What We Can Learn from Steve Jobs

San Murugesan, BRITE Professional Services, Australia
Steve Jobs wasn’t exactly an IT person—he didn’t have a programming or computer science background—yet there’s much to learn from this great innovator. He redefined the IT user experience, creating products and services loved by millions around the world. He reshaped not only the IT industry but others as well—the music industry with the iPod; the cell phone industry with the iPhone; the movie industry with his Pixar Animation Studios films; and the computing industry with the original Mac, the Mac OS X, and the iPad. He had also started to transform the publishing industry with his iBooks and media subscription services and the software industry with his App Store. His legacy will be felt for years to come.
A True Visionary
Jobs persuaded millions of people to try technology they’d never before considered. He went against mainstream thinking and followed his intuition and instinct. He could not only see what the future of technology could—and should—be, he could also bring that vision to fruition.
As Georges van Hoegaerden wrote: “He reinvented the business of technology innovation with a passion and an authentic desire to bring it to everyday people everywhere. He did it with the vigor required to keep his many young and cocky technologists in line and focused, and to achieve meaningful innovation that improved all of our lives.”
He was “brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it,” said US President Barrack Obama in his tribute. Jobs was a technologist, visionary, and innovator, and he transformed consumer culture.
Following his Lead
Jobs turned Apple, on the brink of bankruptcy in 1997, into world’s most-valued technology company. He caused “creative destruction” of old norms and business models through his blended understanding of technology and society, business and economics, and markets and corporate power. He created a new ecosystem that integrates the devices that his company sells with applications and services, driving other companies to follow suit.
Is it possible to emulate Jobs’s success? What sort of values and practices would IT professionals and executives have to encompass?
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