JIM ALEY REMEMBERS STEVE JOBS TRIUMPH OF TRUMPETING “MAGICAL THINKING” VIA NEW ZEALAND

["Don't be tempted by the shiny apple. Don't you eat of its bitter fruit. All that you have, is your soul." Music - Tracey Chapman]

I thought Steve Jobs new blueprint architectual designs for Apple HQ’s model city, were a little bit too Jetsons meets Oral Roberts university in look and feel. Hadn’t the visual concept, already been done? I did like the embedded messages though for a city to be thinking more green energy wise, more public transport collaboration nation and Jobs idea of feeding 1/3rd of a city in on sitting at any given meal time. That was rather rad too.

I also had issues with Jobs furthering the exploitation of citizen’s information by iSpy embedded components in iPhones, iPads, iTablets etc. Some of these were even furthered in other nation’s health systems to record information – thus breaching international protocol and laws of information gathering, without individuals consent. These remain very serious issues involving spying, information collection and privacy breaches that Apple still needs to answer for.

However, when Steve Jobs passed away yesterday, anyone who had ever used an Apple product, felt a sad loss. As a facilitator of other peoples IT ideas, growing into fruition that Jobs presented to the world under Apple’s company moniker, Jobs was a visionary person with incredible drive to grow a company under pressure, and by any means. Music enthusiasts criticized the way Jobs killed ‘The Album’ with iTunes innovative musical sales cataloguing ability. No longer did consumers have to buy an entire album of an artist to get their favorite one or two songs – they could just buy a song. Record companies have now followed suit, only commissioning a ‘song’ from an artist or band, not an album per se. He gave us a choice, and we chose it. Albums for new artists are rare and difficult to sell as a result. This is just one of the ways Jobs altered culture.

He also recognized that music control is perhaps the one thing, that grows IT and the internet faster than any other driver. For this, I thought he was a total genius, getting Apple into Music’s mix in an innovative way that he did.

Here in New Zealand, we awoke to the national newspaper, The New Zealand Herald, with a feature on Jobs sad passing, (1955-2011) by writer Jim Aley. Kiwis being humanitarian hearted, as we are, we tended to think “here’s a person with all the money in the world, yet it could not save him from being taken too young, by cancer.” The subliminal message of Jobs loss, is, if we are honest, the remaining and lingering feeling of “we must do more to find cures for cancer.” Perhaps many of us, thought this thought, rather than worshipped all of the technical products Jobs created spat out via Apple at a consistent and phenomenal rate, that became a meal ticket for Apples shareholders, without having to do much at all. Their success, all rode on this man’s talent. Pretty much. Especially in the USA, where many American’s bemoan the loss of jobs (literally) due to technological revolution. Jobs latest iPhone 4s, appeared to further this trend, even suggesting that a phone can replace a personal assistant. By any stretch of looking at Apple under Steve Jobs visionary direction, you have to say he was a “magical thinker.” A child who was adopted, Jobs was someone who lived his American dream at a phenomenal rate.

The Triumph of Magical Thinking: (Cartoon tributes by Emmerson)

“Steve Jobs embodied the Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He was a long-haired counterculture technophile who dropped out of college and started a computer company in his parents’ garage on April Fools’ Day, 1976. He had no formal technical training and no real business experience. (more…)

October 7, 2011 | Categories: America, Entrepreneurs, Innovation, Intimacy Vs Information, Steve Jobs, Tracey Chapman | Leave A Comment »