Tag Archives: Steve Jobs
I read, write, and talk about creativity and innovation ALOT–what it is, why it matters, how to pursue it. So it’s time to talk a bit about what innovation isn’t, and introduce a concept admittedly nuanced but that may fit a better in the business world than creativity. Not Innovation Innovation is NOT sitting around dreaming up earth-shattering ideas behind closed doors, trying to be clever and creative in concocting a new secret sauce that …
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A few days ago a reporter for Investor’s Business Daily contacted me by email, asking several questions about innovation. I didn’t have the time to answer all of them, so I asked him what he really wanted to know. He replied that what he really wanted was a bottom line answer to the question of what makes the most difference in a company’s ability to innovate. As is my inclination, I reframe such questions to …
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By the end of 2011, I’ll have reviewed over 50 books here, in the weekly “Guru Review.” But by now, most books have already hit the shelves in time for the holiday business-gift-giving season. To help you find the perfect gift book for the business person in your life, I’ve selected my “favorite 15″ business books of 2011. You can’t go wrong with any of these, because they all do three things well: inform, inspire …
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The only authorized biography of the late, great Steve Jobs, is, as everyone knows by now, barely three weeks old and penned by Aspen Institute CEO and former Time magazine editor Walter Isaacson. I’m generally skeptical of “authorized” biographies, because they tend to be puff pieces. I’ve been proven wrong on two occasions: Open, by Andre Agassi, and now Steve Jobs. In a complete contradiction to the rest of his secretive existence, Jobs gave Isaacson unprecedented …
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It’s no secret that Steve Jobs was a practitioner of Zen Buddhism. I believe his teenage sojourns to India not only broadened his perspective, but had everything to do with his eventual design aesthetic, one of clean simplicity and uncluttered elegance, which influenced all of the Apple products developed under his watch. This most famous of Diane Walker’s portfolio of the man speaks volumes. It’s the first photo in Isaacson’s centerbook collection, and shows Steve …
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I’m just finishing up the terrific Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs. I’ll have a review next week on OPEN…well, not really a review so much as an interpretation. One of the great stories in the book concerns the genesis of the “Think Different” tagline. It was 1997, and Jobs had just returned to Apple after 12 years away. He called Lee Clow, legendary ad man and creative genius of Chiat/Day, and with whom Jobs …
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