“The debate continues as to whether and to what extent Steve Jobs is replaceable,” Steve Denning writes for Forbes. “I already identified seven myths about Apple and Steve Jobs. Here’s another one: Steve Jobs simply builds a better mousetrap.”
Denning writes, “Apple does more than build a better mousetrap. First, ‘building a better mousetrap’ embodies an inside-out mindset: it means thinking about producing a product from within the firm, rather than thinking outside-in about who are the people who are going to be using this product and what would delight them. The inside-out perspective characterizes the 20th Century firm. The underlying assumption is that if we build a better mousetrap, our sales department should be able to sell it.”
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“With the shift in power in the marketplace from buyer to seller, that assumption is no longer true,” Denning explains. “A decade of research by Professor Ranjay Gulati of Harvard Business School, summarized in his wonderful book, Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business, showed that firms with an inside-out mindset were much less resilient than those that adopted an outside-in mindset, like Apple, basing everything on understanding the customer’s problems and what the customer might want or need.”
Read more in the full article here.
It seems to me that Apple is actually an “Inside-Out” company. They don’t think about what the consumer wants, because, in the words of St. Jobs “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”.
There is subtlety to the statement that is not acknowledged.
Apple knows consumers want portable music because it is easy to get that information from consumers in general and consumers inside Apple.
What consumers don’t know, however, is just how to package a device and make it easy to use. That is where the Apple Magic resides.
If an inside-out company has the mindset of ‘building a better mousetrap,’ then Apple is definitely *not* inside-out.
Apple’s philosophy is to question why a mousetrap is even needed. SJ would say, “Let’s just keep the mice outside where they belong and there will be no need for traps. I don’t like the mice in my house anyway, much less having to transport the live or dead trapped mice back outside.” Then his team would get together and develop the next great thing and all of the mouse trap makers would cry about Apple’s closed system that does not admit mice and, therefore, unfairly excludes third party mouse traps.
Maybe Apple is outside-outside…
Well said Sir!
Why does this sound like something from DouglasAdams’ So Long and Thanks For All The Fish?
I read the article and still don’t know what the f^%# the writer is talking about. Piece of advice. If you want to make your article in praise of Steve Jobs readable, do one thing – cut out the f%^#ing jargon. Geez the writer makes it look like I have to wade through Microsoft’s 1,000 page manual on why Windows sucks. Incomprehensible.
You’re a tenacious little devil, aren’t you.
Breeze seems more like an ‘ill wind’.
RevDrX, You’re exactly right. Steve Jobs (and Apple) “skates to where the puck will be”, not where it is. Where it is is where the average consumer is. Where the puck will be is the future. The future is today 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago when Steve Jobs had more than a few brilliant ideas.
It’s worse. Not only does Apple skate to where the puck will be, they also play the puck. Currently, everyone hunts the puck where Apple played it, but Apple has already played it somewhere else and skates towards where they played to.
So the simple version is that Apple doesn’t create what the customer wants. They create what the customer WILL want.
“Professor Ranjay Gulati of Harvard Business School, summarized in his wonderful book…”
BRAVO Professor Gulati!!! Why this wonderful concept of healthy business flies over the heads of today’s MBA graduates is beyond comprehension. To treat the customer as TRASH is innately self-destructive. Thus our ongoing economic depression, worthless US federal government and brain dead Corporate Oligarchy.
Why does Apple have to be UNIQUE? Why do its competitors refuse to do more that follow the leader and act entitled to a profit from their laziness? It’s all a game of cons and suckers to them. Thus my insulting term for such idiotic behaviour: BIZNIZZ.
Thank you Steve Jobs and Apple for showing this regressive world how to do business RIGHT. We all benefit. 😎
Apple ought to build a better mousetrap. They’ve failed at building a better mouse. As much as I love Apple gear, I use a Microsoft mouse. Best. Mouse. Ever. I’ve tried various Apple rodents and they’ve all been less than spectacular (P.S. I hate trackpads, they are okay in an emergency when no mouse is available or practical, but I’ll, personally, take a mouse every time).
I hate mice! Haven’t we outgrown the mouse yet?
Mice are like shoes; it’s easy to find a pair that fits and looks good, but you won’t know for sure until you’ve run a mile in them.
So why you’d choose this platform to share your thoughts on mice is interesting. Obviously, you had to go for the punchline, which would have made perfect sense, had you stopped after the second sentence. Nope. You killed any sense of cleverness on your part by continuing to prattle on about your personal preferences; making this about you.
No, apple is the In n Out burger of tech. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.
With all due respect to those who found the joy in Apple Computer, Inc., long before Macintosh, who would choose pirate over Navy or a tee over a tie or home brewed over bottled but, I hope Steve Jobs’ memorial service is shorter than his funeral.
It’s hard enough to get through the day reading about everyone’s opinion about the enigma that is Steve Jobs, without having to see a YouTubed version displaying a whole host of gasbags treating us to their favorite anecdotes, tales, and gush about how he changed their lives, careers, and minds. I mean, if anyone can brag about how well their life has been because of Steve Jobs, it’s John C. Dvorak.
If a man like Steve isn’t cremated and his ashes released to the wind from a cliff high above the Pacific ocean, it’s because he didn’t specify what the plan would be. But, I think we all know that when it comes to death, he’ll accept, nay, embrace it and go like any practicing Buddhist; with quiet grace and dignity.
[Somewhere in Vegas a bookie says he’ll take a piece of that action.] I apologize for being a hypocrite too…
Fanfare or quiet cremation? Let’s take a poll. How will Steve Jobs end his time on earth? Will it be a eighty-four gun salute or a whisp of a tale?
The pattern that is Steve Jobs’ lifestyle is no secret. Everyone of you reading this knows what I mean. Because for the last thirty-years we weren’t on the outside looking in. We looked out and decided this is as good a place to start as any and we proceeded to make of Apple what we could. We didn’t know what we wanted but we knew it when we saw it, because we were all thinking the same thing.
When Steve Jobs left Apple, I didn’t care anymore than I did when Chris or Jeff left. Ho hum. One man cannot leave a company so bereft of talent, insight and vision that it would crumble. If that were so, it would have happened the first time Jobs left?
Steve Jobs returned to Apple, I believe, because of the energy we amassed that was drilling holes in Gil’s head. No, j/k, we all know of someone inside Apple who called Steve Jobs up and said, “I think he’s ready to talk”, and the rest is history. Thank you very much, MM.
And if you’re still reading this, thanks. I’m here all week. Oh, and tip your waitress.
michael
“You killed any sense of cleverness on your part by continuing to prattle on about your personal preferences; making this about you.”
Pot, meet kettle.
“Pot, meet kettle
What, you couldn’t accept my advance apology? It’s what adults do. You’ll see, Annette.
It’s Doreen to you big fella!
http://www.celebtna.com/Doreen_Tracey/Doreen_Tracey-318601.htm
Someone has already asked for Steve’s brain.
What does he say? Anyone?
Left is the Spirit,
for his Soul is headed home.
Long live Steve’s Spirit.
Haiku for Jobs