Steve Jobs

So I'm here in Arkansas on a business trip, riding in a car after work, checking my iPhone to see what Twitter has to offer. CNN tweets that Steve Jobs has passed away. "No way that's real" I think, even if it did come from CNN's twitter feed. Then I see it is indeed legit as every news source feed I follow confirms it. Truly a passing of an icon.

Back in my Comcast days I applied for a promotion of Call Center Supervisor. My boss at the time Steve Finch encouraged me to apply. When we discussed interview strategy he told me I had to find someone who was a good example of leadership. Finch's person was Walt Disney. He was always raving about Disney, Disneyland, the service, the magic, the whole experience. He told me that once in an interview he heard a guy use Hitler as a great example of a leader because he got so many people to follow him (Kind of makes sense, but i definitely wasn't going that route).

I chose Steve Jobs. I knew he was the leader of Apple and he was responsible for the ipod, one of the coolest inventions ever. I tried to do some research on him before my interview but looking back I know I butchered him in my interview. I kept referring to him but didn't really have any substance to back it up. Even today I don't have a ton of substance other than when you say his name you know his leadership is what has made Apple what it is. iEverything.

I didn't get the job that time around but I still remember thinking of Steve Jobs as my top example of leadership, something I would still think of today. Apple is a company that has taken risks, been creative, and hasn't been afraid to be the lead dog in many technological areas. I'm pretty much the antithesis of all those things since I'm so risk averse but I can appreciate how hard it is to stick your neck out there and hope it flies. In so many cases the products Jobs was responsible for bringing to market flew well and were copied the world over.

I may have written something similar to this before but all the time I think about how if I could go back to 1992 just before my dad died and visit him, I'd want to show him all the technological advances of today. When I have that vision in my head of what I would show him to represent all the advances from 1992 to now, I basically have in my hand an iPhone and an iPad and that pretty much covers everything I would want to show (the internet, the incredible advances in cell phones, computers, HD cameras, mp3's, touch screens, video phone/face time, apps, the works). So basically all the advances in the past 20 years that I would want to take back in time with me can be directly linked to products of Steve Jobs' mind. I felt like that was worth writing about. RIP