The Occupy Wall Street 'movement' has spread to hundreds of cities, worldwide. Less than a movement than what we used to call a 'happening', OWS has come to Sacramento, a bastion of liberals in a state of liberals.
I've watched the interviews of the 'protesters' on the television news, and the main problem with describing OWS as a movement is that there is no there, there, as Gertrude Stein famously said of the city of Oakland. If you talk to 100 of the people in the park, you'll get at least 100 reasons for them being there. Many, in my opinion, are just looking for something to do. It's fun to camp out, to flirt with the girls, and to smoke lots and lots of weed.
Speaking of which, marijuana is essentially legal in California. There are scores of pot 'dispensaries' throughout every large and small city in the state. The legalization of the drug was slipped pas the voters in an initiative that was billed as providing medical marijuana by prescription to those very, very few who would benefit from an appetite simulator, and memory-haze inducer. Of course, there is virtually no on who is not 'sick' enough to get a prescription through the medical marijuana mill. Bad back? Yep, you qualify. Who hasn't strained their back once in their life? I've not heard of a single person being turned down for a 'prescription' for the drug.
What a joke.
Getting back to the Occupy Wall Street crowd, it's a real stretch to compare this group with the Tea Party movement. That spontaneous movement arouse out of a sense that a small group of liberal-socialists had taken over the country, and, according to its leader, wanted to 'spread the wealth around', which is shorthand for property seizure and redistribution to the 'peasants'. The fact that the families truly mired in intractable poverty in the country nevertheless have flat panel TVs and cells phones goes uncommented upon by the media, not surprisingly.
Will the OWS movement lead to anything at all? I don't see it now. There is no leader, no unified platform, no over-riding theme, just a hundred different noisy folks with drums to bang on and horns to blow.
Come to think of it, if I were 25, I might spend some time down at Cesar Chavez park myself. Seems like a good place to meet accommodating women. Bring some wine and 'medical' marijuana and party!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Steve Jobs and the Media
Steve Jobs had an interesting and highly successful career, no doubt. He single-handedly created one of the richest companies in the world, and he has the reputation of being a creative genius the likes of which we have never seen before.
But how much of that almost universal adoration was based on science, design, and obsession with excellence, and how much as pure marketing?
One only has to look at the stock of Apple when Jobs ran it the first time, after he left, and when he took the reins back. The presence or absence of Jobs is tightly linked to the stock performance of Apple. In world of corporate anonymity, Jobs stood out. Much like Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump, you can't imagine the company without its eponymous leader. The danger, of course, is that the company is so closely linked to one person, when that person leaves (for whatever reason), the company loses the wind from its sails.
So which was Jobs, brilliant engineer, obsessed techie, design maven, or just a skillful pitchman?
Probably a little of each, but I'd submit it was mainly the fact that with every success, the 'coolness' factor of Jobs went up a notch. And how the geeky fans loved that! Here's a group of people who would hardly notice if cool knocked them on the ground, suddenly not only cool, but 'early cool'. Working for Apple, or being a very early adopter (hence the long lines at one or the other of a product launch) gave instant cache to aforementioned geek. So, Jobs sat on top of the coolest pitchmen around. One only has to watch videos of his product launches to understand how adored he was.
Admittedly, a mop of hair (when Jobs was young) and a lack of a college degree doesn't automatically make one a successful icon of the geek community. You do at some point have to actually make a product, or come up with something tangible in order to gain a following, even a cult following that Apple was for many years.
So, can Apple survive without its star pitchman? Yes, of course it can. I'll bet you don't know who the CEO of Acer computers is, or who runs ExxonMobile. They survive without all of the glitz and glamor that Jobs attracted. In fact, the anonymous management is the norm, not the exception.
There is a philosophy at Apple shared by every great corporation; hire the best, most talented people around, keep them happy and productive, and get them to feel ownership of the company. If they work for someone else, hire them away. If they're in college, recruit them. If their designs wow their customers, that's obviously good. Make sure they are driven to be the best. Pick those who place work before family and life's other pleasures. Harsh, perhaps, but the world doesn't change by a guy who works 9-5, and goes home to spaghetti and meatballs. The world is changed by those who work themselves hard, driven to succeed; no, really, driven to win at almost any cost. You may die at 56, but you have made a difference.
So ultimately, it's the product that succeeds or fails. If Apple continues to pump out incrementally better products each cycle, they'll do fine. If they keep the best in design and engineering, it will serve them well. If they have a big flop, that's OK (see the Lisa computer). Just don't repeat too often.
The long-term mega-success of the company depends on one thing, in my opinion, and something I think is in jeopardy with the loss of Jobs; the ability to see around the next curve in the road. The game-changing ideas, the invention of whole new product categories. Improving products is one thing, make up something that most people didn't even think was possible, in quite another.
Apple will be around a long, long time. I've been critical for years concerning Apple's almost cultivation as a niche company. But they've made it pay off. I felt that Apple would have whipped Microsoft at the OS game with the Mac OS, and they would have. But Jobs always wanted to be in the manufacturing business, and it paid off handsomely for them. If they were a software-only company, there'd be no iPhone, iPad, iPod, to mention a few.
But how much of that almost universal adoration was based on science, design, and obsession with excellence, and how much as pure marketing?
One only has to look at the stock of Apple when Jobs ran it the first time, after he left, and when he took the reins back. The presence or absence of Jobs is tightly linked to the stock performance of Apple. In world of corporate anonymity, Jobs stood out. Much like Richard Branson, Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump, you can't imagine the company without its eponymous leader. The danger, of course, is that the company is so closely linked to one person, when that person leaves (for whatever reason), the company loses the wind from its sails.
So which was Jobs, brilliant engineer, obsessed techie, design maven, or just a skillful pitchman?
Probably a little of each, but I'd submit it was mainly the fact that with every success, the 'coolness' factor of Jobs went up a notch. And how the geeky fans loved that! Here's a group of people who would hardly notice if cool knocked them on the ground, suddenly not only cool, but 'early cool'. Working for Apple, or being a very early adopter (hence the long lines at one or the other of a product launch) gave instant cache to aforementioned geek. So, Jobs sat on top of the coolest pitchmen around. One only has to watch videos of his product launches to understand how adored he was.
Admittedly, a mop of hair (when Jobs was young) and a lack of a college degree doesn't automatically make one a successful icon of the geek community. You do at some point have to actually make a product, or come up with something tangible in order to gain a following, even a cult following that Apple was for many years.
So, can Apple survive without its star pitchman? Yes, of course it can. I'll bet you don't know who the CEO of Acer computers is, or who runs ExxonMobile. They survive without all of the glitz and glamor that Jobs attracted. In fact, the anonymous management is the norm, not the exception.
There is a philosophy at Apple shared by every great corporation; hire the best, most talented people around, keep them happy and productive, and get them to feel ownership of the company. If they work for someone else, hire them away. If they're in college, recruit them. If their designs wow their customers, that's obviously good. Make sure they are driven to be the best. Pick those who place work before family and life's other pleasures. Harsh, perhaps, but the world doesn't change by a guy who works 9-5, and goes home to spaghetti and meatballs. The world is changed by those who work themselves hard, driven to succeed; no, really, driven to win at almost any cost. You may die at 56, but you have made a difference.
So ultimately, it's the product that succeeds or fails. If Apple continues to pump out incrementally better products each cycle, they'll do fine. If they keep the best in design and engineering, it will serve them well. If they have a big flop, that's OK (see the Lisa computer). Just don't repeat too often.
The long-term mega-success of the company depends on one thing, in my opinion, and something I think is in jeopardy with the loss of Jobs; the ability to see around the next curve in the road. The game-changing ideas, the invention of whole new product categories. Improving products is one thing, make up something that most people didn't even think was possible, in quite another.
Apple will be around a long, long time. I've been critical for years concerning Apple's almost cultivation as a niche company. But they've made it pay off. I felt that Apple would have whipped Microsoft at the OS game with the Mac OS, and they would have. But Jobs always wanted to be in the manufacturing business, and it paid off handsomely for them. If they were a software-only company, there'd be no iPhone, iPad, iPod, to mention a few.
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