Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

Mark 2010 as the year that Apple, or rather its CEO Steve Jobs, slammed his “cool” status into the dumper.  It’s been rumored for years that Jobs has anger management issues, however his behavior over the past couple of months really lifts the curtain on the great and powerful Jobs.  It started with his “we’re not perfect” press conference in response to the antenna-gate problems with the new iPhones.  And the latest and possibly more damaging outburst was his response to a college student who was doing a project about the iPad and was trying to get some information directly from Apple.  When no one from the PR department responded, she went directly to Jobs.  The most widely reported responses from him were “Our goals do not include helping you get a good grade” and “Please leave us alone!”

In the spirit of full disclosure, earlier this year when my 8 year old Dell desk computer started dying I switched to an iMac, a big 27″ beauty.  My main justification was that I work with video all the time and Apple has terrific easy and time saving applications for downloading, editing, and sharing video.  But I must tell you, secretly I wanted to be part of the whole cool status of owning an Apple anything and being able to legitimately hang out at an Apple store!

Now as I see Steve Jobs publicly displaying his arrogance and contempt for people who love or are interested in his company and products, I can’t help but wonder how long will it be before the hackers and evil-doers put Apple in their sites, in the same way they have targeted Microsoft?  And how long before Apple evangelists start losing their undying loyalty?

I posed these questions to the friend who introduced me to Apple nation.  She has an iPod, iPhone, iMac, MacBook Air, and an iPad.  She’s a true Apple Woman and thinks as long as the cool products keep coming, Apple will be fine.

I think no amount of “cool” can mask arrogance and contempt for your customers or the public and if CEO’s continue to display it publicly, some day there will be a reckoning.  Ask Tony Hayward!

I saw the news stories featuring Steve Jobs’ press conference Friday about the new iPhone’s antenna glitch.  The clip that caught my attention showed Jobs pacing in front of a large screen and with a click of a his remote the words “We’re not perfect.” appeared, followed by “Phones are not perfect.”  Underneath those two sentences came “We want to make all of our users happy.”  That seemed to be the media’s favorite sound bite, capturing the story and the tone…sort of.

My question is was it really necessary to put those words up on the screen?  Did having those sentiments written out on slides help Jobs make his case?  Seems to me it was a classic misuse of Keynote, Apples equivalent of PowerPoint!  And I think it diminished his credibility.

When you have something important to say, you want the communication to be between you and your audience, not between the slides and your audience.  Just because you have all the bells and whistles, it doesn’t mean that’s the best way to deliver your mea culpa!  Get real, stay connected to the people who are important to your company.  Don’t do a “dog and pony show” when you are addressing problems. You risk insulting your audience at a time when they are not happy with you in the first place.  Resist the temptation to let your slides do your talking.

Jobs has a great reputation as a speaker. He’s cool under pressure, never uses notes, and connects extremely well with his audiences.  But you really get a clear picture of a person’s true personality and sensibilities when they are responding to negative press.  If Apple has a few more public difficulties and Jobs continues to react defensively, he could join the pantheon of superstars who fall hard because they lost touch with the integrity that attracted followers, customers, and all the accolades.