Tag Archives: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs and “Focus”

Business, Leadership, Literature, ,

Who was the most iconic CEO of the last decade? Very few people will disagree with the choice of Steve Jobs. No wonder there are so many books about Steve Jobs and the Apple story. While many of the books are interesting, the most read book is likely to be “Steve Jobs”by Walter Isaacson. The book is about 600 pages thick and naturally, it would be quite comprehensive and would cover most important aspects of his life(I haven’t read it yet).I am sure the book is also the favorite of many of his admirers, fans and probably even critics.

While there are so many things that can be learned from Jobs, one of the most legendary aspects of his life has been his razor like focus. In his popular daily blog, Fred Wilson(a Venture Capitalist and principal of Union Square Ventures), writes about this aspect “Focus”. He says that “Focus is critical when you are three people, when you are twenty-five people, five hundred people, and ten thousand people. You can always get farther faster by saying no to too many projects and too many priorities. Pick your shots carefully and hit them. That’s what Jobs did to turn around Apple and that’s what you can do with your company too.” The full blog can be read here.

As an entrepreneur myself, I have been trying to apply this principle of “focus”. At our company, we have been focusing on only one vertical and that has served us quite well so far, especially we are so much resource constrained. And “focus”is required not only in new firms, but also in every aspect of life. Do you agree?

Steve Jobs And Presentation Skills

Professional Development, , , , ,

In a span of one week, Steve Jobs caught my attention twice. First, it was through a link of a YouTube video of Jobs’ speech at Stanford and the second, through  a recent Businessweek article.

In the first case, one of my friends tweeted about Steve Jobs’ commencement address in 2005. The first time I came across this speech was 2 years back and at that time, I read the transcript but hadn’t seen the video. Here is beginning of the transcript

“I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.” You can continue to read here.

The speech had simple language, was engaging and had some of Jobs’ powerful personal stories. Needless to say, I felt very inspired after reading it and had a great “feel good” experience.

A few weeks later, I got the chance to watch the video of the speech. Here it is.(I suggest you read the full text before watching the video).

The first thing I felt after watching the video was a sense of disappointment. The content was the same but the style of presentation was nothing extraordinary. For most part, it looked like Jobs was just reading the text without really looking engaged. The high expectations, derived from the text of the speech and also Jobs’ reputation as one of the best presenters in the world, obviously  led to this disappointment. It showed that great prose does not necessarily make great speech. I was left wondering, why did this happen? At that time,I could not analyse deeper . But now, I got the answers from the Businessweek article that I had mentioned earlier.

The article is about a book, “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” and it highlights the reasons why Jobs is such a great presenter. Watch the slideshow here to see what the author has to say. The author also has a video on the subject.

If you have watched this video, you will see why Jobs’ speech at Stanford was a letdown. He was just reading the text, he was not able to use his body effectively because of the gown, he had no visual aids and he was speaking outdoors on a sunny(hot?) day. It was also not a product launch but a commencement address, but most importantly, he was just recovering after a cancer surgery. That explains the relatively low stage presence and the energy level. If anything, it shows some of things that one should try to avoid while making a speech.

If you haven’t seen how the presentation of the real Steve Jobs’ look like, here are a few videos for you.  I am sure each of us can learn something from it. Enjoy the videos.