Crew asks, “How does Apple do it? Can anyone else do it? Can you?”
Think strategically, think simply, and as Apple said in its infamous advertising campaign, “think differently” with these considerations:
1. Connect the Dots (and Dashes)
2. Ask, What If?
3. Go Smaller or Bigger
4. Risk Failure
5. Go Younger or Older
6. Elegance is in Simplicity
“Leadership and cultural personality matters as well,” Crew writes. “Steve Jobs is a fierce competitor, a savvy marketer, and a man on a mission to dominate the world of gadgetry. The first two characterizations are undeniable, the last point is my personal observation. Regardless, there is no denying that innovation is driven by people who are also driven. He has created a company that attracts and fosters experimentation and daring inquiry into the fusion of the known and what could be.”
Full article here.
@ How do they do it!?:
The thing is, the innovation comes in because rarely does anyone think of new ways to accomplish tasks. Apple is one of the only companies that can make something work and have everyone say, “Of course!” This can only happen when a company is capable of thinking about the end-user’s experience in using the product.
Take the iPhone, it isn’t popular because of what the hardware is, it’s popular because of the exact opposite, what the hardware isn’t. The biggest isn’t, getting in the way of using the software. This is where most people fail to see the innovation. They are all pre-programmed to look at hardware specs, and lets face it, the iPhone hardware has been pretty much middle of the road since its inception. Apple doesn’t “sell” the iPhone on hardware though, they sell the product and the user experience.
ROADMAP!!
84 Mac Guy is bang on, ‘cept for his last… “You always look at the horizon, not the short term results.” Apple’s VERY aware of the short term, in fact they use the short term to their advantage… yup, every step carefully planned, and ready to turn whenever they need to.
Steve Jobs knows how to hire the right guys, but without the vision from the top, it’s all for moot!
@84 Mac Guy – They aren’t. Apple just happens to be the one whose founder is still living. In their times Ford, Firestone, Westinghouse and a bunch of others were as innovative as Apple. Now their upper ranks are occupied my men with ambition, but no vision. Those companies should be allowed to die.
Simply answer:
They have time…. since they don’t spend all day defragging, reformatting, virus cleaning, reinstalling, restarting, crashing… etc.
Jobs is a national treasure, not dissimilar from Walt Disney and Thomas Edison in their days.
That R2 sure is a one trick pony, ain’t he?
“Everything is different, but the same… things are more moderner than before… bigger, and yet smaller… it’s computers… San Dimas High School football rules.”
Steve told everybody his secret.
He wants to make products that he wants to use, period.
Steve is not a techno geek. He hires people that are techno geeks (ie. Wozniak) to create the technology that he wants to use.
In many ways he has the same characteristics that made Reagan such a successful president. He has vision and the ability to attract people with the skills and desire to make that vision come to pass.
Brilliant really. This is why everybody worries so much about his health.
This is a rare ability among leaders, that is the ability to stay focussed on the vision of the future and not get seduced by the creations of the past (but using the past as a stepping stone).
Apple has a fairly simple to state philosophy that is a challenge to meet. Apple looks at products and categories of products and tries to envision ways that they can be simplified without loosing functionality. The end user is ALWAYS the focus.
Competitors fail because they look at Apple instead of the end user. Unless of course you are Microsoft or Adobe, in which case you look only at yourself.
How about courage to take risks to accomplish his vision? It is the better future that matters. New iPods replace old models that are sell quite well. An iPad comes out to do what most people are using their notebooks for most of the time. It is the improvement that matters. It does not matter that they may sell fewer Macbooks. Next step, Macbooks begin to look more like iPads.
How about ruthlessness? Steve tolerates no mediocrity. Those who survive at Apple do not either. I do not expect I would.
You know, I don’t think Steve thinks too much about what we want. I think he thinks about what is possible and makes it as best he possibly can. He might think about making that dent in the Universe. I don’t know about that. I am sure he wants to make a difference in this world.
Steve Jobs would fire Steve Balmer in an instant. There is a big difference!
What sets the successful apart from the pretenders is their willingness to embrace their failures.
Apple’s failures have long been apart of their perspective. The flops are dissected into what works and what didn’t but instead ignoring what didn’t work, they “think different” to overcome the hurdles, which can only work by being innovative.
In contrast to Apple, Microsoft chooses to ignore their failures altogether. Instead, they either rename the failure if it’s perceived marketing may have failed, or they kill it, never to see the light of day again.
Ballmer is surrounded by suck-ups and ass-kissers whose vocabulary doesn’t include the word failure.
@ Brain…err, sorry Brian:)
Well
Freakin
Said
Man
It’s a nice idea Brian and I’ll agree that Apple is a lynchpin.
In my view though, the difference with Apple comes from a few almost unique factors.
Steve Jobs has a vision thing about changing the world for the better. In 1984 the 128K Mac was the ‘computer for the rest of us.’ (CFTROU). But the Mac got mature and sophisticated and powerful …. and complex. In 2010, the iPad will assume that (CFTROU) role. How amazing that, a generation later, less is so much more … again. That’s really why iPad is going to be a huge hit.
To continue …. Then again the young Steve Jobs was the archetypal loose cannon berserker-bozo prior to being thrown out of Apple. He nearly destroyed the company. He was damaged by that and he learned some bitter lessons from that early idiocy.
Steve Jobs insists Apple owns the whole device, hardware and software. That is key. You cannot innovate around what you don’t own lock, stock and barrel.
Most of all, Apple, like Steve Jobs innovates regularly, with huge imagination, joy and delight for a single reason imo. Steve Jobs is not interested in impressing anyone but himself. He listens to no other critics as he listens to his own critiques. He challenges his own imagination and so he competes with himself. He tries to ‘outdo’ himself. That single line of thinking is the core of Apple’s DNA imo. I believe it is the only Kool Aid any Apple Exec has been drinking for more than a decade now. The personal aim is to be able to look yourself in the mirror, often, and say – ‘Well, Steve (Jony, Tim, Scott etc), you outdid yourself. Again. Now what’s next?’
At the top of Apple it’s not about the iPad any more. That is done for now, barring a few details and awaits only its rollout. You can be sure that many minds are on the next big thing, that elusive fifth leg of the stool.
I dunno that “he nearly destroyed the company” – that is just one perception of what happened. Perhaps slightly accurate, but my view is that the original company that he helped to create had become so bureaucratic that he was trapped and unable to do the work he had plans to do. Think Different was already in him, and the company at the time had evolved into a typical american corporate slushbox. At least that is my perception.
I think it is worth re-reading this statement by Tim Cook, Interim CEO, Apple Inc made to analysts in early 2009:
We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing.
We are constantly focusing on innovating.
We believe in the simple not the complex.
We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make.
And participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution.
We believe in saying ‘no’ to thousands of projects, so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us.
We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot.
And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company.
And we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change.
And I think regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.
That is one heck of a manifesto. It is reflected in the way Apple is able to set a direction and paddle its own canoe without a care for any competitor let alone critic. This company has earned its ‘swagger’. Starting with the announcement of the iPhone, Apple delivers siesmic shocks across industries.
With every new announcement, I always think that somewhere in the world is the CEO of some company chocking on a bowl of cereal while reading of an Apple innovation (the iPad was front page news here in Australia) that just knee-caped a key product or service offering in his/her company.
“TheStreet”
As much as I may agree with the general theme of this article, to me it is merely screaming: “We’re pumping the stock to sell some soon!”
TheStreet seems to publish either positive or negative (or sometimes just a negative nuance) in what looks a random fashion to us. Often, the negative ones torture logic to justify the premise.
I bet the timing of their articles doesn’t look random to them.