This tribute is somewhat unlikely coming from me, but well earned by its recipient, though not for the reasons most obviously stated in the news.
First, I mourn Steve Jobs passing as a human being, apart from his accomplishments, his impacts, the externalities of his existence. He is large and unique in my awareness because of all those trappings, but they should not be primary measure of his meaning and value. Ultimately, he was a human like all of us, born into this life with certain innate abilities and shaped by acquired values that gave those abilities direction and drive. He was most importantly the embodiment of the potential that all of us possess in varying degrees, but rarely exercise to potential.
In the early part of his career, I was inclined to dismiss Jobs' ' genius ' as his ability to seize the genius of others and market it. Much of the early Mac technology was created elsewhere, most notably at PARC. But PARC, like the old Bell Labs, had the capacity to create yet not project its creations into productive applications. So many of the great technology companies have had an abundance of brilliance, but a dearth of soul. Much of their technological brilliance has thus lost sustainable expression and ultimate human benefit.
One of the reasons that Apple ' does not do the world's work ' is because of its commitment to what I have often derided as its ' design fascism '; an insistence on tight control over the work of collaborating developers that may insure quality but at the expense of broader creativity. That statement may seem on its surface a stupid rant, but it pivots on the definition of ' creativity '. My daughter's work in videography and graphic design is by definition ' creative work ' in the accepted definition of that term. But business, in its highest and best form of manifestation, is also a creative process. It is enabled and enhanced today by the kind of software that is typically not available on Apple platforms. The more open and accessible platform of the Win-tel world has provided a breeding ground for much greater diversity of applications and peripherals, and made the world much more productive. But that openess has come at considerable cost in complexity and exposure to the worst human instincts.
It would be nice if there were a workable amalgam of the two: Apple's ruthless pursuit of quality and control, which I respect, and Win-tel's accessibility and diversity of applications, which I need. But that would be a perfect world which does not exist, and cannot be achieved.
I came to appreciate Steve Jobs' passion as I contemplate my next smart phone. In a market segment which now offers an abundance of competition, and some major players, we have something rare in today's market-place: true competition in quality, performance and price. As I sort through the various options, I find the only thing between me and my purchase of an I-Phone is my resistance to the Apple cult ethos, and my dogmatic entrenchment in the Win-tel world. That will likely end after October 14th.
I greatly value technology in my work and in my life, but I am not infatuated with it. As an auditor and consultant over the better part of the information technology era, I have seen far too much resource spent on expensive paper weights, book-ends and door stops. Absolute progress has come at considerable relative cost. Many times, society would have been much better served by the single-minded pursuit of quality and customer experience that were Steve Jobs' beacons.
What sets Steve Jobs apart from most of his contemporaries is not that he had a vision for himself, or his technology, or his company. It was that he had a vision for all of these that was conceived in the context of his customers. That is not a novel concept; but regrettably, it has become too rare. I now wonder what he might have done if he turned his genius to banking, or airlines, or food retail, or health care, or dozens of other businesses that have come to regard their customers as mere economic cattle to be bred, herded and discarded when no longer 'productive'.
It is Jobs's commitment to his customers and to quality that I have come to respect in retrospect more than I have previously, because they are values that transcend the more pedestrian quibbles about why you can't get enough business analytic software for Apples.
But perhaps most importantly, it is the will of this human, and not his particular product vision, that I respect most, and that we need most today. He gives meaning and embodiment to these oft quoted lines from Ulysses:
"Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Steve Jobs' greatest contribution to human-kind will not be in the products that he has given us, but in the people he has inspired to carry on his spirit of commitment to quality and achievement of a greater good.
Onward, Steve Jobs.
Onward.
20111006
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