Behind a Steve Jobs Keynote 424
Shree writes "The Guardian has an article about what it takes to prepare that smooth Steve Jobs-style keynote. When Steve launches iPhoto and says 'here we have 5000 or so photos', he actually means here we have 5000 or so carefully picked photos ... " From the article: "Objectively, Apple Computer is a mid-sized company with a tiny share of its primary market. Apple Macintoshes are only rarely seen in corporate environments, and most software companies don't even offer Apple-compatible versions of their products. To put it another way, Apple is just bit larger than Cadbury-Schweppes and about the same size as Nike or Marks and Spencer in terms of annual sales. Such comparisons come up short in trying to describe Apple's place in the world of business, because they leave out a key factor: Steve Jobs."
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Interesting)
He's like the CEO equivalent of Paris Hilton: everyone's sure he's famous, no one's really sure what he's famous FOR. No really, there a ton of sex tapes going around the internet - that's not enough to make someone famous. As far as I can tell Paris got famous because she was famous. As far as I can tell, Jobs is famous for the same reason: because he's famous.
-stormin
Comparison with Nike and M&S is specious (Score:5, Interesting)
I also don't understand why he appears to suggest that announcements made by the CEOs of other companies are scrutinised by brokers and other analysts. It was interesting to see all the work that goes into Jobs' presentations, but I think the author of the article was over-egging the importance of these presentations by attempting to diminish the size of Apple's importance and comparing the impact of the announcements to those made by other similarly sized companies. A bit dishonest I feel
Showmanship and Attention to Detail (Score:5, Interesting)
Source: 500 Days at the Helm: The Rise and Fall of Gil Amelio [lowendmac.com] by Tom Hormby
Re:and what a job he does... (Score:4, Interesting)
*Buying opportunity!
I know why he's famous.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider this example: The original iMac had no floppy drive and used USB ports instead of ADB. People *howled*, but time has proven him right...the iMac did more to jumpstart widespread adoption of USB than anything else (I had two PCs that had USB ports that went to the junkyard without ever having been used). On top of everything else, I'm sure companies did a good business for awhile selling ADB-to-USB converters and USB-based floppy drives.
Jobs is the only guy who has the cajones to risk alienating everyone to push the tech world further, and the world always catches up. *That* is why he is deservedly famous.
BTW, contrast this to Wozniak who is also decidely famous, but as the wizard who made it all work. It's too bad the two of them didn't collaborate on more things...maybe those warp drives wouldn't be so far off after all...
Re:It's the industry, folks (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:5, Interesting)
Steve Jobs initially became famous over twenty years ago for leading the company who developed the, then, most successful microcomputer of its generation, the Apple II. He then pushed his boundaries of fame with the whole Macintosh / 1984 commercial thing and became seen as a visionary and leader of the industry. This was no accident or coincidence.
He then bankrolled and managed (in the business sense, rather than creatively) Pixar for many years, eventually engineering a clever IPO and became a centimillionaire in the process (and now a billionaire).
To compare Steve Jobs to Paris Hilton is ridiculous. Jobs has put in a lot of hard work, a lot of money, and run himself ragged on his route to success.. he was no overnight sensation.
Welcome to the Corporate Meeting industry (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, a lot of companies have Really Dull Meetings, but some others are much like the "Jobs Model." Slick, professionally-produced presentations, lots of cool videos and music, light shows, several HDTV-level projection screens, 100 kilowatt sound systems, and expensive pro talent to help entertain the crowd between product demos.
You also get stuff like Larry Ellison rappelling down from the ceiling of the ballroom, the head of a soft drink company crashing a golf cart through a frangible projection screen, rotating platforms for the audience (to turn them to different stages) for another soft drink company, or any of a hundred different Big Show stories.
You also get the Big Disasters when they don't prepare right. Like the above-mentioned rotating platforms not turning when the weight of the crowd is actually on them, or a full-sized luxury car on a raft in a lake doing a quick 180 degree roll and ending up suspended under water...
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Showmanship and Attention to Detail (Score:4, Interesting)
If you are simply trying to convey information, then working from an outline is fine, since you can move sentences and phrases around and still deliver the same content.
If you are trying to elicit a specific emotional response, then you *must* script it out, down to the length of the pause between phrases and when to nod your head. In theatre, a ton of time is spent on "blocking"... establishing where to stand when saying one line, when to move to another mark for the next line, wether the emotional impact of the line is better if delivered facing stage right vs. house right, etc. All of this stage business will either enhance or detract from the emotional impact of your lines.
You simply cannot effectively manipulate the emotional response of your audience by going out there are winging it. Jobs isn't trying to simply introduce a new product - any marketroid could do that. He's trying make people fall out of their chairs with excitement at sight of the new product. A standing ovation in the room is what builds excitement, word of mouth, brand loyalty and market impact. A round of polite applause heralds a product with no lasting impact.
It's all about Steve (Score:3, Interesting)
And it works. Whatever is announced, the Apple Store will be swamped with pre-orders for it, and I will again be amazed at his ability to tempt me to pull my credit card out of my wallet and click on store.apple.com.
(Fortunately, I'm poor enough to resist, but I sure feel the tug!)
Geoff
Re:It's Not "Tiny" Marketshare: Here's why (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.systemshootouts.org/mac_sales.html [systemshootouts.org]
(scroll down past the 2 charts at the top)
Now, when it comes to installed base, I believe Macs are much higher, something like 8-10% or so, though I don't have solid proof of this (I think PC Mag did a study a couple of years ago which determined that Macs usually average a 5-7 year 'usable life' as opposed to 3-5 years for PCs, which would explain the higher installed base numbers)
Re: only a 2.3% market share (Score:3, Interesting)
Roughly 6th is about right and I'd guess they are within a few percentage points of being 4th. So when claims about top-ten PC shipments are made by the media and research firms, Apple should be in the top-ten. They are not because they specifically exclude Apple. Intention is impossible to establish. (Where's my tinfoil hat?)
The picture for Apple is only getting better. Now, with Longwait coming the fanboy hype is going to drown out the good work Apple and OSS is doing for an utterly mediocre product, but so what.
BTW, I don't even own a Mac though personally I quit windows a couple of years ago. Every client I've switched has only been happier for the change. I don't generate more money moonlighting by recommending Macs, but I get plenty of referrals as a result.
Insightful article... (Score:2, Interesting)
Nevertheless, It is an important aspect of post 1997 Apple, with all their products being released in this fashion, and I guess its important for them to spend so much time rehearsing things - after all, they can't afford to have Gates' fiasco at the Windows 98 launch (When the printer crashed the system on being plugged in!). But whats interesting is that Jobs comes across as a stickler for personalization and perfection - which in my opinion is commendable, when you're holding a job which can often lead to overlooking the finer aspects of things.
No wonder Apple products set the industry standard in terms of looks, design and most of all, presentations.
Re:Yes, blame Bill Gates. (Score:4, Interesting)
In my opinion, Bill Gates is to be blamed... They are the result of Bill making money the center of his whole life. They are the result of his sneaky aggressive behavior.
Money is clearly not the center of Bill Gates life. If it was, he wouldn't be the biggest philanthropist of all time. This doesn't make him a saint (he may be in it for fame and ego) but it does indicate that money isn't his only idol. You quick assertion that it is indicates to me that you - like many of us - are quick to oversimplify and lay far more blame than can really be laid at the foot of corporate figureheads.
Note that Bill Gates suffers from depression. This is exactly what you would expect of a man who has spent his entire adult life acting out sneaky aggression. It's all fun and games to paint demonic horns and a tail on Bill, but in all seriousness you continue to indicate this desire - universal to humans - to live in a universe that is neat and tidy. Things happen because they are someone's fault, people's actions can be explained by their character - which is itself simple and comprehensible.
The points I'm questioning are bigger than either Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. It has to do with the way that we manufacture celebrity for celebrity's sake - just as we manufacture notoriety for notoriety's sake.
The truth is that sometimes things happen not "just because", but for a variety of reasons that are so complex that there's really no better explanation. A multi-billion dollar business is an incredibly complex structural organization. Of course a CEO can set the tone - it's about leadership. Steve Jobs appears to be a leader. But how much do you think that leadership translates directly into "cool new products?"
I think that there's a ton of luck that goes into it as well. I imagine there are probably many people who could do what Steve is doing, but who will never be in that position (and probably suck in whatever position they are in now because they don't have the temperment for it).
-stormin
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Interesting)
Steve Jobs was likely just about as brilliant, full of leadership, etc. in the 1980s as he is now. I'm sure he's grown and changed some, but for the sake of argument let's say he's roughly the same person. Yet in the 1980s very few people knew who Stever Jobs was. Now a lot of people know who he is. Clearly, then, to a large degree his fame is not a result of who he is.
So the second possibility is that the fame is a result not of who he is, but of what he has done. Clearly Apple is more successful (in terms of public perception) than NeXT. Fine, but the question is why? I'd say there are two problems. 1 - I'm skeptical that Steve's influence on Apple is that pervasive. Do you think that if you were an engineer you'd go from creating something like the Rio to something like the iPod just because Steve was now your boss's boss's boss's boss? 2 - Even if Steve was responsible for development of the creation of the specific products (which I doubt) the fact that those products are so important to our society now and at this time is something entirely out of Steve's control. He didn't invent MP3s, he didn't influence America's deeply materialistic culture, etc. etc.
What this all demonstrates is that there is a whole barrage of reasons for Steve Jobs fame that have nothing to do with who he is or what he specifically did. And yet we attribute the success of Apple to him anyway because he's the man in front. And we, as people, like to have things clear cut. We like to be able to blame the incredibly complex system that goes into a major corporation on the behavior, quality, and decisions of men and women that we'll never even meet in person for 5 minutes.
What does this have to do with Paris? People like celebrity in and of itself, not just celebrity for something. People like to turn individuals into icons. Sometimes a buzz becomes self-sustaining (nothing draws a crowd like a crowd). All of these factors, I believe, have a lot more to do with what we think of Steve than Steve himself personally does.
-stormin
Re:Non-techie running a tech company (Score:3, Interesting)
"Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you're doing." -- Steve Jobs
"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste, and what that means is - I don't mean that in a small way I mean that in a big way. In the sense that they they don't think of original ideas and they don't bring much culture into their product...and you say why is that important - well you know proportionally spaced fonts come from type setting and beautiful books, that's where one gets the idea - if it weren't for the Mac they would never have that in their products...so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success - I have no problem with their success, they've earned their success for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third rate products." -- Steve Jobs
I've seen the show live...and in color (Score:3, Interesting)
Steve, at the time, had a real hard-on for stuff that WASN'T another spreadsheet, word processor, etc. (although everyone loved the hell out of Lotus Improv and that was definitely Steve's baby) so we were one of the companies selected to show our stuff in San Francisco in Septmember of 1990.
This was the event where the NeXT Dimension color card for the Cubes was introduced, along with the NeXTStation pizza-box, and of course, NeXTStep 2.0.
We were in the building for 3 or 4 days before the big show getting our stuff working on almost hourly new builds of the OS.
So, more than a few of us took breaks and watched Steve rehearse his presentation. Trust me, he leaves nothing to chance...nothing. His air of casualness is the result of lots or preparation and practice.
He absolutely IS a showman, but he's also unquestionably, undeniably brilliant.
People remember the Apple IIe and the first (1984) Mac, but forget the Lisa. That "girl" was one of the greased skids for showing Steve the door. Not because it failed, but because Steve wanted about 500 million to 1 billion to build a better machine like it...the NeXT. No, that wasn't its name...but the idea was already there. The board balked, he got the bum rush from his own company.
NeXTStep was/is Mac OS/X. Avi Tevanian was at NeXT, he's Chief Scientist or something at Apple now. Testified at the Microsoft anti-trust trial, etc.
Steve didn't write the MACH kernel or bolt on BSD primitives and Display PostScript to NeXTStep, but damn sure knew what people to recruit and hire to get it done. And then took them back to Apple.
Considering that the Lisa and the seminal ideas for NeXTStep came about around 1985-86...about the time OS/2 and Windows were being created, I'd say the current state of the Mac OS and Windows shows the man ain't too stupid.
No, I am not a Mac fanatic. I have more PC hardware than NeXT and Mac hardware. I'm pretty much agnostic on this stuff...been doing it too long to be religious about any of it these days.
The point is that there's a whole lot to the guy doing the keynotes at MacWorld.
Steve is cool.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:3, Interesting)
You've obviously not met the right people. I can't recall if I've actually met Jobs (he certainly wouldn't know me), but I once sat two places down from him at a lunch with a small group, and have been in some relatively small audiences when he spoke, and some relatively large audiences of course. I'm generally a very negative person, I nit-pick movies to death and am a really unfortunate person to sit next to in an audience. That said, Jobs definitely has that reality-distortion field. When you hear him talk, you believe. In a smaller group, you believe even more. It's really amazing, and it's something I've not really experienced with any other famous speaker.
Often enough, though, a half hour later you're out in the lobby talking to your colleagues, and you're wondering what the heck that was all about. When he manages to combine the Jedi Mind Trick with actual substance, it's really amazing to behold. He manages this often enough to keep Apple going. There are enough great hits that it keeps a certain segment of people coming back time and again, hoping that this hit will be the one.
[Personally, though I sometimes flirt with going back into the fold, I've been ex-NeXT/Apple for 7 years and counting. I eventually got sick of the manipulation.]
And don't kid yourself that he's just a pretty face for the company: Jobs makes things happen. Some of them are good things, some of them are bad things, but he motivates people to get stuff done, and that's why it all works.
Re:Not surprising. That's what Jobs does. (Score:4, Interesting)
Amelio didn't make great product decisions, and it certainly took Jobs, the iMac, etc. to get Apple back into public favor.
But Amelio, not Jobs, was the real financial savior of the company. When he was hired, there were going to be losses as far as the eye could see -- Apple really had not got its costs under control, and seemed to have no motivation to change old losing business practices such as custom-building all components and pricing without considering the rest of the market. Amelio, not Jobs, really got Apple to move toward industry-standard components and better inventory/distribution practices; Apple, while continuing to shrink, stopped losing money on his watch. It turned from Mercedes-Benz circa 1991 into Porsche circa 2004.
Like the other guy said, no Jobs without Amelio. I wish people would give him his due.
Jobs, for his part, is successful because he's a showman. People like entertainers, pure and simple. (That's why Paris is a mystery... she's not entertaining in any way...)
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