There’s a reason I went to business school instead of medical school (HINT: I lack a surgeon's dexterity).
2) Fast Company: What Every Young Designer Should Know, From Legendary Apple Designer Susan Kare. Kare has two (2) simple rules for designers: 1) Fake It Tlll You Make It and 2) Design Never Really Changes. I personally relate to Rule #1. When she applied applied for Apple’s graphic designer position, she worked at a furniture store. She prepared for her interview by studying graphic design books from the Palo Alto library (direct article quotes):
Having designed many of the Mac's early system fonts such as Chicago, the (original) San Francisco, Geneva, and Monaco, Kare is one of the pioneers of early digital typography. But when she first applied to Apple, she was pulling her type design qualifications out of thin air. "I was working at a furniture store at the time, and I didn't know the first thing about designing a typeface," she told me. "But I'd studied graphic design, so I said, 'How hard can it be?'" So Kare went to the Palo Alto Library and took out a number of books on typography. "I even brought them to my interview to prove I knew something about type, if anyone asked!" she laughs. "I went into it totally green."
The 52-year-old often describes her job as "connecting the dots"–between GE's seven segments (Power & Water, Oil & Gas, Energy Management, Aviation, Transportation, Healthcare, Home & Business Solutions), its many markets, and between the company and the outside world. It's something Comstock regularly does as head of GE's sales, marketing, and communications, and in her management of the company's multi-billion-dollar Ecomagination and Healthymagination initiatives, dedicated to environmental and health care innovation respectively. In her travels and conversations with customers, she constantly scans for patterns. "When you're in this business, you see a lot of things," Comstock notes. "Marketers are in a great position to notice if something's happening in an industry like energy or healthcare."
Think About that Quote for a Moment. Beth Comstock explained how a great marketer’s expertise is a game changing asset in understanding and exploiting opportunity. Digital and social media marketing continues accepting the rap, “we can’t measure return on investment (ROI)!” Follow her advice and make the case of how not only your digital marketing efforts identify relevant opportunities but also how your expertise uniquely enables you (personally) to identify new business opportunities.
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
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Fingers Crossed, It Won’t Be the Last. Social Media ReInvention Community Members know of my excitement when LinkedIn Pulse published two other blog posts in the LinkedIn Pulse Social Media Category:
Thank You for Your Continuing Support! I published my first Social Media ReInvention blog post more than five (5) years ago. Time flew by.
Thank you for granting me permission to share with you my love of technology, digital marketing, social media strategy, personal reinvention, and writing.
Here’s a screen shot one of my closest friends sent me from his iPhone. Thank you for taking time to read and support my art:
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Apple’s 21st Century Innovation Model is SICC: Simplicity + Inclusion + ControI + Collaboration
SICC Rhymes with SICK (and means the cool kind, not the feeling ill kind). Charlie Rose published his Tim Cook conversations after Apple’s September 2014 introductions for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6+, Apple Pay, and Apple Watch. Their conversations reveal Cook’s strategic vision for Apple and The Apple Ecosystem. His ecosystem-driven strategy explains the rationale for two (2) major 2014 corporate decisions:
The IBM Strategic Alliance
The Beats Music and Beats Electronics Acquisition
Cook explains these major decisions within the context of these central themes:
Apple is about making great products enriching people’s lives.
Killer products (and experiences) are designed outcomes by integrating Apple’s hardware, software, and services.
Google is Apple’s primary competitor. Their respective battlefields are the Consumer and Corporate Ecosystems.
Steve Jobs’ DNA Runs Deep Through Apple (10:37 – 13:55). Steve Jobs legacy endures at 1 Infinite Loop.His Cupertino office remains untouched. His core values are imprinted throughout Apple product design.
“Unlike other companies, Apple’s objective is not to make larger product portfolios.”
“All of Apple’s major products could fit on this small table.” (in reference to Charlie Rose’s iconic interview set)
“It’s hard to edit. It’s hard to stay focused. The hard part is deciding what NOT to work on.”
Diversity in Thought Fuels Apple Innovation and Design (17:13 – 20:23). Cook’s leadership mission is ensuring Apple senior executives and team members collaborate at an incredible level. That mission begins with recognizing individuals who are historically strong Apple contributors. During this point in the conversation, Cook enthusiasically mentioned five to six senior executives (by first name) making considerable impacts during their Apple tenure — like Angela Ahrendts).
Brad Stone’sSeptember 2014 BloombergBusinessweek article highlights Cook’s moves to include new perspectives at Apple. From January 2014 to September 2014, Apple hired approximately 20 senior executives from multiple industries (direct quotes below):
Betting the Farm on The Apple Ecosystem. Cook’s strategic bet makes collaboration an Apple strategic imperative.Applesenior executives are functional experts who collectively work as a team. Horizontal product development enables integration of hardware, software, and services to produce a killer product. Cook explains (20:08 – 20:23; paraphrasing):
“Respecting, trusting, and complementing one another (in thought and skills) is what makes this all work.”
Collaboration may be a virtue, but Cook insists it’s more of a strategic imperative. Aligning thousands of employees is crucial now that “the lines between hardware, software, and services are blurred or are disappearing,” he says (Cook). “The only way you can pull this off is when everyone is working together well. And not just working together well but almost blending together so that you can’t tell where people are working anymore, because they are so focused on a great experience that they are not taking functional views of things.”
The result is only now becoming apparent with services that work across different Apple devices. Embedded in the iPhone 6 and the new iOS 8 and Mac OS X Yosemite operating system is a feature called Continuity, which lets users start an e-mail or some other task on their Mac, pick it up on their iPhone, and then move it to their iPad or even the Apple Watch.
(Cook continues) “We would never have gotten there in the old model. These new products are reminders of why we exist.
The things we should be doing at Apple are things that others can’t.”
Battle of the Ecosystems: Apple Versus Google — Consumer and Corporate
Google Is Apple’s Top Competitor (32:30 – 36:00). Cook’s answer to Rose’s “Who’s Your Competition?” question speaks volumes. He recognized Google twice during their conversation as Apple’s most formidable competitor.
He dismissed everyone else including Samsung and Amazon. Microsoft never entered the conversation.
“Lenovo has the expertise and track record to scale Motorola Mobility into a major player within the Android ecosystem. This move will enable Google to devote our energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefit of smartphone users everywhere.”
While acknowledging the China Mobile partnership is a “big deal” for Apple, he said (i.e., Isaacson) Google-Nest exemplifies the “amazingly strong integrated strategy that Google has to connect all of our devices, all of our lives, from our car, to our navigation system, to how our garage doors are going to open.”
Isaacson also pointed out that Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell will be joining Google as part of this deal. “Fadell was one of the team that created the iPod. He was very deep into the Apple culture … when Apple was so innovative.” To play catch-up, Cook has to think about what industry he wants to disrupt next, Isaacson said. “I think Steve Jobs would have wanted as the next disruptive thing to either have wearable-like watches or TV, an easy TV that you can walk into the room and say put on ‘Squawk Box’ … or disrupt the digital camera industry or disrupt textbooks.”
“We ought to see in 2014, Apple do something huge,” Isaacson said.
Does Apple Lag Behind Google? Global Market Share – Yep. Global Market Profitability – #HellNo
Tim Cook Wants the Apple Ecosystem to Command the Enterprise Market (22:26 – 25:37). Steve Jobs transformed our daily consumer lives. Cook wants to reinvent our daily professional lives. That’s the mission objective for uniting with IBM, a former adversary. Cook shared with Rose the following anecdotes (paraphrasing):
“We believe we can change the way people work at an enterprise level.”
“The vision is to fulfill the unmet needs of the industry verticals down to the granular specificity of the job itself.”
“We can change the way people work. We spend so much of our lives working.”
“The iPhone maker has worked closely with a group of startups, including ServiceMax and PlanGrid, that already specialize in selling apps to corporate America. The two people familiar with the plans, but who could not speak publicly about them, say Apple is already in talks with other mobile enterprise developers to bring them into a more formal partnership.”
A Play for The Enterprise Version of The Internet of Things? Sounds like it to me. Now, that would be both transformative and lucrative. Stay tuned. I’m looking forward to learning about the Apple-IBM alliance’s penetration and progress after Q1 2015 (even more than the Apple Watch Launch).
“The creative genius of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre.”
“Iodine’s deep knowledge of the entertainment vertical (i.e., music industry)”
“Dr. Dre knows artists and is an artist.”
Cook Recognizes Remarkable Human Centered Design (HCD) When He Sees It, Hears It, and Feels It. Cook shared with Rose how “not all subscription services are alike.” His enthusiasm in describing Beats Music after experiencing it himself is palpable (paraphrasing):
“Beats recognized the importance human curation can make in how you feel and experience something.”
The story behind the deal is much more nuanced, however. It’s not just about those tangible assets (referring to Beats’ headphone and streaming music platform), but rather a really big bet on capabilities—especially in product development, marketing, and branding. The fact that Beats has achieved a 59 percent share of the high-end headphone market in the United States and launched a high growth, buzz-worthy streaming service demonstrates the power of HCD principles at work.
Apple is well positioned to accelerate this momentum, given its own commitment to HCD.
Shunning Not-Invented-Here (NIH) Critics: Does It Matter in the Long Run How Apple Sources Innovation?
Cook’s critics point to the Beats acquisition as a leading indicator of Apple’s inevitable demise because it “no longer innovates from within.” Nonsense.
”WE WERE the first company to be selected No. 1 seven years in a row. My plan is that we’ll be the first company to bounce back.”
So says Dr. P. Roy Vagelos, CEO of Merck, no longer America’s most admired corporation. A year of economic turbulence, plus a far more extensive survey of companies, has produced a new crop at the top, with half of America’s ten most admired corporations newcomers to that elite group.
The long-reigning king is deposed, relegated to No. 11.
“Merck’s scientific excellence had long inspired admiration and envy; corporate leaders voted it America’s Most Admired Company in Fortune from 1987 to 1993. By the early part of this decade, however, Merck was finding it difficult to turn its science into new, profitable medicines. In Merck’s case, there was a unique element added to what was an industrywide drought.”
“Merck was so pleased and proud to be Merck that its research culture had become haughty and insular. The company refused to consider medicines discovered outside its own labs and spurned the mergers and research alliances that were reshaping the industry.”
“By late 2004, Kim had overseen a new system that allows scientists to mine scientific literature to identify promising chemical compounds. He also encouraged Merck scientists to use their connections to open doors for Merck’s acquisitions department
“In 1999, Merck entered into just ten collaborative licensing deals; by 2006, there were 53 joint-development transactions and small acquisitions.”
10 years passed before Merck transformed its strategic thinking towards developing and accessing innovation. In three (3) short years, Cook’s decisiveness and focus proves what happened to Merck will not happen under his “Apple Watch” as CEO.
Diversity in Thought (with a Capital D): Innovation Isn’t ONLY From Within Apple Anymore
The Tim Cook Leadership Era Means the “I” in Innovation Means “Inclusion Inspires.” That cultural pillar extends far beyond sexual orientation. He’s driving cultural and strategic shifts at Apple to sustain and grow a core Jobs-Apple value (10:37 – 12:04): “To Be the Best.”
When Your Competitor is “The Most Ambitious CEO in The Universe,” You Better Continue Reinventing and Transforming. Talent isn’t enough. Company culture drives innovation and competitive advantage.
Here are two amazing books on the significant impact of company culture:
Final Thoughts: Blocking Out the Noise and Questioning Conventional Wisdom
Will Tim Cook Continue Being Criticized for Not Being Steve Jobs? Yes. When you succeed an icon and legend, that’s a given. But, Cook won’t blink twice. He described to Rose his skill in “blocking out and filtering the noise.” (20:59 – 22:05)
Tim Cook Bets His Legacy and the Apple Ecosystem on “The Corporate Internet of Things.” That’s a massive pivot for a company whose past successes are rooted in consumer fanaticism. But, Cook has no interest in “following the herd.” Cook described to Rose why he decided to leave Compaq and join Apple in 1998(36:13 – 37:00; paraphrased):
“Well I’m just thinking I’m going to meet him and all of a sudden he’s talking about his strategy and his vision (i.e., Jobs), and what he was doing was going 100 percent into consumer. When everybody else in the industry had decided you couldn’t make any money on consumers so they were headed to services and storage and enterprise. And I thought, I’d always thought that following the herd was not a good thing, that it was a terrible thing to do right? You’re either going to lose big, or lose, but those are the two options.”
“He was doing something totally different.” (referring to Jobs)
Not Following the Herd. Questioning Conventional Wisdom. Being the Best. Sounds a lot like:
Photo Credit: Apple Website on October 5, 2011
Your Turn
Thank you for taking time to stop by. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. If you disagree, I would love to hear from you. I’m also here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
Ellopositions itself as the anti-Facebook. No advertising. No user-tracking. And, no data re-selling to advertisers. Clean, minimalist, zero-clutter, user-interface. Invitation-only.
Martin highlights important, missing features in the launch release (e.g., like/favorite/+1 type button, search ability to locate friends, etc.).
I'm working on securing an invite so I can test-drive Ello. Will keep you posted.
I'm a visual person. Post-It(R) Notes are my storyboarding savior (colleagues say I have an illness and should seek professional help).
The app allows users to digitize their Post-It(R) Notes from brainstorming and storyboarding sessions. There's a 50 note limit for the image capture.
You can share, rearrange, categorize, and build additional storyboards with the app. Users can export the digital session into other tools (e.g., Evernote, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.).
This first version doesn't allow changing the names on the Post-its(R) once they're digitized (but future iterations will probably include this improvement).
The app requires updating to iOS 8. Yes, I endured a 2+ hour update session for my iPhone 5c so I could use Post-it(R) Plus tomorrow at work (which is why I require professional help).
3) TechCrunch: Closing The Gaps In Mobile Health.Dan Pelino's piece describes the IBM-Apple value proposition and long term implications of the Apple econsystem in a real-world example. Look out healthcare this strategic alliance wants to disrupt your industry. Their solutions will focus on physicians and patients.
(direct article quote) Many doctors already have smartphones with 68 percent using iPhones and 59 percent using iPads.
Collaboration inside Apple among hardware, software, and services. Departments worked in their own silos and defended turfs in the Steve Jobs era. Apple Watch marks the first product launch where multiple departments and large teams worked together. The renegade teams who broke off from the rest of the company and operated in secrecy are history.
The turning point – firing Scott Forstall. Forstall led software development for the iPad and iPhone under Steve Jobs. Cook broadened responsibilities among his top leaders. Jony Ive (Apple's Head of Design) assumed leadership of the look/feel of Apple iOS while Craig Federighi (Senior VP for Software Engineering) took mobile operating systems. Stone notes: "It was a plan designed to break down walls and extinguish infighting, executed with precision."
Financial discipline. Stone writes: "In meetings once devoted to the hallowed act of reviewing products, he (Tim Cook) asks managers pointed questions about spending and hiring projections, says a person involved. Staff from finance and operations now sit alongside engineers and designers in product road map sessions with key component partners."
Collaboration with external partners to penetrate untapped markets (aka the enterprise / large corporations). Anecdotes from IBM CEO, Ginni Rometty, and Cook's rationale for their partnership are gold.
Give them information to make their own decisions. They trust their own research via an information journey. "You can't scare them into behavior."
Recongnize millennials are a "multi-screen generation." They consume information via their smartphones, tablets, laptops, and print magazines. Make sure your content "syncs up."
Be honest and transparent. Millennials trust social sources. Channel-optimize your message and explain the brand/service benefits.
Season One is ten (10) individual garage experiments. Seinfeld wanted to test his theories on attracting online audiences for a new show (e.g., movement of the guests, movement of the cars, etc.). He guessed on what might work (or might not). He wanted to learn from the experience.
Seinfeld ignored all the digital marketing experts and gurus who told him "the magical number" for online video length is 5 minutes. He ignored their advice. Most Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee episodes last at least 10+ minutes. David Letterman's episode goes for 18 minutes.
The original episodes weren't written or optimized for smartphone viewing. Seinfeld produced the show for desktop viewing. Analytics proved people watched the show at work on their laptops/desktops via time of day viewing.
He pitched the show to Facebook, YouTube, and other Silicon Valley royalty. They passed.
Four (4) people create, produce, and edit the show (Seinfeld included). Production costs are $100,000 per episode. The Internet allows Seinfeld creative freedom a cable network won't provide. That's why he enjoys doing the work.
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