Category Archives: Greatness
A lesson from Apple on reputation
Image via Wikipedia
Apple is once again telling the world that it’s a User Experience company that just so happens to make consumer electronic products. Apple is reportedly working on a way to sync iPods with iTunes wirelessly. It’s just another step in Apple’s steady march toward making wires and cords a thing of the past.
A few days ago I was making room behind my desk for the laptop, external HDD and speaker wires. As I was rearranging I started pondering how long it would take until we live in a world without wires and who would take us there.
My first thought was Apple.
What I find interesting, is that if any other ‘consumer electronics company’ would set out to eliminate wires, it probably would not be a big deal. You kind of get the idea that if Microsoft would be the first to remove wires from our lives, that they would screw it up in some way. Therefore eliminating our excitement for the ‘new experience’.
Because we know Steve Jobs to be a perfectionist, we know and trust that Apple will deliver the goods. The new experience.
And we actually want Apple to be the one to do it. Not Microsoft. Not HP. Not Dell.
Apple.
Why?
Because their reputation precedes them in the area of creating great consumer products that are as much about the experience we have as what we use them for. It is this reputation that sets them apart. It is now hardwired onto our brains that Apple creates the best consumer electronics products period.
Heck, some of us are starting to wish they should start making cars just for fun.
User experience is all about removing obstacles. Eliminating extra steps that don’t add any value. Apple is a user experience champion. They own it.
They’ve become the ‘most’ at delighting and exciting us with their products. This is key.
Like Fast Company founder, Bill Taylor, says:
You can’t be “pretty good” at everything anymore. You have to be the most of something: the most affordable, the most accessible, the most elegant, the most colorful, the most transparent. Companies used to be comfortable in the middle of the road — that’s where all the customers were. Today, the middle of the road is the road to ruin. What are you the most of?
With that said, we would all do well and learn from Apple and begin thinking about what we want to be known for. Because if we get to such a place, this is where Greatness is forged.
Dare to be great
I really liked this talk by Keith Yamashita on is it worth daring to be great. There a couple of things that resonated with me, first the need to resist the natural forces of society’s need for the status quo. Second, to maintain a childlike attitude full of curiosity and imagination. Third, the idea that innovation is about making people’s lives better and not about a companies bottom line.
His talk could’ve just as easily been called ‘Dare to be different’. Watch it 
One question to ask yourself everyday to trump the status quo
Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. – William Faulkner
You know the future looks very different than it does today, your business needs to evolve to meet the challenges of tomorrow. What brought you success yesterday might not work tomorrow, you need to keep pushing boundaries, testing new tools, trying new things, experimenting with new approaches to not let complacency set in.
You need to keep one foot in the present and the other one moving towards the future, for this you need to ask yourself one question everyday:
How can we do better tomorrow than we did today?
P.S. John Jantsch has five more questions to spark your thinking.
INNOVATION: Change your internal chip
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” – Einstein
Yesterday I was with a client proposing some new initiatives and as always there’s a bottleneck to new ideas. Someone’s ego prevents them from seeing other alternatives to how things can be done and is so set in their traditional views that anything new is irrelevant. In thinking about this fact with some of the people there I said: Like computer chips that evolve and get better all the time, so must we.
Voila!
Do you remember how in the movie Terminator 2 Sarah and John Connor take out and modify the Terminator’s internal cpu so it can can learn and not be following preset rules? Well that’s exactly what we have to do with ourselves and people who are impervious to ‘there’s always a better way’ speak. (more…)
Michael Jordan being MJ one last time
Michael Jordan is yet again being criticized, this time for his Hall of Fame induction speech!
Someone Like You… trailer I think the people who are taking his ‘talk’ the wrong way don’t really know who MJ the person really is. If you’ve ever read any of his books or watched any of his interviews from his multiple Home videos you’ll understand why this ‘talk’ was typical MJ.
There’s nothing new in the speech that true Michael Jordan fans Palo Pinto Gold move didn’t already know about!
People have this expectation that these speeches should done in a certain way, thanking your mom, dad, kids, coaches, etc you get the point. We already know what to expect!
I do think he over talked on a few things such as the Jerry Krause stuff but I think he spoke from the heart and there’s nothing wrong with that, people should do it more often!
Michael’s stands out because he didn’t make a speech, he talked. He talked about why he feels he got to the HOF, his competitive drive got him there.
He said thanks as Michael Jordan…
GOAT
The Story of Anyburg U.S.A. movie
The GOAT: Michael Jordan
The best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be.
His Airness, Michael Jordan, will officially be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Friday.
Michael Jordan has been and still is the biggest influence in my life, having said that Michael’s biggest inspiration was David Thompson whom he picked to induct him into the HOF.
I love this quote from MJ on being influenced by others:
“I built my talents on the shoulders of someone else’s talent,” Jordan wrote in his 1998 autobiography, “For the Love of the Game.” “I believe greatness is an evolutionary process that changes and evolves era to era. Without Julius Erving, David Thompson, Walter Davis, and Elgin Baylor, there would never have been a Michael Jordan. I evolved from them.”
How good was he?
Hoopsencyclopedia has created the ultimate Michael Jordan remix, no really they’re the best compilations of highlights of Michael Jordan I’ve ever seen! Watch. Bask the greatness that is Michael Air Jordan.
