Managing Essentials

International Icons
When Steve Jobs passed away last October, not only the international business community lost one of its last icons. Steve Jobs was revered by many as a role model. He was not only a pioneer and entrepreneur but demonstrated the ability to come back and sustain hardship in his last years. Icons have become a rare breed in the times of anonymous corporations. The entrepreneur becoming an icon of his industry embodies the dreams of many. He demonstrates that, in fact, even nowadays a dishwasher can become a millionaire, good ideas may beat hard work, and especially in Steve Jobs case technology can express the philosophy of a human-centered world. In contrast to Graham Bell or Thomas Edison in the early days of industrialization, Steve Jobs never invented anything really new. With the notable exception of the iPad he did not create genuinely new products. The iPod was essentially a Walkman (MP3-Player) without tape, the first iPhone combined at that time not unusual functions just in a new way, and the graphical surface of the MacOS heavily drew on a research demonstration by Xerox. But Steve Jobs was a genius in bringing the abstract concept of usability into products and life. From its MacOS to the iPad, the products of Apple express concern for the human being using it. They fulfill the criteria of ease-of-use, elegance and multimodality. They demonstrate that for human beings form follows function is just a baseline. In his way of combining the senses, touching the world, and manipulating its objects everybody is also an individualistic artist. Consequently, good functions should find a beautiful form and many products of Apple qualify as artful in the elegant external and internal simplification of their functionalities. Furthermore, Steve Jobs viewed human beings and their world as interacting organic systems. He designed his products as tools in this interaction. The i preceding many product names may be written modestly in a small letter, but for the users it is a big one. The i reflects their individuality and links the tool directly to their extended self, makes it their tool. Steve Jobs never forgot that interactions strive for partial completeness. Many competitors produced music-playing devices or computers needing backups regularly neglected by its users, but it was left to Steve Jobs and Apple to open also the first accompanying music-shop and add unobtrusive automatic backup devices. One may call it business strategy but certainly it is also an organic complementary growth. It is this background of an individuality-centered company which allowed Apple to find an unexpected audience. Not only the more affluent and trendy buy Apple products. These products have also become status symbols of the anti-capitalistic alternative scene. If you visit a conference of hackers or the progressive pirate parties in Europe you will not look at anonymous Laptops with a free operating system like Linux on it, but at lines of Apple Logos - on the podium and in the audience. With this broad backing at least for some time and for some products Apple was able to leave its role as a trendy and pricy niche supplier to become a major player on the markets. In addition, Apples attempt to establish itself as a human-centered brand met nearly naturally with human sympathy on the side of its customers. They are not only willing to pay a little more for this effort. They also forgive more easily when it comes to small technical problems and show tolerance with regard to the closed system approach and the secretiveness of the company.

Managing Essentials
International
There seems to be, however, also a second miracle of Apple after the revitalization following Steve Jobs return. On first sight Apple and Steve Jobs seemed inseparable after their reunion. Like all icons he seemed to have imprinted the company in a way making it hard to imagine how it can survive without him. Nevertheless, the share price of Apple did not drop significantly after his death. The problem of icons is often a self-centeredness combined with an unwillingness to really delegate and trust in others. It is the big and successful I in the icon which lets think that nearly nothing really runs well without him or her. Louis IVs the state is me is transferred to the company and icons forget or just do not want to implement a structure for the future. Therefore, these companies often disintegrate as fast as rapidly erected empires. Historical experience advises caution and also the legal battle of Apple against Samsung with regard to the iPad shows that the company feels the heat. But the future of Apple may look better as sad as it is, because Steve Jobs, facing a long illness, had time to direct its course into the future. How can you prepare a consumer technology company for a future in which only the known unknowns seem certain? Existing products will change and integrate, new products will emerge, and product cycles will get even faster. New products will continue to change individual and social behavior. Product homogeneity driven by cost considerations will be in conflict with a growing wish for individuality. If you cannot pass on patents and other fixtures you can only try to pass on the vision, perspective, and dedication which made you successful. These are soft items but whatever the future brings, there will always be a place for a company focusing on the i which is connected to a product. A small detail indicates that Steve Jobs vision in fact is shared by many in the company. Some weeks ago specialists from iSuppli disassembled a iPhone 4. The parts found were not very special, but the engineers were impressed by the interior design which they labeled as elegant in its details and architecture. Therefore, if the iPhone stands symbolically for Apple, Steve Jobs has in fact created more than clever marketing and usability but a company, which follows his principles also into those aspects of the product not visible to the public eye. So it can be hoped that Apple will, like a good book, outlive its author for long.
Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster. Steve Jobs Was A Jerk. Good For Him. www.managing-essentials.com/1as