Evening reflection by matey_88

With all the news swirling around lately, it feels to me that we’ve lost a little bit of perspective.  It could be international relations, the stock market or the economy just to name a few, all very important things that affect our lives and life on a global scale. The economy is not the greatest right now.  We’ve witnessed over the past few months some of the worst corruption and corporate negligence on very large scales.  But does that mean everything should be put under the microscope, that everything is wrong rather than the other way around?

Let’s take two of the bigger stories in the tech industry of late: Yahoo! and Steve Jobs.  (I could argue these are not the two biggest things going on but they certainly are driving a large portion of the media coverage)

Yahoo! has been under the microscope for some time now.  And yes, an offer from Microsoft at $33 per share is looking pretty compelling when you look at where the stock is today.  But let’s not lose sight of what is good.  Yahoo! has $7B in revenue, is a known brand and has a number of category leading products. Last time I checked, that is pretty good.

The story with regard to Jobs’ health I find more concerning.  I’m a shareholder in Apple but I don’t think it is my right to probe into the health of an executive.  There is no correlation between Jobs’ health and bad company performance.  So the ‘conspiracy theory’ swirling around this (even if Apple could have been more forthright) just doesn’t deserve this much negative attention.  Because we’ve been burned by poor corporate governance in several situations should not mean that is the litmus test on how we handle all questionable story lines.  In fact, Kara Swisher has what I believe to be a great post with regard to Steve Jobs today over at Boomtown, particularly the transcript of Job’s speech at Stanford.  It is about perspective and a bit of reflection, even in cloudy times, and driving forward from there (that’s what I took from it).

I don’t plan to jump into philosophy here so I won’t.  My sense is everything has reached this point of “permanence”, that all is bad right now and is being looked at with that lens.  With that there’s been some loss of perspective, some loss of reflection on what is really important. Tim O’Reilly recently posted his thoughts on what matters.  I agree with much of what he said.

I’m confident that things are going to look up.  It is going to take some time.  I know one thing though, that it starts with a positive look on things, a look at the things that are important and a passionate drive forward from there.  Just a quick glance back at the innovation that came out of the first bubble burst tells us that is true.  And that is what is at the heart of the entrepreneurial spirit after all.

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1.  Steve Jobs – In his letter to the Apple community, Steve Jobs ends with a classic line:

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Not making light of the situation but glad to see Steve’s open and close stance on what is personal to him.  I do not agree with a lot of the ridicule that Steve or Apple have received regarding how they have not disclosed information about Steve’s health.  My view is until it reaches a point where the CEO duties are not able to be responsibly met, the information should remain personal.  Steve’s line sums up my thoughts on this as well.

2.  Jeff Nolan – late yesterday, Jeff sent out this tweet:

“Dr. Seuss’ Fox in Socks… I cringe when that’s the book request for the night. Seems like it should be someth ing used at Gitmo.”

Anyone who is a parent out there who reads to the child can commiserate. I believe there are several books that I can put on a list that without fail my daughter will ask to read.  I haven’t read Fox in Socks yet but Green Eggs and Ham is certainly up there on my list although lately I’ve been getting Amelia Bedelia’d.

3.  Brad Feld – A couple of days ago, I stumbled upon the “legal” page on his blog.  Here is an excerpt and there is more so do check it out:

…I’m responsible for what I say, and all errors, idiocy, stupid comments, swear words, and humor are my own personal responsibility. These are my own thoughts, generated by me, representing me.

I awarded to Brad via Twitter my first annual “best blog disclaimer ever” award as a result. It is not very often that one can get enjoyment from a disclaimer or terms & conditions.  This one, however, was a nice respite from lawyer speak.

Enjoy the rest of your Monday.

Anyway, I wanted to note a really good article I read about Steve Jobs yesterday.  It is entitled Steve Jobs in a Box, written by John Heilemann.  Really gives you some perspective on not only Jobs himself but how far Apple has come since his taking the CEO helm back in 1997.   Quick thanks to Fred Wilson over at A VC for pointing out the article in his post.

I’m currently reading The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley at IDEO. It is a fantastic book that I highly recommend to anyone who does product development whether it be web, packaged or even service. Tom makes important points about where good ideas come from and that breakthrough ideas rarely come from the customer directly. He even states that “Most customers are pretty good at comparing your current offerings with their current needs…”

Tom goes on to make his point even more clearly by re-stating a quote from Henry Ford when he said:

“If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”

I cannot begin to tell you the number of times in my prior and current roles where the sentence is said “we should ask customers what they want”. That simply misses the mark. Or sometimes your were on the money but by the time you do it, the target moves. Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

So the solution is to always aim for the pain point. The questions to customers should always be towards the pain points and to what solves a particular problem or objective that they have. Asking customers what they want in your future product is often the equivalent to asking someone what they want for dinner on November 8th, 2011; they simply do not know.

Customer input has its place and it is an invaluable input to understand there here and now. Is your product solving their needs? What should it do right now leading you directly towards incremental improvement ideas. But be careful when looking for customers to spell out where your next innovation is going to come from. They probably do not know and they may not even initially jump for joy the first time you explain or show them it.