SWOT #20: Uncertainty, Steve Jobs and Focus

Sean's Week On Twitter

Another busy week online and off; when we are busy it can be hard to keep focus. With so much to do it’s easy to get caught in a procrastination loop that sees us achieving little. This can be deadly when it comes to Social Media and blogging in particular.

Quite timely then that I happened to be reading a book called Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance by Jonathan Fields. Whilst the books main theme is about finding a way to control the fear that prevents us from being creative or innovative in our business or personal lives. One of the key solutions is achieving focus when performing particular tasks.

This week also saw the release of Steve Jobs biography which I obtained in audio format. Listening to this during commuting time it became obvious that Jobs used many of the principals that Jonathan Fields promoted in his book. No accident then that the trait of one of the most creative technologists of our time was the ability to intensely focus on his objectives.

These two books are quite complimentary, I would even go as far to say that one is the theory whilst the other demonstrates the implementation of a focused approach to achieving what we want in life. Though I wouldn’t advocate going as far as Jobs did, there are certainly learnings to be gleaned.

Therefore in the coming weeks I will look to apply this new found knowledge in my own life, which reminds me I was writing this weeks SWOT wasn’t I!

Five links from Sean’s Week on Twitter for you in SWOT #20; any comments or additions please add them below.

Finding your purpose in life can be difficult, in business you need to look further than profit. Now if you combine Social Media and business then success is all about that purpose. The reason many businesses fail in Social Media? Lack of purpose behind it’s implementation.

The world is going mobile of that there is no doubt. Looking at analytics from the web sites I run I can see increased visitation and sales from mobile devices. Online retailers now need to ensure they are ready for the mobile marketplace and not lose out to the more agile competition.

Could this be it? Could Google be after the Social Enterprise market rather than the personalised world of that Facebook lives in? It would certainly make sense and with the tools available to them this is an are they could easily dominate.

A fantastic Social Media case study that could give you nightmares. It’s great to see how other businesses have successfully leveraged Social Media, it’s even better if you can adapt it to use for your own business. Can you?

I could spend days digging around in Google Analytics, there is so much to discover. Now I don’t have to. Once you know what reports you want, you can have it in real-time through Google Docs. Even better you can then share this information easily with others in a format more easy for the to understand.

Read more >>

Tweet

Steve Jobs Biography: The Best Excerpts

Numerous media outlets got their hands on the highly anticipated Steve Jobs biography Thursday, which won’t be released to the public until Oct. 24.

Below are excerpts of the book featured in news articles across the web.

Biographer Walter Isaacson — who will be interviewed on Sunday night’s 60 Minutes — had unprecedented access to Jobs as well as his family, friends, colleagues and adversaries for two years leading up to a few weeks before the Apple innovator died Oct. 5.

Pre-orders for Steve Jobs: A Biography spiked after Jobs passed away, hitting number one on Amazon‘s sales chart. The book will be available in hardcover, audio and ebook formats.

From The New York Times story:
“Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson that he was either going to be one of the first ‘to outrun a cancer like this’ or be among the last ‘to die from it,” wrote NYT‘s Steve Lohr.“The big thing was that he really was not ready to open his body. It’s hard to push someone to do that,” said his wife, Laurene Powell.

From The Associated Press story:
“I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this,” Jobs said after HTC released an Android phone in early 2010. “I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.’’“None of us has any idea how long we’re gong to be here nor do I, but my feeling is I’ve got to accomplish a lot of these things while I’m young.”“Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands. But now it’s being dismembered and destroyed,” Jobs said about HP’s recent decision to discontinue operations for webOS devices. “I hope I’ve left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple.’’ “I really didn’t want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,” Jobs said.

From The Huffington Post story:
“Bill [Gates] is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he’s more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people’s ideas,” Jobs said.On meeting his biological father for the first time: “It was amazing,” Jobs said. “I was a wealthy man by then, and I didn’t trust him not to try to blackmail me or go to the press about it.” “You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” Jobs told U.S. President Barack Obama when they met in 2010.“I wanted my kids to know me,” Jobs said in his final interview with Isaacson. “I wasn’t always there for them and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did.”“We all have a short period of time on this earth,” Jobs said. “We probably only have the opportunity to do a few things really great and do them well. None of us has any idea how long we’re gong to be here nor do I, but my feeling is I’ve got to accomplish a lot of these things while I’m young.”
What are you most excited to learn about in the biography? Chime in below.

Read more >>

Tweet

Steve Jobs: The Visionary

“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” – Steve Jobs (Fortune, Nov, 1998).

The 5th of October marks an iconic and sad day for people of America and the world at large. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, lost the battle against a long and tiring fight with pancreatic cancer. However, his vision lives on, and has changed the world of the common man. His inventions redesigned the base of information technology making it much easier for people to access previously complicated technology with much simpler and accessible interfaces. As a guy with science background, I came in touch daily with products of Apple and I couldn’t help but marvel at the new iPhone, the iOS, and app store products. I was one of the first to get my hands on the iPad 1, the revolutionary tablet brought to life by the visionary Steve Jobs. It’s impossible not to notice the influence his products have in the day-to-day life of people around the globe. As a scientist, I salute the man who changed the world, not by war or violence or politics, but by the technology driven by a determined lionhearted vision.

Improving people: In everyday life, we tell stories about people who do the unthinkable. We tell stories on how somebody goofed up at a particular instance. But hardly do we go about and tell people how to improve themselves. We don’t prep people for problems they might face in normal life. I used to tell my students how to speak better or how to dress well or face an unexpected situation. These things seem small to an outsider, but to the person you support, it gives them a glimmer of hope and motivation. Steve Jobs was a leader and had one vision for all. He wanted people to be better, and not feel better. He believed his job was to do something that improves people from the core and not give them a superficial feeling of well-being.

Focus on excellence: Steve Jobs’ character was defined by his focus on excellence. His determination to excel and make products that were of infallible quality put him amongst the leaders of the Information Technology world. In day-to-day life, it is quite easy to lose focus. Daily, we interact with a multitude of people from different fields and in the end of the day; we are but cynical about target in life. For those who tried, being in focus is a herculean task determined by your inherent nature. This determination to be in focus and deliver excellence at every step of life, defined Steve Jobs.

Changing the world: Steve Jobs changed the way the world moved solely by the use of his intellect. But did he start out to become a well-known figure? Did he plan to become famous? The answer is no. If he wanted, probably, he would have sided into politics. There are many stories of people who have changed the world through politics, but Steve Jobs was perhaps the first in the world to change the world through his career. At an early stage of life, he realized that all that was required was to be the best and striving for new ideas. He listened to all ideas with an open ear and gave them breathing place in his innovation laboratories. He was a perfect example of having future vision, doing things fast and doing them perfectly. If we do our job wholeheartedly and with vision, even we can change the way the world moves.

Read more >>

Tweet

10 Not So Insanely Great Things Apple Released Under Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is gone. Without a doubt, he will be remembered as a genius and a visionary. He changed the world in more ways than one, and his legacy is obvious in every iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac computer sold. He will be missed.

However, it’s also worth remembering that Steve Jobs was also human, and not some incredibly gifted alien shot into space from his dying planet by his father. While Steve Jobs helped pioneer many gadgets, technologies and even helped create certain markets that didn’t exist before, not every thing Apple made under Jobs was insanely awesome. Actually, some Apple products weren’t even that good. In fact, some of these things were very, very flawed. So, in the interest of full reflection here are ten things that were created by Apple while Steve Jobs was in charge that were… not so great.

Read more >>

Tweet

Apple no longer needs Steve Jobs

The recent resignation of Steve Jobs from Apple's CEO and the passage of command to the new CEO, Tim Cook, have triggered, in recent weeks, numerous speculations about the possible negative effects that this move would have unleashed for the company in Cupertino.

After a decrease in Red value of the shares, in the days immediately following the resignation of its founder, Apple continues to astonish and to get more results.

From the beginning of last week, the value of the shares of the Cupertino company has had a increase of 6.10% from $ 375 to $ 400.50 Friday 16 September.

The surge is due to the publication of disappointing economic results of RIMM made public Thursday evening from the company that produces the BlackBerry that instead, only in the last week, had a slump in the value of their shares of 19.41% and 58.83% since the beginning of the year.

Analysts believe that with the upcoming launch of the iPhone 5 Apple stock value will continue to rise further and, if they are confirmed the sales trend of the previous models of the iPhone, is only a matter of time before the iPhone and the iPad take RIMM, one of the major competitors to Apple in the market for smartphones, the domain in the enterprise market.

The dreaded "Jobs" so there is no progress and results of last week are the confirmation. How to prove that, with a brutal account of realism and cynicism, despite its immense merit, perhaps Steve Jobs is no longer the man indispensable that Apple needs.

Read more >>

Tweet