Think Different – start of something new?

We are gifted with the plethora of media and history that is available for us to learn from. Today I watched the video snippet showing internal launch of “Think Different” campaign by Steve Jobs. Very nice talk outlining his thinking to streamline and transform three things – products, marketing, and distribution. And world over, now business schools have many case studies about Apple’s success henceforth.

Wind back your clock to 1997. The Internet is starting to grow. Microsoft had a couple of block buster years with Windows 95 Operating System transforming the lives for consumers. Windows NT was in its v3.5 marching into the enterprises (with some contributions from yours truly for the web server). And down in the valley there was a legendary company – Apple – in some troubles. I was too immersed in doing daily work and barely knew about business landscape. Now I have the fortune to catch up with history and lessons.

Apple was not in small troubles; it was in fighting for its existence. After a series of lost opportunities, the company was almost written off. And then comes along Steve Jobs for his second act. Wind forward to 2016, we know that in the past two decades, Apple has been reborn and established very well. Steve had a confident and clear picture of what he wanted to go after. He had anticipated the confusion of speeds and feeds leading to spiraled down value chain in the PC market. He was clear about his focus on reducing the inventory time to ensure Apple can be an on-demand supplier to creative audience. He had lined up support from estates of many people to create a captivating ad campaign (though products came later). Brilliant!

My daughter is part of a Destination Imagination group where they picked a challenge related to community service. Part of the challenge is for them to create a meme and message. I am eager to see what her group comes up with. In DI we cannot tell kids what to do. They have to discover and do it themselves. I had seen some preliminary work and it looks promising. Perhaps I have to have her watch this video of Apple’s campaign for her to learn more too.