The Perfect Fit

Steve Jobs: From High Touch To High Tech

I received a link to this blog posting this morning from my friend and author, Richard Wollenberger.  His thoughts were initially posted on the Parents As Teachers Blog. I thought they should be shared!

"Steve Jobs died yesterday.

I never met him. I’m not sure if I’ve even been in the same room as him. I was at a product introduction speech at Macworld in 2003, but I don’t remember if Steve was the keynote speaker at that expo.

But Steve changed my life.

I was a senior in college when the now-famous 1984 commercial aired during the Superbowl. The next year I was working as a booking agent for small performing arts talent agency in New York city when our secretary sent the wrong contract out for a show and caused a huge ruckus.

I told the boss we should get a computer so we could keep track of all our stuff better. He sent me out shopping. My conclusion: buy a Macintosh. I was convinced that, combined with two other new things —desktop publishing and a laser printer—we could keep track of everything and even create some of our own marketing material!

(Side note: That boss told me he wouldn’t buy anything from Apple because his friend in California said they wouldn’t be around in 5 years. Today Apple has one of the highest market cap’s in the country and over $80 BILLION in the bank. I guess he was wrong!)

I worked with my first Mac in February 1987, and I was hooked. Next Wednesday will mark my 24th anniversary in the computer business, and I have loved it from the beginning. Steve Jobs is why. He had the vision that everyone could (and would) use a computer. But only if they were easy to use.

If you don’t think he was right consider this: how many of you either own or have owned an Apple I, II, IIe, IIc, IIgs, Lisa, or a Macintosh computer? How about an iMac, iPod, iPhone, or iPad?

Apple didn’t invent the personal computer; Apple just made it personal. And they didn’t invent portable music players, cell phones, smartphones, or tablet computers; they made them better than anyone else. And they made them easy to use.

That first time I used a Mac made me realize that there were a world of possibilities that I could grasp if I worked hard enough. 
Thanks in large part to Steve Jobs, even the smallest kids today are connected via technology to a world of information their parents could only imagine. Technology is part of our everday lives. Part of the job of Parents as Teachers is to help parents guide that connection in appropriate ways.

I’ve been fortunate to have some good teachers in the past 24 years, but the vision that drove Steve Jobs, and therefore Apple, allowed me to flourish and really enjoy the work I do every single day. Even the difficult ones.

Today Steve Jobs is being hailed as the Thomas Edison of our time.

So, thank you, Steve, for inspiring me to “Think Different” and to enjoy my life’s work."

Richard Wollenberger is IT Director at Parents as Teachers national office.

The Creep of (Employment) Expectations

The economy has changed . . . forever.  Expectations have changed . . . forever!

As a result of that change, employers have changed their approach to hiring and their expectations of employees' performance.  Employees are caught in the middle and not everyone will suvive . . . many have already been cast aside.

When you don't survive at one place or your looking for that next career opportunity, the bar for hiring qualifications is being raised.  In this era of multi-tasking, "smart" phone ubiquity, client/customer expectations soaring, work-family life balance barely existing, hours increasing and professional "fun" decreasing . . . Employers (rightfully) want premier, stand out from the crowd employees. It's no longer sufficient to simply be "qualified" and/or experienced. 

I ran across an excellent article on this point at B-To-B Magaine,in the September 19, 2011 edition written by James Rogers, VP of Marketing at Hoover's:

"I still remember the first time it happened. I was interviewing a candidate for a marketing position, asking fairly routine questions. It was a pleasant, efficient exchange. Twenty minutes or so later, after I had mentally checked all the boxes, I was satisfied that the candidate was perfectly qualified. As I shook his hand and concluded the interview, I felt a pang of uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. In that moment, I knew I wouldn't hire him.

This wasn't a simple instance of “going with my gut.” No, it was more than that. Something was missing ... something equally, if not more, important than an impressive litany of credentials.

The candidate was competent. That's why I decided not to bring him on board.

These days, competence is good, but it's not good enough. The world of marketing is drastically different than it was five years ago. Economic pressures are shrinking discretionary marketing budgets and forcing accountability and traceability to all programs. In addition, analytics tools, digital marketing programs and the social media explosion are constantly changing the landscape. So, yes, marketing success requires core competency, but it also demands innovation and agility.