CTO Blog
Unlike I stated before, it’s not once a year we get our desperately needed shot of Apple caffeine. Steve Jobs does not only introduce products at MacWorld, but also appears half a year later at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference. This Monday, the Moscone centre in San Francisco will be packed with journalists, analysts and fans (oh, and probably a few developers), eagerly awaiting yet another hallmark keynote speech.
A new version of OS X? A gallery of external applications for a 3G version of the iPhone? Maybe even a highly recyclable aluminium-enclosed, ultra-flat flux capacitor? It does not really matter. The very prospect of having Steve Jobs on stage showing new stuff creates an unparalleled buzz in the industry. Bloggers will report in real-time on the events and they are presented as heroes themselves, boldly putting us in front row. Journalists sneak into the presentation venue to take pictures of the banners that will be used and immediately a lively discussion unfolds on the Internet what the graphics may mean.
To make things clear: I have seven Macs at home, which is of course excluding all the iPods. And yet I am not the type of hardcore disciple that burns his house if Steve Jobs says that is a cool thing to do (although he never suggested it so far, so I’m not really sure on this one).
But if only, if only we could bring some of that typical Jobs suspense to our IT departments. Technology can bring so much excitement, so much anticipation. Imagine your local CIO, regularly taking the stage – in blue jeans and black turtle neck if necessary – to show an anxious crowd of business users what new, enhanced applications they will be using, starting tomorrow.
Of course, not all systems and solutions fit this approach: actually the bulk should just do its supporting work. But that is the case with Apple as well (ever got into the Unix shell underneath OS X?). The challenge lies in finding these rare elements that genuinelly will touch the business user community, the stuff that inspires and moves.
Just watch the master and see how it is done. We may all want to learn, because IT needs some Jobsification. Our IT strategy needs to be Jobsified. We should Jobsify our applications.
Now if you will excuse me. I am expecting a call from a friend in San Francisco. I have heard some rumours about a code string in Apple software that might, possibly, maybe point to an upcoming name change in one of their products. Thought I should check it out.
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I could not agree more. I was in Las Vegas the other week to take part in EMC World 2008 and I could not again help to notice the remarkably dull character of the keynote presentation. EMC had once again put up an impressive stage with live HD production, moving screens, cool lights and seating for 7000 people. Still, when the executives entered the scene it was almost embarrassing. The presentation slides where a little better than last year (someone told me it was done in Apple Keynote) but the whole performance failed to engage the audience, have them inspired and feel we are part of something really cool. Sure, I am a bit spoiled having followed “Stevenotes” for over ten years now but still, EMC could do so much better. Documentum is a really really cool product and the ECM business definately need some glamour
It seems that even though some things look obvious only Apple can actually pull it off.
On the positive side I noted that the Rich Media products from EMC Documentum have a completely revamped interface and most of it is borrowed directly from the Apple iLife suite. Their new MediaWorkSpace looks like an a cross between Aperture and iPhoto but running off a Documentum repository. Maybe some people finally are getting it…?
I have noticed this similar thing over time. Apple/Steve have just seemed to really just made technology cool.
Anecdotal story, a friend of mine is in the packaging design industry and their company was one selected to build the consumer packaging solution for one of the iPods. He said that Steve personally approved the final design of the packaging just to make sure that it was perfect. To me, iPod packaging opens like a flower and really presents you with your product. Compare that with the Microsoft Vista packaging. It took me several minutes just to figure out how to open the packaging due to it’s oh so intuitive design.
IMHO, the reason for the lack of coolness in business outside of Apple is just that deep seeded fear of taking risks. Don’t get me wrong, normal businesses are taking risks every day, but these are calculated and planned things with an investment in an ROI. This also includes a conditioning that spending money must also be linked to a return and that only the minimum amount of money should be spend to maximize that return.
Now, Apple being a business, is also taking risks and managing their money, however, they seem to risk more on the intangibles than normal businesses and place a high value ROI on these things.
The challenge for a business looking to learn from how Apple does things, is that they, if they attempt to up their “coolness” rating, must do it in a sincere way. If they are just pulling a “me too”, they will fail because people will not be moved like those in the audience of an Apple event.
it’s tough to make infrastructure technology cool, but it would be interesting to see Apple take a stab at it. Too bad you couldn’t outsource project work to the Apple marketing group!